Happy Easter!
"I don't want you thinking that I chose them over you. It wasn't like that at all. I was prepared to leave alone. I didn't want to drag anyone further down than they already where just by associating with me. All Antoinette was going to do was get me some money for safe passage on board a ship. She said she owed me that."
"Why would she say that?" Christine's quizzical nature was getting the better of her.
"It was her, Christine. The night of Don Juan when I took you to my lair and Raoul appeared. She told him how to find me."
She stared at him blankly.
He swallowed hard. "I hate bringing anything up about that night. I was so clearly out of my mind but…. Don't you remember? We were talking. I had told you about my mother and we were, or at least I thought, connecting again." He shook his head. "You were probably just trying to calm a deranged lunatic…."
"No! Stop that! I told you I don't want you berating yourself like that, especially in front of me." She gripped his hand tighter and softened her tone. "I remember our talk. You told me your mother gave you your first mask."
He nodded quickly. "Anyway, Antoinette told me she felt badly for betraying me and offering up my whereabouts to Raoul, so she offered to help get me out of France."
"How did she find you?"
"I escaped the mob through a secret door that was behind one of my mirrors. It led to the outside, but I had to wait until it was safe to try and venture out. I found myself waiting inside the tunnels for hours and when I came out, she was there."
"She knew your hiding places?" She tried not to sound jealous and Christine cursed her nativity.
"She knew of them because she was the one that showed me the tunnels years ago when she brought me there to hide after she helped me escape my Master."
"Your what?" She let go of his hand for a moment. "Erik, I don't understand."
"I told you that a drink might be fitting." He sighed. "One story at a time. She met me with money and offered to take me to the docks, but it was still too soon to travel. So, I went to…."
"To an abandoned cabin." She gave him a knowing look.
"It used to be a place where traveling fairs would come and break ground, so they could perform. I knew the area hadn't seen life in decades…" He had a faraway look in his eyes and Christine's voice brought him back to the present.
"What made her decide to come with you then?"
"When we met on the docks, she told me that the fire had destroyed the Opera House, so much so that they didn't see it opening again for at least two years or maybe more and that was only if they could find a new owner or a new patron with deep pockets for the repairs to be made. She and Meg were out on the streets. They had no choice but to leave and traveling alone without a man wasn't considered safe. She had to think of Meg."
"So, leaving for America was in their best interest too."
"I suppose traveling with a freak who was a murderer was safer than being without any male representation at all." He stood up. "Forgive me but I need to stand for a while." Erik cringed when he spoke next.
"So many people died that night because of me." He clutched his heart. "I swear to you on Gustave's life that I have never taken another life since the night of Don Juan. That beast died in the fire too."
"You said you did things here that you swore you would never do again…."
"That had to do with showing my face in public for sport. I did it because we needed to eat." He shook his head to wipe those memories away. "I know the Girys sacrificed too and I vowed that I would make it up to them. That hasn't changed. I still plan on doing that."
"Erik, I'm sorry I assumed that you…." She lowered her head. "I feel so ashamed."
"Why? Because you're smart to be leery of me?" This was not how he had hoped their night would have gone. "Christine, I want you to know that I didn't kill Piangi."
"Piangi? Why would you bring him up after all this time?"
"Because I need you to know that I didn't just kill without a thought. I was only going to leave him unconscious. Yet I learned later that he had a bad heart and my attack caused a shock he wasn't ready for."
"Erik, I didn't know any of this that night and I still came and found you. I still felt tormented by my choice and I wanted to stay with you."
"And now?"
"Now I don't know what to say, except I wished I had known this long ago."
"You do?" He sat back down next to her and was surprised when she didn't move away.
Christine didn't know what to say next, but she knew she couldn't stay silent, not now. "How long have you known Madame?"
"A long time. Yet you knew of that even when you were a ballet dancer."
"I knew she knew of you, but I didn't know of your…. Relationship."
Erik scoffed. "I hardly call it that. Christine, is there something you are not asking me but wish to know?"
She couldn't look him in the eyes. "I have no right…."
Erik thought for a moment and then felt sick to his stomach. "Good God, never! Giry and I have never been close in that way. She was 16 when she met me working as a freak in a traveling fair. I was the "Devil's Child" who could sing like an angel but looked like the spawn of Satan." One night, she went back and saw that I was chained inside a cage…."
"A cage? Merciful Heavens…. Who would punish you like that?"
"Punishment? It was how I lived. I was chained to a cage whenever I wasn't performing, for fear I would run away. That was the most humane part of my existence in those days."
Christine suddenly knew. "The abandoned cabin was where your fair once was?"
Erik avoided her eyes but nodded and continued. "Antoinette found me and overheard my Master and me…. She overhead his rather peculiar way of showing me I had done a good job. Some nights he would beat me till I bleed and other nights he would…. He would do unspeakable acts to me." He held his head in his hands.
"Where was your mother?!" Christine practically shouted in outrage.
"My Mother? Good God, you can't still think she was in the picture, can you? I ran away from my home when I overheard her and her fiancé plotting to take me to an asylum after they married. I knew I wouldn't survive one night in a place like that, so I ran away." He got up again.
His voice grew softer. "Unfortunately, after a few days my hunger got the better of me and I saw some men cooking around a fire. First opportunity I could, I went for the beef and they caught me. As punishment, I was to work for them in their fair until I had worked off the beef I never ate. Yet that all changed when they saw my face. They thought they had an instant anomaly. 'Come look at the freak!' but when they heard me singing…. That was my great downfall. The owner…. My Master said that I would be his prized freak."
She couldn't believe her ears. "How old were you?"
He shook his head. "I can't recall. We didn't celebrate birthdays much at my Mother's house. Maybe 10."
"Dear God, you were only a child…." He was just Gustave's age…. 10 years old and he had already been through a lifetime of pain.
Erik's blood pressure started to rise. "Don't! Do not pity me, Christine! I can take anything, anything but that. Not your tears because you see a weak, pathetic, freak before you."
She stood up without a thought and came towards him. "I don't pity you, Erik, My God, I… Oh Erik, do I have to say it?"
He was confused. "I told you that your questions surrounding my past and getting to know me were not happy tales. My apologies if you even further regret your association with me. I'll take my leave."
"No, Erik!" She grabbed him and pushed him back towards her, circling her arms around his frame. "I am very upset to know the life you have known but I don't do it because I pity you or shed tears for some poor, pathetic, freak as you call yourself. I do it because…." She loosened her hold, so she could look up at him.
"I love you. I love you and I hate the fact that your life had nothing but woo. Worse, I hate that I have offered you zero comfort, only more chaos and despair!" She sobbed. "Madame Giry was right."
Love me as in love me now? He paused when she mentioned Antoinette. "What do you mean?"
"She said we only cause chaos and despair whenever we are together."
Erik was overwhelmed by their closeness and he brushed his thumb across her chin to make her look at him.
"That's a lie."
"How can you say that? Just look at you having to relive those nightmares because I had to know. God, Your mother, those men in that camp, your…. Master, as you call him." She could barely say his name without gagging. "The mob, and me. Always me."
"No, Angel."
Her reaction to the name he used was all over her face. "Angel." She whispered.
"Together, we made Gustave. He is the exact opposite to chaos and despair. Remember that."
The moment their eyes locked, they wrapped their arms around one another feverishly, giving into their temptation to bring their lips together once more.
