In AHTW Erik and Alex have a huge father/son moment, so of course Julia and Raoul are completely out of the picture. Given that Raoul has five cellars worth of dialog in the previous chapter, he still has a lot to say and Julia has a lot to learn. Please leave feedback for this chapter!
Julia53
The opera fire had not reached the cellars, which was evident as it was constructed of stone. The portion Erik had called his own, however, was an entirely different disaster.
My first thought was that it was fit for a hog, as clutter consumed every corner. There were drawings, framed and loosely scattered about, towers of precariously perched notes and stacks of music, books, statues…anything conceivable was stuffed into the room. There were wooden boxes stacked to the ceiling and reams of fabric propped up against the wall.
I wandered inside and looked around, wondering how closely this resembled his current bedroom, which I had never seen. For such a well-dressed man, he had once lived like a rat.
Oil paintings and chalk drawings garnered my attention. I felt strangely voyeuristic as I lifted one drawing from the table and examined the careful details, then glanced at the one beneath it.
Amongst his collection there were set designs, costumes, and sketches of Christine in various costumes. He'd drawn perfume bottles, vases of flowers, and a garden with a fountain in the middle. Beneath the still life drawings was another pile dedicated to Christine.
Within this dark and damp place, he had dedicated his time alone to memorizing her image and writing his music. It was well-furnished and somewhat eccentric, which I expected from him, but it was eerily alone and silent, more of a tomb than a home.
I had not stood within his private apartments for more than ten minutes and already I missed the warmth of sunlight and fresh air. I couldn't imagine spending two decades confined to this place, chained to only fruitless desire.
How he'd survived exile—self-imposed or not—I couldn't imagine.
His adoration for Christine, however, was evident in ever stroke of the brush and smudge of charcoal. In perfect, careful penmanship he had written her name.
Strangely, however, she was always drawn alone. Not once had he ever placed himself next to her. It was as though in her shining beauty he simply didn't exist.
Perhaps he had always known there was no place for him.
I held my breath and took in his former life, these images of the man he'd been long before we met. Some were pleasant details, simple musings I thought were merely to pass time. Others, however, were slashes and dark colors, angry notions. Once I reached a series of drawings depicting a woman draped in black, I paused and recoiled. I didn't need to delve further. I knew exactly who this woman was. Just the sight of her made me shudder.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the Comte slowly make his way toward where Erik stood. I cleared my throat and he turned to look at me.
"Let him do this," I whispered. The acoustics made my voice much louder than I expected. He nodded and retreated into the corner where he stood beside a shattered oval mirror. Alex glanced back at me, his eyes wide. I watched for a moment as Erik sat beside him, then I turned away, allowing them privacy.
"I wanted to see her," Alex said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Did you see her?" Erik asked.
I didn't hear Alex reply. My heart ached for him and what he had witnessed, but it was more than that. There was so much he didn't know, so many tender moments only a mother could share with her child. I suspected he had gone looking for answers as to why she had left him behind and why she had never contacted him.
"When?" Erik asked gently. I wondered if he had used up all of his anger in confronting the de Chagnys.
"The night you saw her," Alex answered reluctantly.
The same night he had undoubtedly saved Erik's life. I imagined in that moment of seeing three men escort his father into an alley and beat him so badly he lost consciousness, Alex had not only permanently lost his mother, but had grown up considerably.
"And two days ago," Alex answered.
"The night the vicomte came to the house?" Erik asked.
His voice dropped so low I couldn't hear what he said, but it didn't matter. I was beside myself, sick to my stomach thinking of what he had endured.
For the past four days, I had concerned myself with Erik when I wished I had provided more comfort to Alexandre. He didn't deserve to be pushed aside when he had no choice in this matter.
"Your mother has been very ill," Erik said to him. He didn't attempt to make excuses, but there was sadness in his voice as he admitted it aloud.
"She didn't look sick," Alex argued.
"Sometimes, when people are very, very ill, they look perfectly fine. It's worse that way, Alex, sometimes it's much worse that way."
There were many days when I had been forced to act as though my life were flawless. Louis and I attended dinner parties with him playing the charming husband and myself cast as his adoring, demure wife. Those nights were always a sickening performance, though we had managed to fool everyone around us. No one ever realized when I asked him to stop drinking it was because I feared for my life, not for his headaches the following morning.
On the outside we looked fine, but behind closed doors there was illness spreading.
"Are you sure I'm her son?" he asked suddenly, twisting around to look Erik in the eye. "She didn't know who I was, Father. She said she never had a son."
I frowned and turned away, finding the Comte directly behind me. He ushered me from the room and into what served as a hallway and we stood in silence.
"Did you know?" he asked quietly.
I looked up at him. "I beg your pardon?"
"Did you know of this place?" he clarified.
I was too tired to lie or make excuses. "I never asked," I said, being more honest than I had intended. I knew he had lived within the opera house, but he had never divulged exactly where and I had not asked.
"It's quite impressive to think this man took it upon himself to move an entire lot of furniture, an organ, a wardrobe fit for an entire cast...he built a small empire underground."
He peered inside, seemingly impressed by the amount of effort Erik had put into his lakeside home.
"A damned fine job," he said with a shake of his head. "A musical genius, a builder…all those years of talent wasted."
"Because he was not allowed to live above it," I said bitterly.
Erik wanted no pity, but he deserved to be recognized for his good qualities, not just his faults. He was successful as a composer, but as far as I knew he had never attended one of his own operas—at least not since the opera disaster. The only music he heard was the orchestra he played in his head, hummed in the night as he tested the melodies alone. It seemed like torture for a man so consumed by song to never hear it for himself in an opera house.
The Comte stared at me for a long moment. "From what I understand, it was his choosing to stay here."
"Your understanding?" I scoffed. "And what precisely is your understanding, Comte?"
"Madame Seuratti, I have bared the deepest secrets of my soul tonight. Trust that I do not offer judgment on this man."
At once I felt terribly defensive. "My apologies."
His features softened. "Seeing him now I have no desire or reason to hate him. He is a man concerned for the wellbeing of his family, which honestly makes us more similar than different."
I could only imagine what Erik would have said to that.
"How do you know he chose to live here?" I asked, curbing my tone.
It bothered me that the Comte de Chagny, who had hated Erik more than anyone in the world, seemed to know him better than I did.
He took a deep breath. "Madame Giry," he answered. "She took in Christine and well before that, from what I understand, Monsieur Kire…Erik. She never called him by a last name, only the mysterious, troubled Erik."
Living beneath am opera house hardly seemed like being 'taken in'.
"Of course back then she swore she knew nothing of the famous opera ghost for fear of incriminating him, I suppose," he said quietly.
I nodded. "She is very protective of him."
"Yes, I suspect she is. In secret she told me of how she had first met him in the traveling fair, and that has to be over thirty years ago now." He rolled his tongue along the inside of his mouth. "Being confined to a cage could drive a man into darkness, and then of course how he escaped from the Orient. He sought refuge from the world, Madame, and here he found it—with her help."
In Erik's recounting he had left the Orient on terms that were not ideally his own. Escaped sounded far more alarming—and so much more like this man I loved.
"Madame Giry always cared a great deal about him, perhaps more than anyone in his life. Back then I wondered why she wanted to protect him, but she saw him in a way no one else had."
In five years, I had never pressed him to tell me of his life before I knew him, though in the same token I had no desire to speak of my own past. With Louis' untimely death had come a barrage of unexpected debts. The last thing on my mind was burdening this reserved musician with my sorrows, especially when I wanted to forget the rest of my life whenever he was near.
My siblings never visited and rarely wrote to me, my cousin Anthony was pleasant enough, though was concerned for my every move, and my uncle most likely would have disowned me for speaking of Erik Kire, much less any other activity.
He was my fantastic escape, a sensual mystery who opened my heart with melody and filled my mind with his deep voice yet soft words. Long before he ever touched me, I felt as though he knew me intimately.
"He's a very private person," I said, merely to speak. "He allows few people to know him."
Madame Giry had also helped him remain a private person by denying he existed. I wasn't sure if she truly helped him or if she stilted him further.
The Comte shrugged. "He is very fond of his son," he said. "And of you as well."
I smiled at his words, glad that he had seen a different side of Erik, a compassionate side.
The Comte peered around the darkened hall and inhaled sharply. "When I saw him in my hotel room the other night, I had no idea he was still alive—or at least I tried to convince myself he had perished."
My breath caught in my throat. I remembered seeing the headline in the paper weeks after the opera fire. It was shortly after Madame Giry and Meg had taken up residence behind our house. Erik is Dead, the column stated. Louis had found it humorous. I remembered it merely because I found it sad for this person to die and have nothing else written of him.
"No…no I knew he wasn't dead." The Comte looked away from me. "I honestly hoped to never see him again, but the moment we returned to Paris, I had a feeling he would emerge."
"I had hoped you and your wife wouldn't return," I said.
He looked sadly at me. "I expected to see a man in the distance at her performance, perhaps a shadow in the night…a voice in my head. A coward, that's what I expected, but there he was in my hotel bedroom with my wife, bold as ever."
I knew I blanched at his words. "That's where you found them?"
"It was him alone," he explained. "But when I entered the hotel room, my daughter met me at the door and said a man in a mask had come for her mother. Bella thought it was the angel who had taken her sister. I stormed into the bedroom and there he was, calm as could be."
"And that's why you…went after him?" I asked. In all honesty, it made perfect sense for the Comte to nearly beat to death a man found in his hotel room in the middle of the night. I hated to admit it, but the Comte had every reason to be rid of Erik. I could only imagine Erik would have done much worse if their roles had been reversed.
He frowned. "I knew why he was there—or thought I did. When I saw Alexandre for the first time, I didn't know what to believe." He shook his head. "But Monsieur Kire…he is not the type of man who would merely leave without incident."
I nodded. He was correct.
Awkward silence followed and together we both looked into the lakeside apartments.
"She promised I could go with her and her husband and their daughters," Alexandre said. "I told her I would have to ask you first even though I knew you would tell me absolutely not. When I told her, she was very, very cross with me, Father."
Erik stiffened and reached for Alex. He placed his hand on his shoulder, his voice booming. "What did she do to you? Did she hurt you? Look at me, Alex, did she bruise you?"
"She yelled at me and told me you never wanted me. She said if I told her I never loved you she would take me to Egypt."
Erik turned his face away and found me in the doorway. I nodded and stepped out again, bumping into the Comte, who was looking over my shoulder.
I couldn't imagine using a boy as a pawn the way Christine apparently had intended. All things considered, I doubted she knew her intentions.
"Alex—" Erik started.
"She's mean!" Alex shouted. His voice shook with emotion, his face twisted as he fought to keep his composure. "Why didn't you tell me she was so mean?"
The Comte grunted and I looked over my shoulder at him. "I honestly wish he had never seen her, for his own sake. She is not in the frame of mind to welcome him as she should have."
"How would she have welcomed him?" I asked. "In the ideal frame of mind? She left him on the doorstep, Comte."
"I wish she never would have given him up," he answered truthfully. "I would like to think if she had been truthful, I still would have raised him as my own."
If Christine had done nothing else, she had saved Erik's life by giving him his son. Alex had given Erik a conscious, a reason to be a man rather than a ghost haunting a cellar. Perhaps it wasn't her intention, but she had saved him from this place.
"Did you see Alex with her?" I whispered back.
"Briefly," he said, seeming embarrassed for his wife. "I mostly heard her yelling and thought she was with our daughters. When she spoke with such cruelty, I went in to usher the girls out and there he was." The Comte bowed his head. "Forgive me for saying this, but I honestly thought my girls were surrounded by love and that this child, Alex, would have lived a life of misery."
"He has never laid a hand on him," I assured him.
The Comte's lips parted, but he didn't continue.
"I cannot make you love her," Erik said softly to Alex. His voice garnered my attention once more.
"I won't," he blurted out, his voice choked by tears. "Not ever, not for as long as I live."
"Listen to me, Alex, I cannot make you love her, but I want you to try to forgive her."
"Why?" Alex sniffled.
I closed my eyes and pursed my lips. Erik was the last person I expected to speak of forgiveness as he was a man who anticipated being met with hatred and showed little tolerance for others.
Erik was silent for a long moment and I wondered if he would change his mind. At last he sighed. "Because…because everyone, no matter what they have done, should be allowed to find forgiveness. Finding a way to forgive someone, even when they have hurt you, that is truly a remarkable gift."
"She wanted that man to kill you. How can you forgive her?" Alexandre pressed. "How can you forgive that man?"
He was so much like Erik, more so than I had realized. They were both combative by nature, always challenging an idea. Alex lacked his father's cynicism, but he was curious and insatiable.
"I don't want to be angry with her," he explained.
"And that man?" Alex said, spitting out his words.
I didn't dare look back at the Comte.
"It will undoubtedly take some time, Alex, but I am in need of forgiveness as well."
Alex looked perplexed. "Why?"
"I loved her very much; even when she was very ill and I didn't know it. I said and did many things I should not have done."
The Comte muttered something under his breath and I looked at him. He shook his head and turned away, which made me wonder if he regretted returning to this place.
"I was not well, either," Erik finished. "And I was not kind."
"Father, are you feeling better now?" Alex asked, his words filled with concern.
Erik chuckled softly. He needed Alex so badly in his life and in that moment, when they sat beside one another, I hoped he realized what he had almost lost in chasing Christine.
"I think I am feeling better. I have you, Madeline, and Madame Seuratti to thank for that, and perhaps Madame and Monsieur Lowry as well."
In the middle of the night, in the darkest place on earth, he had finally realized he wasn't alone.
"What about Bessie?" Alex asked suddenly.
I smiled at their exchange, finding myself surprised Erik hadn't mentioned the dog first.
"She is important as well," Erik agreed.
In all the moments Erik would have been hardened and angry, Alex forced him to see the world from his perspective. He was truly the heart Erik almost forgot he had.
Erik reached out and gently ran his fingers along Alex's cheek. He looked at him with such tenderness and pursed his lips.
"Alex," he said, his voice low and trembling. "Will you forgive me?"
Alex sat a little straighter. "I am the one who ran away," he admitted as he bowed his head. "Not you."
"Alex— "
"Will you forgive me, Father?"
"If there are any flaws within you, there are mine," Erik said softly. He went silent, but his shoulders trembled with emotion.
"Grand-mere says you are not fond of people, but you do like us, don't you, Father?" Alex asked. Despite what he had seen, he still remained innocent, still hopeful for his father's approval.
Erik took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes, I do, Alex," he said. "With more of my heart than I ever knew existed."
I peeked inside once more and saw them face one another. Despite the late hour and the circumstances, Erik looked more at ease than he had in months.
"How is your real face?" Alex asked.
Erik tilted his head down. "Quite bruised still," he answered, his voice lower than before.
Slowly Alex reached up toward his father's face and I held my breath, waiting for the deciding moment when Erik would either allow his son to touch his face or turn away from him completely.
"Alex, the skin will never—"
"I don't really like the fake skin. It's cold," Alex blurted out.
Erik hesitated, his posture suddenly rigid. He had never been accepted with his real skin; I couldn't imagine how he felt having Alex tell him he didn't like the mask.
"You're like a snake," Alex mumbled.
I inhaled sharply. Only Alexandre would say such a thing and mean it as a sincere compliment.
"I beg your pardon?" Erik said, sounding mortified by his son's words.
"You're like a snake," he repeated, clearly seeing no reason to retract his words. "You shed your skin."
The child looked quite proud of himself, though Erik appeared concerned.
"The skin beneath the mask doesn't change though, Alex. It always looks…the same."
He sounded disappointed when he spoke. I wished he had known that it was human nature to see one's reflection and feel dissatisfied on occasion. He was not the only one in the world who looked into a mirror and felt as though there was too much or too little. There was more to him than just a face; it was the reason why I had come with him and why Alexandre sat before him, comforted by his presence.
"But the snake doesn't change that much, either. It grows, but it's still the same," Alex pointed out. He made it sound as though his father should have already known this, which earned him a pointed look from Erik. "Monsieur Lowry told me. He said we could go to the zoo one day and see one. Monsieur Lowry said that what's underneath is always better."
"I see then," Erik said under his breath, sounding completely unconvinced.
"Father," Alex said nervously. "I like your real skin better than the fake skin. It's warmer."
Tears dampened my eyes. I knew that until now Alex had never seen him without the mask and that Erik was terribly concerned with the opinions of others. More than anything, he feared his son's rejection. In childhood, Erik had been neglected by his parents, as an adult he'd been shunned for his appearance. If Alex looked at him in horror, he would be devastated.
"Father?" Alex asked again. His eyes filled with grave concern and I wondered if Erik knew how badly Alex also needed his approval.
"Yes, Alexandre?" Erik asked. He had turned away, but I could tell by his tone that he struggled to continue their conversation.
"Why do you like the fake skin?"
"It's more aesthetically pleasing," Erik said. He kept his back to Alex and fidgeted for a moment. I expected him to grumble and tell Alex it was time they left, but instead he reached up. He pressed his fingers to the leather covering. A shudder rattled through him before he slid his fingers beneath the mask and pulled it off. He stared at it for several seconds, then set it onto the table. "It was easier before," he said at last.
"When you weren't feeling well?"
"Yes, when I wasn't feeling well."
"So now that you feel better….do you need it?"
At last Erik turned to face him, though he kept his eyes closed as he waited for rejection. "I suppose not."
Alex studied him only briefly. I wished Erik had seen the look on Alex's face when he saw him then, how he showed no hint of horror or fear. When he looked at his father, he looked relieved. After everything Alex had witnessed, I had no doubt he was happy to still have his father alive.
At last Erik opened his eyes and Alex's smile widened. He flung his arms around his father and held him tight, undoubtedly relieved to have him there.
I heard the Comte release a deep, shuddering breath. From the corner of my eye, I saw him wipe his face.
"Comte?" I questioned.
He quickly dried his eyes and forced a smile. "That is his son," he said firmly. "And his son only."
