Chapter Twenty-Nine

September 8th 1892: Christine

"Wh-what?", I whispered. "No! Of course not! How can you accuse me of such a thing?" "Well, you hadn´t see Erik for ten years and you probably missed him. Suddenly he approached you, but apparently he was more interested in your son than in you. It is only natural that this made you jealous.", Mme.Giry argued. She watched me closely, and there was something like pity in her eyes. It annoyed me more than all she had said. No one had to pity me.

I shook my head emphatically. "Your… theory is absurd!", I called. "If I had felt the urge to see him, I´d have simply come here. After all, I hadn´t forgotten where he lives. How could I – after he had abducted me and brought me there! I could have gone to his lair anytime I pleased, but I didn´t do so because I didn´t want to meet him ever again. I was afraid of him."

Mme.Giry seized the brief moment I needed to take a breath to start speaking herself. "Do you really believe all that, Christine? Do you think he´d have welcomed you back with open arms?" I wasn´t sure what kind of reply she expected, so I only nodded. Of course Erik would have welcomed me back, just like he´d welcome me back now. He loved me. It was I who didn´t want that to happen.

"In this case you´re deluding yourself more than I thought.", she said quietly. "Let me show you something." Her hand that was still lying on my shoulder moved downwards and took mine. Then she led me away from the stage. It was very strange to hold the hand of someone who was neither my husband nor one of my children and to be led to an unknown place. I almost felt like a child myself again. We walked down at least half a dozen corridors, but didn´t meet anyone.

At last we came to a halt in front of a door, and Mme.Giry opened it. "I know this place.", I muttered. "This is where the new costumes are sewn and the old ones are kept, isn´t it?" "That´s not why we´re here.", she replied. She sounded considerably more coldly than at the beginning of our conversation. It was clear that I had made her angry, but I didn´t know what I had done.

Shyly I followed her to a corner of the room. A large wardrobe stood here, yet when she pulled open one of the doors I was surprised to see that it did not contain costumes or pieces of fabric. Instead, poster after poster hung there, each advertising a different production of the Opéra Populaire. "They´re here mainly for nostalgic reasons.", Mme.Giry informed me. "Sometimes they´re used to impress potential patrons with the variety of operas this stage has seen, but that rarely happens anymore." Walking up to me she added: "You can have a look at them if you want to.".

Sensing that it was an order rather than an offer I began to look at the posters. Quickly I left behind those of recent productions. I wondered how many years back they´d date. Would there even be some of the operas I had sung in? The question was answered just a few moments after it had entered my mind. Suddenly I spotted it: the poster of ´Don Juan Triumphant´. Yet the title was the only thing that gave it away. Black paint was smeared on the rest, making it look dirty and ugly.

"What has happened to it?", I asked in an incredulous whisper. At once I understood that this was what Mme.Giry had brought me here for. "This was the way we found it a few weeks after the first night of ´Don Juan Triumphant´.", she explained. "In addition, all costumes from that opera and the score for the musicians and singers had been burned. I guess it was supposed to warn the managers that they should never even attempt to stage it again – as if they had wanted to do that!"

I couldn´t tear my gaze from the ruined poster. It had once been so beautiful, and now… "Why do you keep it?", I wanted to know. "Surely it is not shown to the patrons, is it?" She shook her head. "We threw it away the very same day, together with the ashes.", she replied. "Yet the next morning it was back in the wardrobe. No matter how often we tried, it always came back. And after a while we stopped bothering. We accepted that Erik seemed to regard it as a reminder of the fact that he was back. The Opera Ghost was back, just when many people had started hoping he might have gone for good. Personally I don´t think he was ever gone. He had simply been hiding till no one was looking for him anymore."

Suddenly I couldn´t stand the sight of the poster any longer. I pushed the door of the wardrobe shut and turned around to face Mme.Giry. "Why are you telling me all this? Do you want me to understand that this opera belongs to Erik? I already know that. But I also know that neither my son´s life nor mine belong to him. The people here may be content with being told what to do, but I don´t want that…" My voice trailed off as I watched her wait for me to stop. It wasn´t very satisfying to shout at someone who didn´t say anything.

"That´s not what I wanted you to understand.", she corrected me at last. "Sit down for a moment, Christine." We settled down on two uncomfortable stools next to the wardrobe. I vaguely recalled that I had sometimes sat here with Meg, talking while our costumes had been fixed. Yet our conversations had never been very serious. "The point is…", Mme.Giry stressed. "…that for a while Erik did his best to forget everything about you. That´s why he destroyed the objects from ´Don Juan Triumphant´. But he couldn´t forget you. So when he remembered the promise you had given him he used it to enter your life again."

I nodded slowly. Her explanations sounded logical. Still I waited for hearing something I didn´t know myself. "But this proves that I´m right.", I argued. "He wants me back, even after all those years." My former ballet teacher made an impatient gesture. "Of course he wants you back.", she said in exactly the same voice she had used when I had begun to talk about the corpses. "He loves you. Yet that´s not important at the moment. I´m speaking to you, and not to him, because I want you to think about something. In fact, I haven´t talked to him in person for years."

Shifting slightly on the stool I couldn´t help wondering whether this discussion would be over soon. It was not what I had expected it to be. I had hoped Mme.Giry would offer actual suggestions how to solve my problems instead of showing me what Erik had done in the past. Still I tried to pay attention as she went on: "Meg told me that it was Erik who had decided in which house Raoul and you live and which servants you hire. I can understand this makes you angry. But have you, even for a moment, considered how much you influenced his life and still do it?".

Now that was truly a completely new thought. I had been convinced it only worked the other way round. Leaning closer to Mme.Giry I nodded, eager not to miss a single word. When she realised that I had nothing to say she continued herself: "You know he´s obsessed with you, child. But this also makes him dependent on you. As long as there´s the tiniest bit of hope that you might return his feelings one day, he doesn´t have the slightest chance of being entirely happy… or as happy as he can be.".

"What do you want me to do?", I asked in a small voice. "You have to make up your mind about what you feel for Erik.", she replied instantly. "Is it friendship? Love? Or something else? For once, you have to forget moral limitations, your status in society and all that. Just go to the core of your being and ask your soul! You´ll find the right answer there…" Her face grew harder as she added: "If you don´t want to do that because you´re afraid of the answer, I can only advise you to do what Erik suggested: Don´t come here again! Philippe will be with his teacher every day, of course, and Antoinette is always welcome as well. But don´t come here yourself! It´ll only make both of you miserable.".

My head felt as if it was on fire as I tried to take in everything I had heard. Finding out what I really felt for Erik… It sounded simple. But it didn´t work. It was as if my soul was hidden behind a high wall. Maybe I was indeed afraid. Slowly I came to my feet and started walking, though I didn´t know where I was going. I was staggering under the weight of the responsibility I had to carry. The responsibility for another person´s happiness…