Author's note: And in this chapter, we see yet another normal day at the Opera Populaire: complete with arguing, accusations, manipulations, plots against the Phantom, and a cameo appearance of a very Charles Dance-like scene between Erik and Carlotta. Does this sound like phun to you…?
Disclaimer: I don't own Phantom – happy?
Chapter Seventeen –
Twisted Every Way
Rehearsals were starting again and one morning, Raoul came to my flat, telling me that he would be taking me along with him to a meeting with the managers that day. He told me nothing but that Firmin and André had something important that they needed to say to the principal singers in the Opéra Populaire's cast: Carlotta, Piangi, and me. Of course, Raoul himself would be attending because he was the Opéra's chief patron and benefactor, and my fiancé.
I wondered, then, as I dressed myself to go, what was so dreadfully important that the managers had to say. I also wondered if Erik would be there, unseen, listening, and watching as always: completely in control of the situation, even though no one acknowledged him.
Then off we went.
As soon as I stepped out of the carriage and onto the snow-and-ice-covered esplanade that ran in front of the Opéra Populaire's grand façade, I knew that this day would be a long one. Not only would I face the challenge of meeting with the managers, but I would also be held back from perfect calmness by my desire to see Erik. His presence in my life was practically the only thing that I now desired. Almost.
I shivered, pulling my cloak closer about me. Raoul's arm found its way through mine and I turned my head to glance up at him from inside my hood. He tipped his head to gaze at me: his debonair, black hat and white scarf making a striking contrast against his sunlight-gold hair. "Shall we?" he asked, smiling gently.
He saw my hesitation and, mistaking it for apprehension of once more entering the Phantom's domain, he held me close for one moment, his fingertips lightly caressing my face. I closed my eyes.
"It's all right, you know," he said, softly. "There's nothing to be afraid of anymore, Christine – I won't let him hurt you."
I shook my head slowly as we mounted the steps together.
"That's not what I'm worried about, Raoul."
His face wore an expression of puzzled concern as we stepped inside of the Opéra Populaire's warm, dark interior. Here and there, I spotted workers polishing the gigantic, masterpiece statues, light fixtures, and banisters that littered the Opéra's finery: others were performing various others tasks to ensure that the opera house would look its finest at its next performance. Raoul walked us up the grand staircase, down the corridors, and towards Firmin and André's spacious office, and before he had even opened the door for us to enter, I heard Carlotta's voice from within and knew that there was trouble.
As usual.
Raoul swung the door open for me and I entered the room, apprehensively. A moment later, he took my hand and led us towards the group that was already standing in the center of the office: Firmin, André, Carlotta, and Piangi. I slid my hood off of my head and looked towards Carlotta, who greeted us first.
"Ah! Here's our little rosebud!" she spat, rolling the R in 'rosebud' extravagantly, and Firmin stepped towards us, putting on a smile although I saw the darkness that flitted behind his eyes. He was obviously going to try to make the best of a worst-case scenario. Oh no, what's happened now? I groaned inwardly, waiting for his words.
"Yes, yes – Miss Daae, quite the lady of the hour!" he said. I gave him a bemused look, not quite comprehending his sudden commendation towards me, and André, seeing my confusion, quickly explained.
"You've secured the largest rôle in this 'Don Juan'."
Carlotta's acidic, half-audible comment slashed through the air to me.
"Christine Daae? She doesn't have the voice!"
I ignored her words as Firmin implored, exasperatedly, "Signora, please!"
Raoul, meanwhile, had summoned the managers' attention and was asking them, in a low, almost incredulous tone, "Then I take it you're agreeing to his conditions?"
Over his voice, I heard Carlotta breathe something to herself, but I didn't completely hear her words, for André was saying to Raoul, "It appears, monsieur, that we have no choice." Raoul was about to say something more, presumably about the alternate route to obeying the Phantom's commands that he had discussed with the managers on the night of the masquerade, but Carlotta suddenly shrilled, cutting him off.
"She's the one behind this – Christine Daae!"
That is it!
"How dare you!"
I took a step towards her. After all of the years that I had allowed her to upbraid, ridicule, and mistreat me, after all that I had done to be a help to her, after everything that she had said and done to me, I had had enough. Carlotta Guidicelli was not going to treat me as if I was the perpetrator of this mess.
She shot me an equally cold look as she retorted, "I'm not a fool!"
A confrontation between us was imminent, for I wouldn't allow her to bring the blame upon my shoulders and she wouldn't back down to me. My anger surged through my veins as I spoke, once more, having almost reached her.
"You evil woman – how dare you!"
"You think I'm blind?" Carlotta asked me, bitterly and caustically.
The question had me at my wits' end. I only just kept myself from lunging at her and slapping her across the face.
"This isn't my fault!" I burst out, almost in tears.
I wanted to shake the whole affair off of my conscience and let them figure out what to do about the Phantom's opera on their own. I knew what they all wanted to do, even though no one had said anything about it – they would try to use the Phantom's opera to defeat him. If I took my part, they would use me to betray him to his downfall. I wouldn't do that to him – not now, not ever. And it was in this frame of mind that I spoke the words that I knew could either spell my destiny or my doom.
"I don't want any part in this plot!"
Firmin was the first to react in the immediate two seconds after my announcement. He stepped forward, trying to reason with me as he said, "Miss Daae, surely…" and André cut him off, clearly irritated with me, snapping, "But why not?"
Poor, unfortunate Piangi – who could speak hardly any French – was baffled at this scenario, and looked to Carlotta, asking, "What does she say?"
Firmin turned to me and said, impartially, "It's your decision."
Then he rounded on me, as annoyed as André.
"But why not?"
I stared at him with vacant eyes, knowing that – should I tell them why – they would never even begin to understand. Their minds just weren't like that.
"She's backing out!" Carlotta told Piangi.
I felt as if my mind was in a whirl: everyone was talking around me asking questions and making accusations. The managers were telling me to be reasonable, that it was a great honor and that I fitted the part, as Carlotta seethed in the background, breathing insults in Italian, and Raoul spoke to me. I barely heard his voice through the maelstrom of my mental consciousness.
"You have a duty!" André told me.
I turned on him, my blue eyes blazing, as I said, for everyone to hear, "I cannot sing it, duty or not!"
Then Raoul's hands came around my shoulders, caressing them, as he tried to calm me; he spoke into my ear, soothingly, although his words were only more irritating to my frenzied, bemused state of mind. "Christine," he said, gently, "You don't have to do anything, my love – they can't make you, do you hear me? No one can make you do this."
I turned around: gazing into his ice blue eyes, and knew that I had to say something to stop this. He didn't understand – he never would, but I couldn't let him go on looking at the situation in the way that he was or…
Suddenly, the door swung open.
Mme. Giry entered, Meg trailing closely behind her. Meg, as soon as our eyes met, started as if she wanted to come over to me and comfort me somehow. She was stopped as her black-gowned mother spoke: her low, rich voice halting all conversation in the room. "Please, monsieur," she said to Firmin, as she held out a pale slip of paper – a blood-red seal riding its crest – to him, "Another note."
With a look of grim expectancy, as if they were surrendering to an assigned fate, the managers wearily gestured to her: read it. As she began to read the note's contents, I glanced around the room and saw the group's various reactions as they were singled out by the Phantom's written words.
It was Erik's writing – there was no earthly doubt about that. The letter held the same exact arcane, dry, and bitter tone that his voice and mannerisms did. Closing my eyes, I saw a vision of him, sitting at the massive pipe organ in his black, splendid lair: his tall, slight figure gracefully bent over his letter as his strange, mismatched eyes acutely followed the words that he wrote down, as if he was scanning over every syllable, every letter, for its truth in the world. I could see the wavy, elegant outline of his golden-brown hair against the greater backdrop of shadows behind him: his high, perfect brow etched with thought and deep, dark pensiveness. I could almost read his thoughts…
Christine.
I flinched then, as though the word had just been breathed through the air, somehow, to me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up, through my haze of dark eyelashes, to see Raoul's eyes as he gazed, darkly, into my face. I tried to smile, to reassure him, that I was all right and that he need not be concerned. However…
Meanwhile, Mme. Giry was reading the note.
" 'Fondest greetings to you all!' " it ran, " 'I write this to send you a few instructions before rehearsals start: Carlotta must be taught to act…' "
Just then, another, bodiless voice came in on Mme. Giry's words, overpowering her voice and stunning us all to silence. I stiffened, knowing that the voice that we now heard was none but Erik's – my Phantom of the Opera. We all gazed upward, as if we expected to see him lurking in some dark corner of the room…but of course, that was all stupidity, for we all knew…you never saw the Phantom of the Opera.
"…not her normal trick of strutting under the limelight," the voice continued, vibrating in the abruptly silent air. "Our Don Juan must lose some weight – it's not healthy in a man of Signor Piangi's age. And my managers must learn that their place is in the office, not the arts."
There was a pause and the silence seemed to draw breath.
"As for Miss Christine Daae…"
Another pause.
"No doubt she'll do her best – it's true, her voice is good. She knows, though, should she wish to excel, she has much still to learn…but such things will only come to pass if her pride will allow her to return to me, her teacher. Your obedient friend…"
How ironic.
I could barely keep from smiling knowingly to myself.
The voice trailed off, then disappeared entirely, leaving us frozen in our places, completely unable to move. The silence was as cold and numbing as the blackest hour of the most freezing, blizzard-filled night of the winter. Mme. Giry read the last two words of the letter: her voice low and quiet.
" 'And Angel."
Another split second of utter, impassable, deadly stillness whisked by us, like the wings of a noiseless bat; suddenly, I realized that all attention had focused on Raoul as he stood beside me: his eyes bright with a new thought.
"We have all been blind," he said, seeming to speak more to himself than anyone else in the room. "And yet – yet the answer is staring us in the face! This could be the chance to ensnare our clever friend…"
André and Firmin were instantly rapt with anxiousness for his next words.
"We're listening!" André said, as Firmin commanded, "Go on!"
Raoul drew out the words of his plan, slowly, as if he was developing it even as he spoke. I listened, a knot of horror growing in my breast as he continued.
"We shall play his game – perform his work in complete concordance with his instructions – but we shall be the party to hold the ace this time. For, you see," he said, turning to me with a look in his eyes that terrified me, "if Miss Daae sings…he is certain to attend."
He left off and the managers abruptly picked up on his lead.
"We make certain that the doors are barred…" André said, carried along by the idea; likewise, Firmin put in, "We make certain our men are there…" and Raoul bit off, hastily: ominously, "We make certain they're armed!"
I had to hastily catch at the corner of the office desk to keep my face from being introduced to the rather dusty carpet as Raoul made the announcement that was the equivalent of a death warrant to Erik, already savoring the victory that was impossible for him – any of them – to taste.
"The curtain falls – his reign will end!"
My vision swam in the split second of stunned silence that followed.
No,no, NO!
I was barely aware of what happened after that; from what I could tell, everyone instantly began to argue, plead, or discuss Raoul's plan of action. Carlotta and Piangi were rabid in their Italian, speaking to each other in the language that none of us could understand; Mme. Giry was begging to managers and Raoul not to do something. I stood there: my hands clasped around my head, my eyes closed as I tried to shut them out.
This was madness! They could never defeat Erik in such a conventional, human way! Raoul's plan would only lead to someone's injury or death – they couldn't possibly desire such results! They couldn't possibly do this!
Something snapped inside of me.
I burst through the tumult with a wild shriek.
"If you don't stop, I'll go mad!"
Instantly, the chaotic gabble of voices ceased and I suddenly felt very weak. In a split second, Raoul's arm was around my waist and he was whispering soothing, gentle nothings into my ear as Firmin and André wheeled their huge, leather-backed chair around the desk and seated me in it.
Once the dizzy sensation in my temples had dissipated, I turned to Raoul, clutching the lapels of his coat with anxious hands.
"Please, Raoul," I pleaded with him, trying not to cry, "Don't make me do this! Raoul, it scares me – don't put me through this ordeal by fire. I can't do it, Raoul – I can't destroy him. You don't understand: mere human snares can't defeat him. It won't work, and you know it!"
I turned my head away, unhappily, as everyone gaped at me.
"What I once used to dream I now dread. This plan will never succeed, and he'll never leave this place. He'll always be here…always…it won't stop here."
Carlotta's words were the first that I heard.
"She's mad," she breathed, in horror.
Raoul made me look at him, his hand cupping my cheekbone, and he gazed into my eyes, as if he was trying to read me. I stared back at him, with empty, haunted eyes that told him nothing…and revealed nothing to the world except for my sadness.
"You know that he's nothing but a man," he said, gently, as if he was trying to understand, but I could tell without any hardship that all he was really trying to do was ascertain, for his own assurance, that I really wasn't mad, "Yet while he lives, Christine, he'll continue to haunt us until we're dead…? Is this…true?"
I averted my gaze from him and spoke to myself.
"Twisted every way – wrenched in each possible direction…what answer can I give? Is this where the road leads, to this horror – am I to betray the man who once inspired my voice? Do I have any alternative, any possible way out of this nightmare? I know I can't refuse…and yet I wish there was some way that I could."
I closed my eyes, praying as my lips moved with words too silent for anyone else to hear, "Oh God in heaven, help me. If I agree, what horrors wait for me to stumble upon them, in this: the Phantom's opera…?"
As soon as those words had fled my soul, I felt Raoul's hand on my shoulder, and I turned my head to look at him as my soul began to ache relentlessly.
"Christine, Christine…" he said, very tenderly, even as I felt something – some painful, undesired emotion – inside of me disintegrate and vanish into nothingness, "I love you…don't think that I don't care about how you feel. It's just that…"
He trailed off and looked over his shoulder. My gaze instantly roved to see what he was staring towards, and I realized that it was the group of silent people who stood behind us, waiting to see if I would cooperate…if I would betray my Phantom. My mind began to whirl again at the implications of the thought that Raoul wanted to use me as bait – that I was to be a mere decoy in the downfall of the man who had given me my life, my voice…and his music.
I couldn't do it.
"Without you, Christine," Raoul's voice slowly ebbed its way into my conscious mind: a remorseless reminder of everything that I had come to know during the past six months, "It will all be lost for us. Every hope and every care of every person here, in this place, rests on you alone now—"
NO!
No, I wouldn't do it! Let them brand me as the Phantom's servant, as someone who cherished him – someone who was purposefully ignorant of his crimes – but I wouldn't be their toy: their Judas to poor, unknowing Erik! Never!
I scrambled up from the chair and rounded on him. I must have looked like a madwoman to all of them, telling from the way that Raoul stared at me: an emotion in his ice blue eyes that I couldn't quite read. Ignoring him, I made a rush for the door, but he called after me, halting my exeunt.
"Christine!"
He had betrayed me – every last one of them had betrayed me. I turned around and met his eyes for one split second.
"I'm sorry!"
And then I ran out the door, down the hallway, as tears – the hot, pitiless, penitent tears of a grief-stricken, downtrodden child – streamed, unheeded, down my cheeks.
* * * * * *
I was still sobbing as I ran to my dressing room and threw open the door, then closed and locked it behind myself. Everything seemed to be in a blur as I fell into my dressing table chair and laid my head on my crossed arms, letting my tears spend themselves. Then, there was a knock on the door.
"Christine? Christine, please – open the door – speak to me! Christine!"
Raoul. Simply about the last person that I wanted to see at that moment. I remained where I was, not moving an inch, and stared blankly into the dressing table mirror before me. Perhaps if I ignored him for a long enough time, he would give up and leave me in peace with the shadows and my thoughts.
A more insistent knock on the door – he was getting frantic.
"Christine? Christine!"
I spoke without turning around, my voice completely devoid of emotion.
"Go away, Raoul. I don't want to see you – or anyone else – for a very long time."
He wasn't even silent for a second.
"Oh – no! It's Erik…he's in there with you, isn't he?" A pause, then belligerently, "Come out and show your face, you coward! Stop haunting Christine – you can't control her, you monster! Leave us in peace!"
I suppressed the desire to make a sound of frustration and, instead, rose from my chair and crossed the room, moving slowly, calculatedly, and deliberately. I opened the door and looked out at my former friend and erstwhile lover. His blue eyes were shining and he looked honestly – pitiably – concerned. Afraid.
"Raoul." I said, softly. He gazed into my face. "Raoul," I repeated, firmly but gently, "Erik isn't here…but if he were here, you would be honestly regretting your words right at this moment…just as I regret your other words on that night after 'Il Muto'."
"Christine…" he whispered, his voice broken. "What do you mean? Which words are you talking about?"
He knew as well as I did what I was about to say.
"Any of them – all of them. I regret that you told me that you were in love with me, I regret that you told me to forget him, that he was only a wraith: a 'waking nightmare', and that you asked me to marry you. But…most of all…I regret that you had the heartlessness to call a man: simply another man, who has a mind, emotions, and a soul just as you do, a monster."
He stared at me, as if I had suddenly turned into Erik himself. "Christine," he breathed, horror in his voice, "What has he done to you? How can you say such things – how can he control you this way…make you say these things?"
There was nothing more that I wanted to do in that moment than stage an all-out diva tantrum right there at the door of my dressing room. However, I didn't. I was more than that – Erik had taught me to be more than that, although he hadn't meant to, and probably was utterly unknowing of it. I drew myself up and gazed at Raoul, softly and compassionately.
"He isn't controlling me, Raoul. He never was. But let me inform you now of who is – and who will be, from now on. I am controlling myself, Raoul. I am tired of living in a world that thinks it can manipulate me with its cruelties, its vices, and lies, a world that shuns me because I am poor and without parents, and a chorus girl – and most of all because I am a woman. I will no longer be told what to think, what to say. I will no longer be told how to act. I will control myself."
A great, consuming silence stepped in between us, and made my stunning words seem to ring out in the dark air. Raoul then dropped his eyes from mine, shaking his head. "So now you've gone all suffragette?" he asked, bitterly.
I reached out and raised his face to mine with one hand. I smiled ever so slightly at him for a moment. Then, I spoke.
"No, Raoul. You just never asked me if I loved you."
* * * * * *
Erik resumes the narrative…
After Christine left for her home, I stayed in the lair with not much else to do until the managers' meeting with the principals of 'Don Juan'. As usual, I spied on them and heard the ever-repeated, seemingly endless cycle of bickering, pleading, and accusations that just about every one of them put forth. Sickened by their childish take on things, I left before the meeting was over.
I would give Christine her private singing lesson from behind the mirror that day.
Since the Victome had returned, she begged me not to let him catch us together, and I knew all-too-well why she asked this of me: she was still scarred by the memory of that night after 'Il Muto'. I couldn't remember very much of it myself, but she obviously did, and I was forced to respect her wishes. But then, after all, it wasn't such a terrible scenario – behind the mirror, I could gaze upon her to my heart's content, and no one would ever know except for me.
Her lesson would be at noon, and right now it was only twenty minutes after eleven o'clock. I had some time to spend before I could go to her – but somehow, today, my usual glee in haunting the theater was strangely diminished. I was quite acutely bored, and I spent a good amount of my time before the lesson simply stalking the secret passages of the Opéra, devoid of thought or feeling. I had just turned a corner behind a wall that made up part of a large corridor near a row of dressing rooms when I heard a very irritating, very familiar voice.
Carlotta, of course; she was standing in the corridor, conversing with some of the elder members of the cast, and there were a few ballet girls tagging along just outside of their circle. No doubt, they are hoping to catch some of the wanton's usual gossip, I thought, and was about to continue on my way when I heard the name 'Christine' fall from the diva's lips. I turned abruptly, freezing.
"Well, if he thinks she's so good and talented," Carlotta was saying, in her heavy Italian accent, her tone fraught with biting malice, "then why doesn't he come straight out and say so to the managers, instead of all this hiding behind walls and making bodiless voices? Besides, the little squeaky mouse can't sing worth a tin thimble – and she's much too skinny and thin! What could anybody see in the gamin?"
Oh, Signora Guidicelli.
Thank you for that incredibly brilliant and oh-so-original monologue!
You've just given me something to occupy the rest of this hour with.
* * * * * *
I stood silent behind the wall for a moment, looking into the heavily decorated, opulent, and highly ostentatious dressing room. Its one occupant – Carlotta – sat at the vanity table, watching herself in the mirror as she brushed at her hair with a jeweled comb.
"Hello, Carlotta."
I touched a lever and let the wall panel in front of me open, revealing myself to her. The woman stiffened in her chair, seeing my reflection in the mirror: the image of a horrific, bat-like presence garbed in all black, complete with a velvet cloak and a menacing, unforgiving black mask. Her hazel eyes bulged and she went ashen beneath her powder and rouge. I nearly smiled, icily, and stepped into the room, drawing a large trunk after me. "I have something for you." I continued.
Meeting her gaze with unconcealed, cruel exultation, I gestured with an elegant flourish to that trunk and flipped its lock open, raising the lid.
"I hope it's to your liking."
And then a horde of frenzied, disoriented rats – confused and eager to escape from their confinement within the dark box – swarmed out of the trunk and into the room, their squeaks filling the air.
"Rats for a rat."
I turned and went for the open wall panel again, closing it behind me, and walked away, leaving Carlotta in her dressing room, perched atop her ornate dressing table chair, shrieking and hysterical.
And let's hope you've learned your lesson this time, Signora…
Because the next time that I have to deal with you and your hubris concerning your talents, I will take much more drastic action.
* * * * * *
When I finally reached Christine's room, I was very late. Apologies rising to my lips, I went to the mirror…but she had already left for rehearsal. I mentally gave myself a very thorough round of verbal abuse, ruing my bad timing, but in the end, there was nothing that I could do about it. I was late, but it wasn't the end of the world.
Then I noticed something unusual.
There was a piece of folded and sealed paper resting on the floor just inside of the mirror. I stooped to pick it up, questions rising within my mind – and saw that my name was upon it. Christine had written it to me. Hastily, I broke the seal and scanned over the contents of the note inside. She had waited for me to arrive for our lesson, she said, but then Meg and Mme. Giry had come to fetch her for the rehearsal and she could not stay behind. However, that afternoon, she was planning on making a visit to her father's grave at the church in Perros-Guirrec…and she wished for me to meet her there, for she had something very important to tell me.
If I came, she asked that I would play the 'Music of the Night' on a violin to let her know that I was there. What she needed to tell me so desperately, I had no idea; what her intentions were in asking me to meet her there were completely unknown to me.
But I could only obey.
As I was preparing to make my journey back down the lair, I paused to watch the practice for a moment. Surely I could spare a single second of time to see if M. Reyer was carrying out my instructions to their greatest affluence. Surely I could tarry to see her sing – sing for me …
I found the practice to be in the midst of a momentary standstill. M. Reyer was berating Signor Piangi about his lack of propensity for the correct tonality of Don Juan's lyrics, and, of course, Carlotta – seeming completely recovered from my trick in the dressing room, blast it! – was railing about something, as usual, while Mme. Giry spoke to her calmly. The chorus was chattering among themselves and time was being wasted.
I sighed and went to work.
Down below, on the stage, the piano that Reyer normally played upon during practice rang to life, pounding out the music from 'Don Juan Triumphant' with great force and rhythm. I smiled dryly as the startled chorus froze and began to sing the piece with surprising accurateness. Suddenly, I realized that, already, someone was missing from the chorus: seemingly vanished from her seat.
And then I saw the slim, small, sapphire-cloaked figure of Christine Daae as she slipped silently, gracefully off of the stage and into the darkness beyond the wings.
I followed her.
* * * * * *
Author's note: I always liked that scene with the rats…take that, Carlotta (hehehehehe)!