The longère was sun-drenched and unassuming, dripping with ivy in a manner so casual and uncanny that Christine would have been hard pressed to remove it, if given the choice. Wooden beams criss-crossed stone at all angles, the sight of which stirred something deep in her memory—the smell of timber and stone, her mother's lap. Atop the ground floor was a small attic story, its dormer windows gleaming in the daylight like capped teeth. A small, lopsided stable lay abandoned at one end of the house, while the other was capped perpendicularly by a large kitchen opening out onto the back garden; it was as ordinary and wonderful of a home as Christine could imagine—the sort of home that seemed a distant luxury to a girl who grew up sleeping in barns and eating little more than potatoes for weeks on end. Unfussy and simple.
The opposite of her marriage, in short.
The most galling aspect of this change of scenery, however, was how close Erik dangled it next to freedom; though partitioned off by a long, empty road that was shadowed by the great tangle of Fontainebleau forest, the house itself was little more than a morning's leisurely walk to market in Bourron-Marlotte. She thought it a faerie's trick, as their carriage passed through the stone-walled village, people dripping with pleasant commonness as they went about their day.
"Recognize a friend?" Erik asked, sharply enough that Christine jumped in her seat. He was wearing his mask, for once—a precaution she couldn't begrudge him—the result being that it took the young woman several moments to realize, with some appalment, that her husband was merely teasing her.
"No," she said, yanking the curtains closed and throwing the carriage into backlit darkness. Joking did not suit—not now, not when Christine was so certain this was another one of Erik's little games—and so the strange couple spent the last hour of their journey in bemused silence.
When they arrived at their new home, swaddled in trees, Christine practically flew down the steps of the coach, halting before the front door like she'd been stricken by lightning—too terrified to move, lest she wake up back in her old bedroom. All the while, Erik remained, berating and terrifying the coachman as they both unloaded the pile of steamer trunks and bags lashed neatly to the carriage roof. Any moment now, she thought. Any moment, he will yank this all up from under my feet—
Erik cleared his throat. Christine blinked, twitching to see him standing at her side while removing his morning coat, the sun beating down upon them both. There was sweat coursing down his neck, and it nearly made her blush. She remembered wondering to Raoul how hideous Erik might look during the day, and it scared her to know that it was hardly any different than watching another man after a day's toil. "What do you think," he asked casually, as if he were remarking upon breakfast or a cravat. "Is Christine pleased?"
In a happier life, a happier marriage, it might have been a moment of confluence, of understanding. A moment of recognition for the terrible sacrifices and mistakes they had both made. But, unbidden, she thought of the wedding dress, soaked in her own blood, the Vicomte's body, ice-white, coughing up water. Mama being interred into the ground with only her maid to mourn her; alas, the young woman could not stop herself. She fixed her eyes on a large rock in the front garden and sighed.
"How do you know I won't run?" The words slipped from Christine's mouth as easily as a "thank you" might have. She heard the leather of Erik's gloves groan, saw his fists flexing in rage and disappointment in her mind's eye.
"Because you won't," was all he said.
And he was right. The Vicomte was gone. Her poor foster mother was as dead as her blood's parents. What little reputation she had at the Opera now bore the permanent stink of gossip and contempt from those who remembered the Comte with fondness—a considerably larger group than those who might fight such scandal on her behalf. It seemed a painful fact that the only person who would struggle for her was Erik, and it seemed the only fight in him was directed at keeping her by his side.
Christine did not cry over this realization. Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, giving Erik her trembling hand, letting him lead her into this better, happier prison with all the pretense of a normal bridegroom. She tried her best to be pleased with the open sitting room, the new piano that sat at its center, the fine dining room table with its matching credenza. Nodded numbly as he explained how a few key pieces of furniture would eventually be moved up from the cellars, while the rest could rot in hell, for all he cared.
Still, Christine gave credit where credit was due: despite his selfishness, despite the horrible rictus grin spreading across his face—at least Erik had the wherewithal to show her their new bedroom last.
#
By some queer and cruel turn of fate, sharing a bed with her husband was the least of Christine's troubles. She had worried that married life, in a house above the ground, would bend her into the shape of a woman she did not recognize—a woman that let Erik freely take what he felt entitled to. A woman that might enjoy such attention, however stubborn or embarrassed she may outwardly appear.
"Goodness," Erik sighed at her, after she'd danced around him that long first night in the house. "If you're so worried about that virtue of yours, I'll go sleep in the woods. With the rest of the monsters, what!"
And though shamed and irritated beyond mortification, Christine dragged herself into that makeshift bed, hands buried in her face—only to wake up the same unchanged being. Nightshirt in place. Hair un-mussed. The only sign that she had not been entirely alone was the paltry outline of Erik's long body cratering the mattress, disintegrating before her eyes as she dressed. When she went downstairs for breakfast, he was already sitting in the kitchen, looking out at the garden as though touching her was the last thing he'd ever dream of doing.
So it went, every night: Christine excused herself from her husband's distant affection and ascended the steps to the attic bedroom, where even the shadows themselves felt butter-warm. Several days following, she was both relieved and crestfallen to see the bed from the old Louis-Phillipe room now lying in wait for them both—it was something familiar, at least, or so Christine told herself as another day passed with little to show for it.
Those lonely moments in bed sometimes seemed like the only ones left to her where she could touch the Christine she'd once been. In those long minutes, she could let herself drift off into whatever cul-de-sac her imagination might guide her—to Papa, to the rare piece of music that brought her no pain, to handsome, stupid factory men who couldn't tell a C# from a D. And like clockwork, just as Christine was on the periphery of pleasure or else sleep, Erik would join her, either pretending or caring not to notice that his intended already had her back turned against him, listening to his every minuscule movement like a cornered animal expecting to be devoured.
But then, eventually, shockingly, Erik would fall asleep without so much as a whispered good night, leaving his wife to her anger. And to her even greater displeasure, Christine once again learned he was only a man, fully capable of frivolities like snoring and leaving the bedsheets unmade to pursue his own interests, as all men did. It galled her and endeared her at turns—muttering at Erik to clean up after himself like a mother badgering a child, while he bowed that ugly head of his and smiled beatifically, as if she were showering him in compliments.
Perhaps , Christine wondered as she watched him chop wood from the kitchen window, this was the sort of normal interaction all husbands and wives had. Perhaps her Mama had done the same to her Papa. Perhaps this is what Erik meant when he said he wanted to live like a normal man ; if she paused to think about it for too long, it broke her heart. So Christine ventured to put it out of her mind entirely.
In this fashion, the two of them had fallen into a pattern that felt like something out of opera buffa—they were the pleasant, clinical married couple who read to one another by firelight, who cleaned up after each other and mended each other's loose buttons when needed. The couple who talked of autumn, of turning soil, of switching out the bed linens for the coming winter. They were the couple that walked into town on weekends, the dutiful husband waiting back by his lonesome as his little wife spent money however freely she wished.
That first walk into town stretched the limits of Christine's ability to remain composed—her in a little veiled hat, him in that dreadful false nose, the long tips of his fingers perfected on her forearm; from the outside, they made an unremarkable, if not mildly eccentric pair, but Christine knew better than to delude herself—his touch might feel affectionate—might even look enticing—but it was a warning. If you run, it said, you are lost. The light squeeze Erik gave her at the edge of Bourron-Marlotte's busy little center, just before they parted ways, said just as much.
And so Christine bought her seeds and admired fabric and did little more than to keep her eyes trained at her feet. As she sat at the little brasserie dominating a small causeway of shops, picking nervously at a plate of cheese and glass of fortified wine, she wondered when her husband would swoop in to ruin everything—the playful mein of the young waiter, all spotty mustache and smiles, who indulged her in another glass of tawny port at his expense. The clouds, thick and white as goose down, lazing across the heavens as angels might. The knowledge that she still had words for strangers, eyes for seeing. And yet as the morning stretched on, Erik was nowhere to be seen. It was only the low rumbling of distant thunder that reminded Christine of her duties, an exorbitant spit of coins spilling from her hands as she rose from her table.
"Ma'am!" Christine could hear the waiter crying out for her, short of running to return her spare change. And yet she was Orpheus himself, too afraid to turn around lest she tell the poor boy everything and lose herself to the chaos that might follow. Lest she tell him about her music, the house she loved and desired to burn to the ground, the sailor she'd once loved, the husband from hell who took his place.
Man and woman met at the edge of town, the thunder roaring in approval. Together, they walked back home in relative silence, Erik bearing the spoils of their excursion under his long arm, humming Brahms all the while. Christine could not help but notice the cheerful gait to his steps, wide as scythe's path. A wife to stroll with on Sundays , a voice said in the back of her mind. A normal, pleasant Sunday morning.
When the rain finally began in earnest, it came heavy and warm, the sky in tatters. Erik practically ripped off his jacket upon its arrival, swearing and gasping in amusement as it soaked them both through their clothes. "Alas," he cried out, draping the woolen thing over Christine's head as he beckoned her close. "It's France's first monsoon and us her inaugural audience—would you believe it, Christine?" And Erik laughed so sincerely, running ahead of her with his arms thrown open like a child, that a small smile made its home across her mouth of its own accord. By the time they had both reached the little brick stoop at the front of the house, completely sodden and filthy with mud, the day's shopping in near-ruin, the smile remained.
"The keys," Erik whined as he groped uselessly at the front door. "God in heaven, where are my keys?" And as he fumbled with his pockets, Christine finally let forth her own mirth—a painful projectile that ricocheted off every bone in her rib cage, that shot from her throat like fire. Through the din of the rain and the rustling of the forest, Erik heard it, turning where he stood. The game was lost, replaced with a sincere and marveled stare that made Christine feel hot, despite her current bedraggled state. His shirt, immaculately starched, now hung like a diaphanous second skin over his chest. Out of the corner of her eye, a dark hand played at a loose strand of her hair.
"I'm getting cold," Christine lied. "I believe the kitchen door is unlocked." The hand darted back into its cave, and all was as it had been. They made for the other end of the house, and Erik was sure to wonder about the weather to the point of peril every following Sunday. Quite frequently, it suddenly became too cold for their walk. Some days, he insisted their fine things be delivered—had he not the money to manage such things for his little wife, after all?
Still, the image crept back to Christine in small moments. Kneading dough, she thought of the earnestness of his—their—laughter. Reading her novel, she thought of Erik soaking wet, staring at her with the eyes of someone who held so much warmth. When she made it a point to do something with the back garden, her hands blooming with callouses from pulling weeds and handling a trowel, Christine expected her husband to intervene—as he always did the moment she had any little bit of art to her name. To lecture her on peak planting seasons and sustainability, on the dissolvant nature of Loire valley soil. But one afternoon, as Erik caught her depositing onion flower seeds into a low trench carved along the eastern wall of the house, he stopped in his tracks entirely. Watched her as she dropped each little token of life in its new home, with the same intensity a man like him might have summoned for Massenet or Verdi.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked. A bit of Christine atrophied as she scanned the question for malice, so unexpected and direct as it was. The seeds in her gloved hand shivered.
"I think," she answered slowly, smoothing the turned soil over her darlings, "that gardening sometimes feels like I am burying family. Burying friends."
"It is a hard ordeal, to bury something," he agreed, tilting his head as he ran his own bare fingers through the dirt, every silvery scar wrapping around them alight with sunshine. "But from such plots come such fragrant memories." It was in little exchanges like these, so simple and so mired in Erik's own queer fashion, that she found herself able to make dinner in peace. Found herself able to laugh at his stories, her own childish rejoinders. Found herself able to pretend he'd come to her as any man might have, candid and clumsy, but sincere.
Yet all the while, Christine dreamed of the day she might make her fury known. A cruel tragedy, all things considered; she might have found a way to make peace with herself and her situation, if only her thoughts hadn't drifted off to Raoul—wherever he was, most likely rotting in the ground. Erik had been too complacent, too cheerful, too indulgent in her whims for Christine to believe otherwise.
But the worst of it was that Erik had resumed his charming veneer of peace and accommodation as Christine feared he might—suppressing his rages in the face of hers, letting her conduct the tempo of every conversation, every minor interaction, as if she was the one in control of their whole predicament. If dinner came and it was all Christine could do to keep from breaking the china in a fit of anger, he sat with his head sloped in contrition. If she screamed at him to leave her alone, as she often did, Erik avoided her for the rest of the day, locking himself in the study and picking away at his Torres guitar like he was tearing at his own awful skin.
The only genuine hints to her husband's irritation over this arrangement eked out during their music lessons, whereupon his comments grew increasingly pointed and rude. Her voice, which he'd once deemed seraphic—beautiful enough to astonish Paris—was now pedestrian and clumsy, meant for parlor songs and entertaining children. The memory of the Angel proved mild and coddling by comparison.
"Hmm," he said, one morning, after an unsuccessful run at a little Grétry ditty. The light was suffocating, but it was nothing compared to the stifled aura reeking off of the man.
"What do you mean," she asked, stiffening. Erik was all too familiar in the worst possible ways, during these little lessons. So much the monster, the rotting impresario who did not belong above the ground.
"No. What I mean, Christine, is no." And he rose from the piano, as neatly as someone buying shoes might turn away from a pair of cheap boots. When he made for the hallway, undoubtedly to duck into the small retreat they'd come to call the music room, Christine slammed her hand down upon the keys.
"What is the point?" she cried.
Erik stopped where he stood, shoulders pinned to his over-large ears. "I beg your pardon?"
"What is the point of these lessons, if I'm never meant to sing on the stage again? What is the point, Erik, if all you mean to do is mock me and belittle me?"
Here her husband turned, straightening his posture, flipping the collar of his shirt back to its natural home. "The point is for the art of it. Have you never done anything out of love for the sport, Christine? I thought you did."
She nearly lunged at him then, thinking of her ruined career, how he made tatters of the one art that kept her tethered to her father. Instead, she slammed the lid above the keys down as hard as she might, the instrument ringing in ominous discordance all the while. When she ran out in the garden to cry, Erik did not join her.
So it continued, those endless weeks of sunshine and tedium, the plates of something hateful and bloodwarm all the while shifting under their feet. You could almost smell it, salty and foul as it was.
"What is wrong with you," her husband sniped from across the piano one July afternoon, when the heat was so oppressive that he'd abandoned any modicum of decency beyond shirtsleeves and linen pants, the pedals pumped by bare toes that looked more like gnarled trees than human feet. She did well to button her dresses up to her neck, if only out of spite.
"What do you mean," Christine responded cooly, knowing full well that her mind had been elsewhere during the lesson; in truth, she was beginning to worry that she sometimes wished for Erik to lash out, to degrade her, if only that she might have good reason to swipe at him.
"Your passaggio—what are you playing at, my dear?" Erik's face was not half so awful as the look he lobbed in her direction, cat-eyed and baleful. "You moved into your head voice with all of the grace of an old whore climbing into bed."
So it was with blessed, newfound guiltlessness that Christine decided she must counter. Prayers were words without meaning, but what she finally formulated with her lips was—
"And what would you know of old whores," she spat. Erik glared back at her, his moldering lips twisted in wrath, his yellow gaze wide with shock. In that moment of victory, Christine decided that his eyes looked like piss-holes in muddied snow; subsequently, she was unable to contain the laugh that burst from her, hot as dynamite. In the past, she might have fled the room in terror. But now, she tossed the sheet music in his hideous face with all the flippancy of a school girl, walking to the kitchen and out the back door as easily as if she had kissed Erik goodbye on the cheek. The flower beds were more pressing than any music had ever been. The calm of the woods by the house prettier than any passage that wretch might coax out of his bits of ivory and wood. The blessed and stupid animals the best of companions—the mildest, the gentlest, uncursed by the burden of marriage.