I have received mixed signals regarding the last chapter. Most loved it, some did not care for it. It was a very dark chapter compared to the others but it is the final foundation chapter for our characters. If you are one that did not like it, I assure you that relief is coming. I urge you to remember that Raoul stabbed Erik in the back. He could not sit back and let him get away without consequences. If he were the old Erik from Persia, Raoul would have fared much worse. Erik is actually restrained in his reprisal against him. As far as Raoul's action towards Christine went, he momentarily lost control of his emotions. I do not intend to paint him as inherently evil, just misguided. He honestly believes that killing Erik was the only way to free Christine from a monster who deserved to die. His character, as drawn by ALW and Leroux believes in black and white, good and evil. He wants to believe himself to be the side of good and Erik representative of evil but neither character is wholly either.
Chapter 10
Meg's POV
Erik's Persian friend, my mother and I traveled to Alsace in a circuitous fashion. Nadir and Erik both emphasized that they did not want anyone to trace our steps. We first traveled to Le Havre and purchased tickets to New York; but left the ship in Southampton and sailed to Hamburg. Nadir had hired a tall man who donned a mask to look like Erik, to accompany us as far as England. He was to continue on to New York where he would disappear. If anyone were watching us it would appear that we had been with Erik for as far as London but then separated. We were to stay in Hamburg and pretend to seek employment there, and then make our way to Alsace where Baron von Mulheim would give us a reference for the ballet there. Erik's story was that he had come to Strasbourg to reclaim his ancient family estate from somewhere in Germany. It was important that Erik hide his French heritage because there could be no one who could tie the infamous Opera Ghost to an obscure German nobleman.
Erik had always spurned his ties to his father's family, just as he spurned his mother's. He had not been accepted by anyone in his youth and did not feel the urge to reconcile with his distant relatives. He had owned both the Schloss and the title since his grandfather's death in 1873 but had no urge to cross, what had become an international border, to assume his obligations. The estate was left in the care of a distant cousin to do as he pleased with it. The cousin had once believed himself to be their heir, until his grandfather had told him of his late son Charles, who had married a woman in Normandy. At the time that Charles married, he was a second son, and therefore not the direct heir, but the first born son Henri was killed in the Franco-Prussian war and left no heir. Few in Strasbourg were likely to remember Charles because he had left as a young man. Even Erik's cousin had never met him. Erik had only dealt with him through several intermediaries. He had possessed the foresight to obscure his identity in case there would be a time that he would need to find sanctuary outside of France. Since only Nadir and the Girys knew Erik's real name he had a low risk of discovery.
Neither my mother nor I had ever left France, and we spoke not a word of German. We had lived through the war between our two countries and the Prussian occupation, but it was not safe for Erik in France and we wanted to be with him. My mother and Erik had taken care of one another for many years. The only time since they met, that they had been apart was during Erik's seven year period of travels to the East where he met Nadir. That time was a disaster for Erik, and he returned much changed, and for the worse. It was after that dark chapter that Erik became the Phantom. Maman strongly felt that Erik needed her support, and so we left the only home that I had ever known.
Hamburg was a port city and contained many immigrants from both Germany and points further east who were waiting to board ships to take them to America. I wondered if we would not have been better off going there where Europe would be far behind, but in the back of my mind I knew that Erik would not want to put an ocean between him and Christine. His professed veneer of hatred was very thin indeed. It was hard to go from obsessive love to hatred even when he wanted to. I knew that he felt this way because we all did. She had been my best friend for so many years. We had shared so many confidences and hopes and tears, if my own eyes did not see what she had done, and my ears heard what Raoul had told her, I would not have believed her capable of such cold blooded calculation. She had been so appalled about what she believed Erik to have done with Buquet. I once itched to tell her the truth, but my maman had made me promise not to unless Erik would allow it. I guess that Christine's scruples only applied to who she considered to be human.
I could only speculate, and it really did not matter why. We had taken the road away from Christine and Raoul, and Erik's obsession with both, to a new life in a different country. I hoped that Strasbourg would be more to my liking than Hamburg. Although it was now part of Germany, it had been French before the war. I knew, at least that many of its citizens would still speak French. I insisted on calling it Strasbourg in my mind even if the German's renamed it Strassburg. Our new city reminded me of Erik, once French but assuming a once forgotten German identity. I hoped that Erik's transformation from Phantom to Baron would go smoothly.
Erik's POV
I traveled by night to avoid both stares and questions. It was easy for me to cut through the forest into Germany. Although I had never lived in Germany, I was fluent in the language and could speak it with a native accent. I had a gift for languages and spoke French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Romany, Russian, Farsi, Turkish and Arabic equally well. It came in handy on my long ago travels. I could blend in at least in that respect, even if my face caused me to stand out in other ways. If you were running for your life, it was helpful to know what your pursuers were saying so you could head the other way if need be. I did not have to worry about that this time during my travels. My thick winter cloak covered all of my features including my face. I did not have trouble enduring winter because I had spent several years living outside in a cage, even in the winter time. Since my gypsy masters considered me to be little more than an animal, they did not give me any sort of human comforts to sustain me on the cold winter nights. I had one moth eaten woolen blanket to cover me.
Once inside of Germany, I assumed my new role as the Freiherr von Mulheim. It was easy for me to assume such a role, as my past employment as the Phantom required a certain amount of arrogance to achieve what I required. I found that my mask did not attract the same attention in Germany that it did in France. I think that most of the people that I encountered assumed that I wore it to cover a battle scar. In Germany facial scars were considered to be a mark of honor. Students at the University of Heidelberg would often wound one another in the cheek to show that they had been bloodied in battle. While my 'scars' were far more hideous than anything that a sword could create, I was still looked upon with servility due to my enormous purse, and could sleep in Inn's and even dine in public if I so desired. I did not so desire. Despite their outward signs of welcome, I did not trust a soul; I was not about to let years of terrible experiences with interacting with humanity to simply disappear. It was nice to be treated civilly without resorting to violence for once in my miserable life. As another way to obscure my identity, I changed my wig from a slicked back ebony one to a longer blond one. As I gazed upon the transformation, I could not help but to note, in disgust, that my hair more closely resembled the hated Vicomte's. I would have preferred the darker color but it did represent another clear break from being the Phantom. It was one of the few times that I did not mind having such sparse natural hair on my head. It was easier to transform my look. It also had the benefit of making my skin tone and mask appear less stark. There was less contrast between their pale tone and my hair color.
I had made my way to the border town of Aachen by horseback, but wanted to spare both myself and Caesar the rigors of continuing further in that manner. I therefore purchased a ticket to Berlin, and then from Berlin to Strasbourg separately to make it seem as if I had arrived from the heart of Germany and not France. I, the Baron, was now a proud German, who never deigned to step foot on my property before, because it was not Teutonic enough; now as a patriot, I wanted to put my architectural skills to the sacred task of restoring the area to its German heritage. I devised a story to make the Girys appearance believable as well. I allegedly had met Antoinette Giry during the occupation of Paris and admired her skill in overseeing the dancers at the Opera Populaire. Since I heard that the Opera Populaire was closed due to a fire, I offered to come to his old friend's aid. I entrusted Antoinette with a letter garnished with my family crest, promising to be a patron for the Opera if they would employ my friend and her daughter. From my many years in the Palais Garnier I knew that the manager of the Strassburg opera would have a difficult time turning down a nobleman's money, even if they had never heard of the man.
After more than a month of travel, I finally arrived in Strasbourg, or as I now arrogantly called it Strassburg. Prior to my arrival I wrote a missive to Roldolphe Reuss and Wilhelm von Bode offering my services to their massive effort to Teutonize the city. I used a week long layover in Berlin, to observe the architecture and to draw some rudimentary designs that I thought that the two gentlemen might take a liking to.
I knew that they might find a mysterious masked nobleman suddenly arriving to aid such an effort suspicious, but my architectural talents were equal to my musical talent. I once had a thriving architectural practice, before I decided to eschew it to live beneath the Palais Garnier. I was fairly certain that they would be most welcoming to me. Just in case, I forged several letters of recommendation from Russia and the far eastern reaches of the German Empire. I actually did design several projects for the Tsar in Russia, to his complete satisfaction, so it was not a total lie. Of course at the time, I was not masquerading as a German.
I arrived in Strassburg without warning my cousin. I wanted to surprise him to make sure that I could get the lay of the land without any sort of pretense. I did not trust such a man to be an ally despite the blood ties that we shared. He must have certainly been upset that some absentee relative had inherited the family estate rather than him who had lived there all of his life. I know that I would have been, placed in his position. At the time that I inherited the land I never thought to visit, I had no issue with letting my cousin remain there. His father was the second son of my great grandfather, so his claim while existent, was far inferior to mine. I hoped that I could make him an ally, but no known family members had ever accepted me. I did not dare to hope that this man would be any different.
Strassburg was not without its charms for me. My idol Johann Goethe once studied here in the early 1770s at the Universitat Stassburg. He wrote my favorite opera story, Faust.
I knew that I would have to pay a visit to the hallowed grounds of the university to walk in his footsteps. Perhaps I could regain my love for music and music composition with my exposure to his genius. Whatever the case, it was now almost springtime, a perfect opportunity to change my life, and to let go of everything from the past that no longer held meaning. This was not the first time that I had striven to change my life completely, but I hoped that it would be the last. I was tired of uprooting myself and clamoring for a fresh start. Maybe a rebirth as a German nobleman could finally lay the ghosts of the past to rest forever or maybe not.