Masque de Mal

My own home, my echo-filled home, resonates with a vast and shadowed emptiness in these light-breezed nights. Yesterday evening I returned from Grobbendonk. Alone I sat in our bedroom, enveloped in the Brussels summer evening, and looked for a long time at that big high bed. In this warm season we use the curtains made of lawn, the ones with a faint leaf pattern traced through them, woven into the fine gauzy cotton. Every week the maid changes the sheets, even though the bed remains untouched, virtually un-slept in.

Until last night.

The bed where Isabeau and Louvel were conceived, and later born. The bed in which Raoul died. Into it I crept, trembling, hoping I wouldn't break into tears, but I didn't. His side, the side where a big man used to lie, sank slightly more than the other. My hand caressed the place where his head would have been, and my feet ran over the spot where his were not. I had to stretch to find that empty space, for he had been tall, not so tall as Erik, but then very few were that tall. However, Raoul had been tall just the same, full shouldered and deep-chested, in later years his sloping full belly rich with warmth and laughter.

When my back would ache he pulled me towards him, pressing the convex of his stomach into the concave of my spine, and one by one the spastic muscles would soften and loosen under his gentle heat. Now, when I ache, I don't call for aspirin powder or hot water. Once I ran from the pain of his absence, now I embrace it both in heart and body. I want the spaces where he is not, whether they be between my legs or in the hollow of my spine, in our bed or in front of the fire, to grow and merge into one gigantic emptiness so swollen, so large that it will pass over a tiny prey such as myself, move on, and lose its power to hurt me.

What a sorrowful thing, to burn with desire for the dead. The priests tell us they are beyond desire, but I do not believe it. When our Lord was asked to whom the woman with two husbands would belong in heaven, He dodged the question. I've done my share of business with clever merchants, and the unscrupulous fish seller never answers when the housewife wants to know just precisely when that slimy-eyed fish was caught. Christ's answer was like that.

Long ago Erik said to me, "Lack of desire is not virtue," and I do not see the hypothetical desireless state of the dead as a sign of their supreme virtue, either. It is one thing to lose one's appetite for love through illness or accident, as so many women do after birth, or men with age. But to live without desire as part and parcel of the heavenly state I cannot countenance, for my desire for Raoul is as much of the innermost core of my being as Erik's desire was for me. So to whom then should I belong? Raoul, or Erik, or neither? Not all widows remain so the rest of their lives. More chapters of my life remain to be written.

The condition of heaven is supposed to be one of complete and unconditional happiness for all, yet when one loves another who cannot return it, someone has to lose. Or perhaps that's the nature of seeing only through the darkened glass, seeing obscurely through the veil of life laid over the bones of the soul, the sight that needs faith for reassurance that all will be well.

A haunting American song Louvel taught me comes to mind, an English ballad transplanted to the Americas. In his beautiful lyric baritone, clear and buttery-rich from the chest, he sang of a woman who loves a man, a man who marries her but does not love her, and when he dies, she will not mourn or weep on his grave. She longs for heaven but for her, her only heaven is his love. Can she hope to find it there? Yet in my mind I doubt, and hear Erik's words instead of Louvel's,

Or in some celestial court

Will our sorrows repeated be?

Will I still be nothing to her

Though she was the world to me?

So when pressed, our Lord said that in heaven none of the dead would be given to each other, for there is no marriage in heaven. That I do not believe either, even though I do not know how the conundrum of desire, where heaven for one is hell for another, will ever be solved.

All I know is that in my loneliness I pressed my face into Raoul's pillow, but his scent was all gone, for the pillows had been aired and smelled only of summer sun. Most of his clothes had been sent to Louvel in St. Louis, as he was closest in size and build to Raoul, and his thrifty German wife could alter them with her skilled needle. Such a long way for a crate of clothes to travel, and oh, how Martine had carped about the expense and the trouble, "Why not give them to charity?" she demanded, while I cringed at the thought of strangers, even worthy ones, pawing through them. But there were still a few things of his left, and last night I got up to root through drawers, finally finding a dark red silk-and-linen scarf. Where up against his neck it rested, the tiniest trace of scent remained. To bed with me I took the scarf and between my legs thrust it, crying only a little, why did you have to leave me, why, why?

I tried to recover his image, to reconstruct a man vanished, but could piece together only broken fragments. Raoul strode out of the sea at DeHaan, his bathing suit slipping down over one shoulder, the hair on his chest starting to grey, the wet tight wool a little too small and sticking to him. He laughed because I stared and then looked away blushing. As he passed he whispered, It's not anything you haven't seen before. Or on the maid's evening out, locking the bathroom door, I sponged his back in the bath, feeling wicked and guilty and thrilling all at once, as I soaped lower and lower down, regretting only that the clawfoot tub wouldn't accommodate us both.

One of the last times he lay in my arms, oh, which one? I can't remember and it grieves me. It was one of the last times we joined together, anyway. His tired flesh failed him but he touched me with tender fingers, over and over until into his arms I collapsed in exhausted rhythmic pleasure, moaning Thank you, thank you. That hungry mouth down below pulsated like the mouth of a koi in the Royal Garden ponds, its sucking, quivering flesh lavish with desire. Last night, in my sad and solitary bed, my fingers pretended they were his, even though they could never be anything but their thin and bony selves, although they thrust into that demanding koi mouth nonetheless. Only this time I didn't moan my thanks, instead I repeated, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, for sorry I was that both my men were dead and I alone remained. Then sleep swallowed both my longing and my lonely little assuagings, so that my small bitter twitches of satisfaction and all the questions which have no answers slid down together into the throat of the night.

Fruitless desire belongs to the darkness, but the morning mail arrives whether we will it or not. Soon I have to go to Paris. The lawyers need to see me to resolve some questions of ownership and assignment in the final disposition of Raoul's estate. Right after we married, Raoul switched his financial business from the ancient consortium patronized by de Chagnys from before Napoleon I, to the firm of Monsieur Gagnepain, a new young lawyer at the time with a few hungry upstart partners. Now time has worn down M. Gagnepain like the rest of us. The letter says he is ill, so one of his partners will meet with me to settle the affairs. There was his name, one I didn't recognize, but no matter. If he was in Paris in August, he was a workhorse, no doubt of that.

Then, good news, Martyniere wants to see me when I am in Paris, and that I look forward to, as we have not spoken since her husband's funeral of two years ago. She's sixty-three now, and no longer the timid young mother whose husband read every letter, who forbade her to receive me or write to us. She's no longer the girl who begged her brother Philippe, Raoul's guardian, to keep her portion of their father's estate and give it only to her when she married. That whole family lived as if the Empire would someday be restored and the Emperor himself reward them for their fidelity to tradition.

Now the ancient and formerly vast de Chagny family is vanished like smoke in the wind, except for Raoul's children. Of the old noblemen none remain: Philibert long gone, Philippe dead without issue, or none that he recognized, anyway. That old widower, the Comte Auguste has been dead twenty summers. I used to think him a vile and acidic old man, until I came to understand the bitterness of being a survivor myself. For him, Raoul's brother Philippe was like a son. Philippe was so like Philibert, it was said, and Auguste was broken by both their deaths.

Raoul had one cousin dead at thirty-five, no children. Another went to Oklahoma City in America, where he runs a successful trading emporium and has a great brood of children from his Irish wife. None of that horde speak a word of French. This de Chagny cousin came to St. Louis on business once and stood Louvel a great many drinks. Then both of them waded into the thick brown water of that river whose name I can never spell, and sang old songs in their native tongue until the fishermen pelted them with chum.

The ancient chateau which I never saw while inhabited has been long shuttered, most of the grand furniture auctioned off to newly-wealthy Americans in their magnificent homes in New York and Chicago, and due to be sold. Now an American senator wants to buy the entire structure, but not to live in France. Instead, he will have it taken apart stone by stone, then will label and box each fragment. Across the Atlantic he will ship it, and rebuild it for his own home in a place with the lovely name of Oyster Bay. I am glad Comte Auguste no longer lives, because the shame and aggravation would certainly kill him all over again.

The Parisian townhouse was never re-opened after Philippe's death, and now it has become a little school for girls run by a former nun. She houses her diminutive, navy-clad charges in narrow iron cots in the very room where so long ago a sad, desperate man climbed up the drainpiping to the balcony window, looked upon his rival, looked upon his death.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Erik escorted me to the Rue Scribe gate, and it opened for me as easily as the cave opened for Aladdin, but he did not fetch a carriage. It didn't matter, as I was glad after my long captivity to walk. The early afternoon sun burnished the shop windows with a faint bronze glow. The busy streets were more deserted than usual, except for those passers-by whose late and liquid lunches led them to start their evening of pleasure early. Normally I walked alone on the streets with vague anxiety, fearing either the drunken men staggering arm in arm, or the gendarmes who assumed that a woman out alone even in the afternoon was up to no good. Today it was as if I stalked home under the veil of Erik's protection, for the few rogues I met ignored me as if I were a fat old charwoman, and the few policemen strolling at the intersections looked the other way.

At the corner near my apartment in the Rue-de-Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, I stood and laughed like a madwoman. Clapping my hands over my mouth, still giggling hysterically, I crept up the steps to our grey blank building. The concierge swept the steps for probably the third time that day, and he glared at me accusingly. As he opened his mouth to speak his indignation, I waved my left hand at him, flashing Erik's thick ring like a talisman. Had he been Cerberus I would have fed it to him, but it wasn't necessary. He shut his plump-lipped mouth and blinked rapidly, saying nothing as I sailed up the steps.

The hall was warm and smelled of the remnants of boiled beef, a little rank. Inside the dim, long apartment the faded, stained pinkish-brown paper clashed with the dark wood of the wainscoting. I listened for Mama Valerius but heard nothing. Blinking in the gloom, I kicked over an umbrella stand as I headed towards my room. Then I shouted with surprise and anger, for a lump lay sprawled in my velvet chair, and from the snores obviously stole an early nap. I yanked the knit coverlet off of a thick-armed, olive-skinned female on the young side of forty, who pulled herself up and cried out, "Crazy woman, what are you doing?"

"Get out of my chair," I lashed out. "Who are you?"

"Well, pinch the nipples of Mary," the coarse creature exclaimed, "it's the runaway daughter."

Some of Erik's ferocity had rubbed off on me, having shielded me on the street, and it served me here as well. "Who gave you leave to make free with my room and my things? And watch your foul mouth besides."

"Quiet," she answered, "You'll wake the mistress from her afternoon nap. It was hard enough to get her settled as it was. Your gentleman friend engaged me to come and help with Madame. He pays well, your patron does," and she laughed low and suggestively. "Anyway, I have to take a little rest somewheres now, don't I? Not that you were making much use of this nice bedroom." But she lethargically dragged herself up and went off to the kitchen, where I heard a kettle being filled and the stove lit.

I sagged down into the upholstered chair she had just vacated. Exhausted as I was, my flesh crawled at the feel of cushions warmed by her wide rump. She knocked on the door frame. Bleary with tiredness, I said, "What is it now?"

"Have to get my apron and boots," she said, ignoring my temper.

I waved her in. "What's your name?" I asked. "I'm Mademoiselle Daaé, Christine Daaé."

"Mademoiselle, eh? Not by the look of that gimcrack on your finger. Or is that just for show? Margot's my name, and I been taking care of sick old folks since you was a little stick nursing your dollies. Maybe you'd like to ask me how the old lady is."

"Yes, I'm sorry. I'm very tired."

"Oh, that's obvious. We had the doctor in once," and then she saw my face. "No, not what you think. My employer requested it. As a precaution. He thinks of everything, don't he? And such a lovely voice, he could ask a body to run barebuck back and forth under the Arc de Triomphe and she'd want to do it, too. Anyway, the sawbones said what I could have told anyone, and for a lot cheaper. Weak heart, bad circulation in the legs. Not a thing to be done about either one of them. Addled in the head as well, but you already knew that. Kept going on how you was visiting with an angel, flew you right up to heaven, he did, and all I could do was agree with her. Been to heaven on some occasions like that of my own, when I was younger. Although from the look of you, I'd say more that you've been to the other place down below, with that smell of river water on you. You don't have that cheery glow I'd expect from a gal who's spent two weeks with her back on the tiles."

It was more than I could bear. "Do you talk to Madame Valerius this way?" I said through clenched teeth.

"Of course not," she grinned, and gave me a wink that made me feel as if slime coated me from head to foot.

"Please leave me alone," I said. "I'm going out later, but I need to get some rest."

"Just so you know. He had me pay the rent and the maid for four weeks, settled the butcher and the baker's bills as well, and fetched your pay from the Opera. It's there in an envelope on the kitchen table, alongside your mail. You can count it too, it's all there," and she sniffed with righteousness, even though I hadn't accused her of anything except lolling around my bedroom. "Like I said, he thinks of everything." With uncorseted hips wobbling under her shabby black skirt, she fetched her white apron, stockings and boots. All the while she muttered under her breath, "Some women don't know how good they have it with that kind of man, and who cares if he's ugly as Judas's arse? Just turn off the lights, I say, that fixes all." I sighed with relief when she finally brushed past me.

Shaking with fatigue, I rifled through the small stack of letters. Nothing from Raoul, especially no acknowledgment of my hastily-scribbled note, no indication if he would meet me tonight or not. Perplexed, I thumbed through the few. M. Moncharmin's secretary hoped my health was much improved. La Juive was going to start rehearsal soon; would I accept the lead role of Rachel, the doomed Jewess? Touchingly, there was a note from Carolus Fonta, joking about the squawks of my understudies, and how the one now playing Juliet clearly was more suited for the role of the nurse. I counted the contents of my pay envelope, and as the crude but apparently capable Margot had said, it was indeed "all there."

I should bathe, I thought, but I'm too tired. I'll lie down for just a little bit, and into the bed I climbed in between quilt and blanket, not wanting my skin to touch the sheets where she had been. When I awoke, the late afternoon sun slanted through the western window and I jumped up, terrified that I had slept into the next day, missed the Bal Masque, that somewhere Erik lay bleeding and dying, and a "tear was rent through the fabric of Paris humanity besides," whatever that meant.

When I heard Margot stirring in Mama Valerius's room, I knew I'd slept for only a few hours at most. The address of the seamstress rested in the bottom of my bag and at the front of my mind as well. If I wait too long, my fear-clenched thoughts went, she'll be gone, and I will have no costume, not even a half-domino to cover my face. Then I lay quietly, thinking of what I would say to Raoul at the Bal Masque that night, trying to push all of Erik's ugly insinuations out of my mind but not succeeding, and wondering what it might mean for Erik to fetch me from my dressing room and ratify our betrothal.

Lying on my side, I twisted the loose ring soft and almost pliable under my touch. Raoul probably won't even be there, as most likely he didn't even get that note. That's why he didn't write. But what if he is? Why am I doing this? I want to see him one more time before he goes. After all this, I owe him at least a good-bye. Before I go, but go where?

Finally collecting my strength, I went to see Mama Valerius before I left. Margot intercepted me, saying, "Don't bother. I've got her settled, and I don't want her nattering on all night about you and your 'angel.' Besides, I thought you had somewhere to go." An India-rubber doll could not have been pulled in more directions than I at that moment. The clock demanded I go to the dressmaker's, satisfy Erik's demand that I return, meet with Raoul, assuage my guilt over Mama Valerius.

"Is she all right?" I asked, voice trembling.

"Madame," she said, "She is well-cared for. Your patron has seen to that. Go run your errand."

Her appalling cheek shocked me senseless for a moment. Who was she to tell me when and where to go? She laughed, as if to say, show me the door. "My affairs aren't your concern," I said, feeling weak and cowed before her stolid amusement. "I'll send the maid. I want to see her."

Margot shrugged her big shoulders as if to say, not my responsibility. The maid was dispatched with the address and instructions to fetch a costume, I didn't care what kind. I gave her a key to my dressing room at the Garnier Opera, and told her to deliver it there. Then I crept into Mama Valerius's bedroom. She lay half-propped up in the big rosewood bed carved with calla lilies around the top. Her eyes were half-closed and a little devotional book rested on the bedside table, too far to reach. Margot must have been reading to her. I wonder if the nurse-maid hated it, as she didn't seem the type to go in for religion. Mama Valerius herself had lost the ability to read late last year, not through any fault of her eyes, but from the general weakening of the brain that had started almost at once after the Professor's death.

"Mama," I whispered. "Mama, it's me, Christine."

She stirred and tried to rise up. "I thought you'd be back sooner," she said with a hint of a whine in her voice. "Your angel is very demanding, to keep you so long."

"Has Margot been caring for you? Is she good to you?"

"She makes good custard. And she reads to me all the time in the evenings. Best of all, she believes me about your angel. She doesn't argue with me. I told her he had taken you to heaven and she didn't make fun, she just said, oh, yes, I'm sure he has. I like that."

"I wasn't here much in the evenings to read to you, was I?"

She looked around the room. "Where's Margot now? I like the way she reads. She's always making jokes. I never knew there were so many jokes in the Bible."

Inside I groaned. What kinds of jokes Margot found in the Bible I didn't want to know. "Mama, when I was gone, did anyone come to see me? To look for me? For instance, Monsieur le Vicomte de Chagny?"

She blinked at me, confused. "I don't think so. Do you think there's any of Margot's custard left?"

Sighing, I stood up. "I'll go look." When I returned with the little dish, she seized my left hand with surprising strength, almost upsetting the bowl. "Child, what's this? What's this ring?"

I tucked a napkin under her chin, but her eyes never left the thick gold band. "Will you be leaving now?" she said, quavering. The film over her ice-blue eyes suddenly sharpened, and her mind cleared momentarily. "Are you married?"

Not knowing what to say, I stammered, "It was a present."

"From your angel?"

"Mama, I have to tell you something, something very important. Please listen. I haven't been with an angel. For the past two weeks I've been visiting a man. He gave me this ring."

"A man?" she said, staring, fogged over again. "Not alone, I hope. But you wouldn't do that. You are a good girl, and always were. But why did he give you his wedding ring?"

"It's not a wedding ring, Mama, not exactly. It's a ... a betrothal ring. I'm betrothed."

"Oh," she said, breaking into a wide innocent smile. "Just like St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary! They were betrothed, too. I think that's nice. Just like in the old days."

My face grew hot with shame. "I'm going to a party tonight, Mama. I ... I'm not sure when I'll be back home. It will be soon, though."

"Margot's not going, is she?"

"No, she'll be here."

"You're leaving with your angel again."

"Mama, I just told you," but she had already leaned back with shuttered eyes, letting the empty dish fall to the bed. I removed her napkin, wiped her face, and bowed over with sadness, left her room.

ooooooooo

In my dressing room, reflecting out of the long floor-length mirror, a blank-eyed scarecrow stared back at me. The red and black ruffled flamenco dress hung on my frame like a sack, until I tied it up in the same way I did with the dresses Erik had bought for me. She must have been the seamstress he employed, and I wished I'd gone to see her for myself.

Pulling the dress in as far as it would go couldn't disguise my stick-thin arms, my bony shoulders, my nonexistent bosom, or the black shadows resting under my eyes and in the hollows of my cheeks. On a fuller-bodied woman the ruffle around the shoulders and breast would have risen merrily on a revealing tide of plump firm flesh, but on me it hung limp and dispirited. I adjusted the full-face black domino, then the squarish headdress with its long black veil. The thick black fabric folds poured over my tightly-bound hair, burying its blondness under an avalanche of sooty lace. Who had picked this costume, the maid or the unseen seamstress? It never occurred to me that Erik had picked it himself, to give me only the illusion of moving about the Bal Masque unobserved. It's what I would do now, did I want to track someone without her knowing it.

Then there was the problem of the ring. I didn't want Raoul to see it. I could leave it in my dressing table drawer, but somehow Erik might know, it might be stolen, I could lose it. So from my bureau I drew a pair of long black silk gloves. They sagged on arms with so little flesh to fill them out, but at least they covered the ring on my hand.

Disguised as a sorry imitation of an Andalusian dancer, I stood in a corner of the great Garnier Opera rotunda, feeling small and inconsequential. I was to meet Raoul at midnight, and it was only half-past eleven, but I could bear my lonely loge no longer. The partygoers whirled around me. I spied Sorelli and a tall red-headed man dressed in patchwork with long fluffy sidewhiskers, not Philippe de Chagny. Of course the Comte wouldn't come to an artists' ball, but Sorelli wasn't languishing alone. The tall, creamy-shouldered beauty wore a golden tulle tutu and a tiny gold domino that covered almost nothing of her smooth heart-round face. This wasn't Venice; there was no point in coming to the Masque if you couldn't be recognized. Their heads almost touched as they laughed and talked. Suddenly feeling very lonely, I headed around the bottom of the grand staircase to see if I could catch a glimpse of Erik, who had promised that he would come unmasked.

I drew a few curious glances because I was in the minority, being so heavily covered as to be entirely unrecognizable. My desire was to find some niche and simply wait there until the stroke of midnight, but all the crevices and dark places were filled with kissing, caressing couples, and a few larger spots held three or even four gyrating figures. An orchestra played something that sounded like a mazurka, but the noise from the crowd was abominable and the music could scarcely be heard.

Perhaps Erik might have gone into the auditorium. The velvet chairs had been removed and the carpets rolled up to reveal a wooden floor echoing with the stomping of hundreds of feet dancing to an ensemble. On the stage they sat, playing as loudly as they could, but the din overwhelmed them and thundered off the velvet box curtains, almost all closed. No one from up there was looking at the stage now; what went on in the boxes themselves was far more interesting. Someone had thrown long strings of silver streamers onto the stage, and a few looped over the shoulders of the indifferent musicians.

A man with a grinning Japanese-mask face whirled me around several times, then abandoned me for a young metallic-masked girl with breasts bouncing unrestrained from her unlaced bodice. The gyre of chaotic faces and bodies drove me out of the auditorium without a sight of Erik. Then the raucous herd began to move out of the auditorium towards the rotunda and its grand marble staircase. There, past the flow of gabbling bodies was the fireplace, next to the drawing room door where Raoul was to meet me.

I spied him at once, the only man in the room whose white Pierrot costume could not conceal his misery. He looked ridiculous. Being more slender at the time, he didn't fill up the pierrot's baggy, sacklike dress, and hadn't stuffed it with cushions like so many did. Further, he'd fortunately forgotten or discarded the hat, as it would have made him look even more conspicuous than he already did.

At first I did not approach him. The music faded, the crowds fell from my sight, and a great decision loomed before me. He looked me over several times with the same blank unrecognizing misery he cast on every other woman who passed by. If I turned away right now and left, he would be none the wiser. Soon he would forget his sadness and feel fond nostalgia for the girl who might have been, until forgetting about her entirely. All I had to do was walk away, and it was over.

My senses came back to me. At the top of the wide double-armed staircase some violinists were sawing away at some frenetic dance music. All the gas globes were turned up as high as they could go, and the lights and the thronging crowds made the air unbearably hot. Just as I was about to turn away, I looked at Raoul once more, and my stomach lurched in fear. Against my firm instruction that in no way was he to be noticed, he for a moment lifted his lace-trimmed white mask and wiped his eyes.

He looked around the room, again scanning unknowingly over me. It was the closest I had been to him since he lay on a couch, frozen and white in Perros, when the men from the inn had carried him back from his churchyard encounter with my so-called "angel of music." Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his eyes were sad. I couldn't hear his sigh, but I could see it, a long exhalation of breath, a slump of the shoulders, the collapse of the chest. He played with his mask for a moment. I knew then that when he put it back on, he would go.

So I walked towards him and took his hand.

Astonished, he started to speak, but I motioned frantically for him to be silent and to cover himself. The walls were Erik's, and he could be anywhere, could have seen Raoul's naked face already. We crossed around the foot of the double stairs, where the gathered crowd clotted into one silent waiting mass. The orchestra at the top of the stairs stopped playing. I cowered behind the swinging banister as it flared outward, hoping its curvature and the statue atop it would hide me. Raoul's hand gripped mine tightly and he put his arm around my waist, from the back. He's too familiar, I thought at first, but his hand was warm and he held me tenderly without clutch or grab. Into his steady caress I leaned, trembling with anxiety and pleasure both. Something was about to happen. Erik was going to make some dramatic display, some notable entrance to the party.

It could not have been more stunning. I heard him before I saw him, his stiff steps in boots slowly, deliberately thumping on the marble stairs. Soft gasps floated above the crowd, forming a wave of astonishment that crested and broke down the stairs as he passed. From our vantage point, I saw only the plume of his hat drifting past, and then he slowly came into view. His unmasked face was ghastly. I knew the kind of white greasepaint he used, with mother-of-pearl crushed into it to make his skull-bright face shine like light reflecting off bone. Thick black paint changed his eyes into two staring pits of darkness embedded into his ghastly face. Black pencil lines along his eyes and cheekbones suggested a literal skeleton head severed from its bony body and placed atop the broad shoulders swathed in red velvet. It was a skillful makeup job, one which emphasized every tragic, ravaged feature. He passed us by, and his wide scarlet train poured behind him in a cascade of gold-trimmed blood.

The crowd surged in front of us, blocking our view of everything but the plumed hat riding above it like a boat bobbing on a surging, clamoring ocean of heads. Then Raoul let me go, and he was transfixed with hot, fierce anger. "It's him," he whispered angrily. "The deaths' head from Perros." A few heads turned, and in my mind's eye I saw the strange looks behind their masks. I took Raoul's hand tightly, trying to keep him from pushing through the crowd to confront Erik.

Then there came a loud snap! like the sound of a chicken bone breaking, a short sharp cry of pain, and people laughed. "Serves him right," someone called out, loud and drunken. There were a few sobs, but I couldn't see who was hurt, or what had happened. Had someone laid a hand on Erik? The stilled hush broke, and soon the ballgoers were chattering, screaming, calling as loudly as before. The orchestra, so silent at his presence, began scraping away again at some round-dance tune. I strained to see the unmasked man in red, but he had gone around the other side of the grand foyer, and moving through the crowd was quite impossible at that point, anyway.

Erik was walking about, and all I could think of was to get Raoul and I away from him, if that were even possible. I pulled Raoul into a little-used hallway, and up the back staircase we climbed. On the second tier I tried to find an unoccupied box, but all were filled with partygoers or lovers. In one box two revelers sat on a couch, the man naked to the waist, and with hot shamed face I shut the door hastily to block out the sight of the man's gleaming, sweaty chest as he pulled the woman towards him. Up, I gestured, up further still, and there on the top tier we found an unoccupied box.

Before even shutting the door, Raoul threw his mask to the floor and walked towards me silently, his arms open to take me into them. There I would have fallen, except for the disturbance in the hall outside. "There he is!" "He broke that fellow's wrist, did you see?" "Down the stairs, look!" And over Raoul's broad white shoulder, through the door of the box, up the stair, I caught a glimpse of a descending red leather-clad boot. Pushing Raoul roughly to one side, I slammed the box door as quickly as I could, turned the lock, then swept the little curtain over the small round window.

"He's there," I whispered in terror, gesturing to Raoul to be utterly silent. He pushed past me, trying for the door, but I fell against it, shaking my head, no, no, trying to show that he didn't understand, it was essential for him to stay quiet, and to keep that door shut. For all I knew, Erik could appear in any box anytime he wanted, but I didn't think he would have a reason to search them all if his suspicions weren't alerted. He wanted to parade himself about among the partygoers, feed on their admiring gasps and sighs, on one of the few nights of the year he could go out among them, completely naked of face.

Raoul fumbled with the box door lock. "I want to talk to him. I want an end to this. Who is this man who's captivated you?"

"He'll kill you," I said as I pushed his hands away from the door latch. Why was Erik the first thing in his mind? "He'll kill me as well."

"Then let me find him. I'll fight him! Damn this lock, what did you do, enchant it? I can't make it budge at all."

"You want him to kill you? That's what you'll get for your foolishness. You think you're just going to throw your glove at his face, and that will be it? Some nice little duel with rules and seconds?"

"Why did you ask me to come here?" he said, giving up on the latch.

"I wanted to say goodbye."

"Good-bye?" Once I saw a man beaten by soldiers, when the Valeriuses and I first came to Paris, right after the end of the civil war. They were looking for the remaining hidden revolutionaries of the Commune, the ones who had taken over Paris for some months and fought against President Thiers's soldiers. Under the blood that man had the same dazed, vacant expression as Raoul's, only Raoul was bleeding on the inside rather than all down his face as that man was. Then his face formed itself into a cold rage, and our quarrel began in earnest.

I wanted to tell him everything that night, to throw myself at his feet and reveal the whole story of those two weeks. That stiff implacable face frightened me, and I didn't know where to start. "Stay here awhile, please. Until he's gone."

"Why not? You have one escort tonight, what can you do with two? Especially one who's a clown for whom you have no feeling at all."

"That's not true," I said. "I do care for you. I wouldn't have written if I didn't."

"You call this caring for me? What would hatred look like? You love someone else, or you wouldn't hide. And now you're going away with him." Suddenly his cold rage turned hot, and from out of him poured a stream of invective I could not bear to hear. His brother was right. I was just toying with him, making my lover jealous for some reason known only to me. Did it spice up my love-play to do that? "Your Perros friend has a clever mask," he snipped. "Useful for so many purposes, for haunting graveyards and Parisian balls. And why weren't you parading down the staircase at his side? You were certainly dressed for it. Or is he some married gentleman, who keeps you in the shadows, out of the sight of the public? Is that why you've been hiding these past few weeks?"

On he went, and even when he stopped for breath, I couldn't say anything. My veil felt unbearably hot in the closed-in room, so I threw it off.

"And to think that I even wanted to marry you ..."

"You can get rid of that thought. Haven't you listened to anything but your own voice? I'm leaving, I tell you. Perhaps even leaving Paris, I don't know. I won't see you again."

"That ought to make you happy, to have a flashy gentleman take you off the stage, out of Paris. Just a word of warning, Christine. Make sure he puts your name on the deed when he buys you that little country house. That way when he leaves you for someone else, when you feel as I do, and I hope that someday you do, then at least you have the house to remember him by. I'm sure you'll enjoy your retirement. My best wishes to you," and he gave a sarcastic little bow.

There seemed to be nothing left to say. "You think that's it. That's all there is. You're so sure."

"What is this play-acting?" he snapped. "You act like some kind of prisoner in a melodrama. Yet you take your pleasure wherever you find it. You come and go at will. I see no chains on you. Your so-called guardian certainly has no control over you. You could have written me anytime, but you chose to ignore me. Well, you won't have me for the buffoon in your tragicomedy anymore," and he ripped the ruffled neck of his Pierrot costume in anger, tearing the cloth. "You have a lover, one that's obviously going to keep you well. If that's what you want, who am I to stand in the way of your happiness? I'm not going to play the 'other man' in this farce."

"It's not a farce," I whispered. "It is a tragedy."

He stopped, as if considering. Then, slowly and deliberately, he reached for my mask, and I stepped back. When he put his hand on my domino I flinched, because I didn't want him to see the shame and sorrow written on my face. He hesitated a moment, then pulled it off gently and slowly, then gave a loud cry. I turned my head and closed my eyes, knowing what he saw.

He breathed in, a long raspy intake. "What's happened to you? You look like ... has he done this to you?"

"It's nothing," I said, ashamed. "I'm tired, that's all. I should be at home in bed, but instead I am here with you, and I didn't have to do it. It wasn't safe for me to do it. But do you appreciate it?"

"Your face," he stammered.

"I imagine you think I look like death itself," I laughed brokenly. "Find yourself a beautiful rosy girl with round pink cheeks, ones you can pinch on both ends. Go downstairs and take your pick. Any one of them would be glad to step out with you, take you home, and help you to forget your part in this farce, as you call it."

"Christine," he whispered, tears starting in his eyes. "Please, don't. Please, I am so sorry."

He was only a hand's width away from me, but he might as well have been on the other side of Paris. This had been cruel, cruel and stupid on my part to open a wound well on its way to healing. But what did I think would happen? That he would take me in his arms and kiss me? Sweat plastered his hair and he stood graceless in his torn, unwieldy costume, making him nothing like a young prince in a folk tale. I didn't want kisses. I wanted him to listen to this whole strange story. If only he would hear me out, I thought, but it's no use. He doesn't believe me now. Nothing I say will convince him that I'm not like every other singer, out to play one man against another for the maximum gain. He's already made up his mind, so be it. My own hot anger rose up. How dare he accuse me when he strolled through the Bois at night, no doubt looking for some entertainment in the dark? "I don't have to offer excuses for myself to you," I said in a clipped voice. "You believe whatever you wish. Someday you'll regret those cold and arrogant words of yours."

"Not as much as you will regret your behavior," he snapped back. "I thought you were a woman of honor. But you can't even offer an explanation."

"No explanation I have would satisfy you." I was really angry now. "I have to go. It's close to one." Imperious, a little contemptuous, I ducked under his arm and readjusted my mask. "Good-bye," I said. "Don't try to follow me, as you won't find me. Just go."

He stood with his open mouth shocked into silence. His lips formed my name but no sound came out. At that time I didn't know what he expected. Later I learned that his sisters were of the most mild and accommodating nature, who never raised their voices, who always yielded to the men of the house. He didn't know what to do when a woman wouldn't defer to him. When I flung open the box door, heedless of whether Erik might be waiting on the other side, I expected to feel his hands pull me back in. But he did nothing, and when I turned around and waved at him with a hot sarcastic gesture, he neither cried out nor followed me.

Away from him, down the dark and narrow stairway with its chipped and gloomy paint hidden from the public view, I fought back tears. He had practically come out and called me a whore, hadn't he? He acted as if he owned me, but he did nothing to claim me. Confusion and rage and sorrow all mingled into a cloudy mass that stung my eyes and filled my throat. I almost thought to turn around, but didn't. The hour was late, after all, and Erik would be waiting for me. At that point Erik's fixed and rigid commands, his stark expectations, his overbearing control surrounded me like a fortress of protection. With him, I knew what to expect.

How could it all have gone so wrong? I had imagined Raoul and I would hold hands, remove our masks, tenderly kiss, and then, peacefully and calmly, I would tell him where I had been, what had happened, what I was going to do. He would comfort me and cosset me, give me his blessing perhaps, but was that what I wanted? The sweating, angry man blocking my way wasn't what I expected. He hadn't seemed even interested in me at all, for his first thought had been to chase after his rival and hammer away at him, which I knew likely would end in Raoul's death. I had wanted to stand on the stage of his attention, but instead he had his own play going in the wings, one where he fought, shouted, used his fists.

Then shame and regret overcame me. Raoul had apologized, but I had not. I turned around and headed back towards the box from whence I'd come, thinking against common sense that if I had left a man at the door with his mouth hanging open, he of course by rights should be there when I returned. But he was gone, and the box's new occupants glared at me, or at least the woman did, especially after her male companion issued a drunken invitation for me to come in and join the fun.

Frustration pushed me down into the gutter, where Raoul thought I belonged. All these coarse gestures and remarks from the costume shops and rehearsal halls came to mind. "Make sure you have at least enough for her," I snapped, but instead of looking cowed, he grinned and his long moustache looked very black against his red face.

"Let's find out," he laughed. "I can make you both cry out like cats on the roof," and he half-raised himself up from his lover's arms as if to chase me. I grabbed my skirts and fled down the hall thinking, if he catches me, I will scream for Erik, and he will come. My slipper caught on a carpet and I almost tripped, but when I looked behind me, no one pursued. A few more drunken revelers came up the stairs, and I darted the other direction, sick with anxiety now. One thought remained, it was past one, and I had to get to my dressing room, that imaginary oasis of calm, of safety, of protection.

(continued...)

A/N: Louvel's song is a traditional folk ballad called "The Sad Song."