"Ours?" she echoed.
"Yes. I mean, will you allow me to live here with you – in the same home – and take meals together, and sing, and attend the theatre together?" I was tiring fast, but determined to hold my ground until I had my answer.
Christine gazed around for a few moments and drew a slow breath. I don't know what I expected to happen at that moment. Maybe I believed she would scoff at the idea or perhaps I believed that she would answer quickly and easily, "Yes," and all my troubles would be instantly solved forever. Neither happened, of course. This was the real world, not some story-book fantasy.
My strength failed and she helped me sit again. Once she'd seen to my comfort, she sat beside me, and turned on that look of intense scrutiny, lightly chewing her lip.
"Are you asking me to marry you, Erik?"
"Oh, good heavens no!" I exclaimed, hardly able to process the thought. "No!"
She and Nadir continued to stare at me, their faces expressionless, and I realized I'd made another of my infamous faux-pas. Again. I stammered, desperately trying to right my wrong.
"Not that I don't wish to marry you, Christine. I do…at least I am nearly certain I do. But I could not do that to you. It would be unfair." They kept staring and I stumbled over my own words, trying desperately to find the ones that would answer the questions they would not ask. "To you."
Christine cocked her head to one side, her bright eyes fixed on mine, so much like an inquisitive bird that I almost smiled.
"And what, exactly, would you be doing to me?"
Nadir emitted a noise that was half-snort, half-choke and abruptly left the room. Christine sat there with no sign of relenting. The moment I'd waited so long for was here and (of course) it was not the bliss I'd anticipated. No, it had to be a moment filled with awkwardness and uncomfortable silences.
"I'd…in marriage…when two people marry…it is expected…" Oh, how could I say it? Such an indelicate, coarse thing – and here I sat, about to speak of it before an Angel!
Oh, patient listener, please don't think I am taking the high road, trying to make myself seem as chaste and pure as a monk. I'd thought about it, naturally. I'd even anticipated it with feverish excitement. But…no matter how deeply I'd considered it, I never once actually imagined the potential reality of it. Speaking it would make my base and unnatural desire known, and therefore, real. I turned my embarrassed gaze to the floor.
"It is a given, is it not, that a marriage should be…consummated?" Painfully, I dragged my eyes back to hers. "I could not bear to put you in that position. I do not wish to torment you, Christine, or burden you. I only want to be near you. And I thought you might be happy here, above the music, so I built this for you."
"Let me get this straight," she said, incredulously, "you built this place, ruined your health, shut down the symphony hall, and almost died just so that we could have dinner together?"
Hearing it put that way, I felt very foolish indeed. I had nothing to say.
"And where will you go if I take your offer of this place, but don't let you live here?"
"To my apartments below. To Nadir's. To hell. It would hardly matter." I could feel the effects of starvation and ill-health weighing on me. I was tired…so very, very tired. My eyes drifted shut, mercifully blocking out the light.
"And back to your old habits, too, I suspect." She sighed softly. "You do know, don't you, that this is the 21st century? Married people can do – or not do – whatever they want, whenever they want. You don't exactly have to hang the bedsheets out the window in the morning."
I felt a moment of relief, which was instantly beaten back by a thousand other excellent reasons why we really ought not marry.
"I spent all my money building this, and put myself in considerable debt, to boot. I couldn't give you a comfortable life, or fine clothing, or jewels."
"Again – 21st century. Trust me, my love, I made enough on this one tour to support us both for a few years. And I'm sure your newfound fame will have its returns as well." She sounded amused, which irritated me. Could she not see that there was nothing remotely funny here?
"I couldn't even give you a last name…"
"21st century! You could take my last name, if you wanted. Or not."
Erik Daae? I thought. How odd that sounded.
"But I'm so much older than you, and sick at that. Surely you do not want to waste your glory years bound to a doddering old man?" My tone had taken on a disgusting air of self-pity, but there was nothing to be done about it.
"I'll spend my years however I see fit – and get used to the idea that it's mine to decide whether they're wasted or not." Christine snapped.
Obstinate! I'd forgotten how obstinate she could be.
"Fine then!" I spat, finally goaded into a temper. "Marry me! See what comes of it!"
"Fine!" she spat back. "I will!"
My mouth was suddenly so dry, I could not even swallow. I heard the low, steady tick-tock of the clock.
"You…will?" There was no anger in my voice now. She'd tricked me, as she has always been able to trick me, into doing the thing I believed could not be done.
"I will," she murmured, and her Voice had lost its irritation, too. "Of course I will."
"I meant everything I said, Christine. It will not be easy." I had to be sure she was aware of the morass into which she was diving.
"I never thought it would." She had taken my hand in hers and was stroking it absently. "Especially with a man like you."
I meant to ask her what the deuce she meant by that, but her soft touch, the comfortable sofa, and this ill-timed flood of emotion all conspired against me. I slumped back, asleep.
