CHAPTER FIVE
(In which our heroine makes one choice concerning masks)
In my dreams that night, I stood before Erik on a cold, deserted, windswept plain. I reached out, and this time he did not prevent me from removing the mask from his face. I dropped it, watched it fall to the ground like a wounded bird, then raised my eyes to find the face of an angel, inhumanly beautiful, looking back at me. He smiled and offered a hand to me.
I stepped forward, my hand rising to clasp his -- then his face seemed to twist and writhe, taking on before my eyes Raoul's handsome features. No, not Raoul; perhaps his brother Phillipe, for Raoul had never had that cynical, arrogant, jaded sneer. I snatched back my hand and shrank back. Even as I did so, Erik's face writhed again and became the ghoulish, skeletal face of a demon, of Death himself come to take me for my presumption in daring to love one of God's highest Angels. I attempted to back away, but tripped and fell. He moved closer, leaning in with a terrible dark laugh…
And I awoke, shivering.
Christine sat up, blinking quickly to clear the dream from her eyes. It had been a dream and nothing more, the product of strained nerves perhaps. She was awake now. Only a dream. Breathe in, breathe out. Only a dream, which couldn't touch her here.
But where was here? Not her small, cold room, with Mama Valerius blowing on the coals. Instead she lay on a chaise lounge in a small, elegant bedroom -- at least she presumed it so, since a mahogany bed stood in the center, canopied in a deep red like spiced burgundy. A lit oil lamp, nearly full, sat on the marble top of an old Louis-Philippe chest of drawers against the wall on the far side of the bed. Surely this had to be another, better dream…except that when she sat up, she'd dislodged a blanket of the same spiced burgundy shade, soft and slightly fuzzy under her hand, and the wood of the chaise's frame felt hard, slightly cold and carved into fantastical shapes under her exploring fingers. Too solid for any dream. She pushed the blanket aside and swung her feet down to the carpet, then remembered.
The night before. Her Angel's voice, calling her out of her dressing room and into the darkness. The journey down on horseback, like memories of a fever-dream. The discovery that her Angel and the Phantom were one and the same, and both nothing more than a man named Erik. Who swore he loved her.
She shook her head violently and rose to her feet to explore the room.
She hadn't expected the comfort she found. A soft carpet under her bare feet, its intricate pattern making her think of Persia and the decadence of the Near East; the warm wool blanket under which she'd slept; the warmth without an obvious fire to provide it. Was this the home of the Phantom who stalked about the Opera House like a skeleton? She tried the doors, and found it opened under her hand, leading to a bathroom of marble and brass. She twisted a handle on the faucet of the sink, and warm water came out, splashing her hand. She leaned forward to rinse the sleep out of her eyes. Not the home of a ghost at all; indeed, this seemed more like the palace of the Angel of Music. Except he is not an angel, she reminded herself as she turned from the sink to find thick cloths in the same deep red as the room, ready to dry herself with, and warm against her skin. How had he arranged all this? Christine couldn't recall hearing of this sort of luxury outside of -- well. Outside of the harems of Persia, come to think of it. Oh, but the bathtub! Christine hesitated in putting back the cloth in her hands, and stared yearningly at the sunken bathtub a few steps away from the sink. Long, hot baths, allowed to soak without fear of interruption from other tenants of the boarding-house…
"No," she muttered, tearing her eyes away. "He promised me a way out. Enough daydreaming, Christine Daae: you're in quite enough trouble for one day, with some to spare for the next."
Unfortunately, neither bedroom nor bathroom proved to have any other doors that she could find. However, on the dresser lay a folded piece of paper with her name written on it in red ink.
She grabbed it and unfolded it, scanning the spidery handwriting. My dear Christine, it ran. You need not waste away worrying over your fate -- I assure you, you have no better or more respectful friend in the world than I. Forgive me for leaving you alone thus: I have had to go out to do some shopping. You may consider the house your own until I return. I shall bring back all the (here there was a blot, as though he had hesitated too long in choosing a word and let the pen drip, or had chosen a word and then crossed it out) clothes and such like you may need when I return. Your servant, Erik.
Erik's note succeeded not at all in calming me. I had not even thought to fear the sort of ungentlemanly behavior against which he sought to reassure me, and how was I to 'consider the house my own' when I could not even leave my room? My servant, he called himself. I scarcely need tell you with what bitter mockery I regarded those words, and reproached myself for my own blindness. He had lied to me, deceived me, taken my girlish dreams and manipulated them into a net in which he had ensnared my soul. I did not regret his leaving me alone: I wanted never to see him again.
By the time Erik returned, I had worked myself into a fine fury.
Three taps on the wall startled Christine out of her pacing. She turned just in time to see part of the wall swing into the room, and the man with the mask -- her Angel, her kidnapper, Erik, whatever he called himself -- still in evening dress, stepped in, carrying an armload of hatboxes and packages wrapped in brown paper. Without even looking at her, he moved to the bed and carefully set them down. He moved like a dancer, Christine noticed sulkily, graceful and light on his feet.
"So there you are," she said. "Are you not yet tired of this game? Or do you mean to continue to keep me prisoner?"
He didn't respond, arranging the hatboxes carefully on the bed.
Christine bit the inside of her cheek, then tried again. "Is the mask part of your charades? Or do you wear it for some other reason? I cannot imagine any reason why an honorable man would need a mask."
"You will someday see my face, Mademoiselle Daae, but not yet. Perhaps not ever." He straightened and looked back at her. "My reasons are my own. However, I beg leave to doubt your knowledge of honorable men if you are in the habit of entertaining company while dressed thus."
Christine's cheeks stung with her sudden blush, and she clutched at her blouse. Siebel's masculine garb was certainly irregular to begin with, with its close-fitting breeches, but a night's sleep had slipped free several buttons on her costume's blouse as well, exposing far more than any generally saw except her dresser. (And her Angel. -- no, she must not think about that!)
"However, I shall assume last night's events unsettled you, and left you unaware of the time. It is nearly two o'clock in the afternoon. I shall return for you in half an hour: I shall have lunch laid out by then." He went to the dresser, picked up her watch, wound it, and set it as she spoke. He turned and handed it to her with an ironic little bow. "For both our sakes, mademoiselle, I beg you: be dressed when I return."I bathed and dressed within the allotted half-hour, still trembling on the edge of hysterical anger and terror, with a pair of scissors by my side the entire while so I might kill myself if that door in the wall opened again before time. The normal, every-day activities of dressing myself improved my mental clarity, if it did not calm my nerves: by the time I rejoined Erik, I had silently sworn not to offend him in any way, but rather to flatter him as I must to win my freedom…entirely forgetting, I fear, his offer of the previous night to show me the exit if only I requested so.In the event, all my private hysterics were for nothing. Erik played the perfect gentleman over luncheon, answering my questions without hesitation and telling me what he planned.
"It will take time before the Opera can open for performance again, after such a disaster as occurred last night. I confess, I enjoy your company too much to wish to lose it so quickly. You have no reason to fear my presence --"
"So you keep mentioning," Christine murmured. She put down the chicken wing on which she'd been nibbling. "Forgive me, but I find it difficult to completely trust you. You said that -- that --"
"That I love you." His voice was soft and intense, making her skin prickle with unwanted, vivid awareness.
Christine looked away, feeling her cheeks heat in another damnable blush.
"I cannot change my heart," he said in a more normal speaking voice, if anything said in that glorious voice could ever be called 'normal'. "But I desire to win back your trust, not drive it away. If it disturbs you to hear, I shall be silent, and we shall spend the rest of the time with music instead."
"The rest of the time," Christine echoed blankly, pushing away her plate. "How long is that?"
"Five days."
"And then I shall return home."
"Of course, Mademoiselle. After five days, they'll have the chandelier repaired. After five days…you'll have learned not to fear me, to trust me, and you'll come back to visit once in a while."
Christine looked up at her captor from under her eyelashes. He didn't sound…both her Angel and the Phantom always seemed utterly certain of themselves. She'd never heard this wistful loneliness, this deep vulnerability, from anyone, much less that perfect voice. But shadow hid his eyes, and if he wept, the mask hid it.
Before he could catch her staring, she dropped her eyes again to the table. They sat in that disconcertingly dull parlor, but only she had a plate and glass before her, neither of them of the sort to warrant any particular attention paid. She had to say something: the silence had begun to lower and thicken. "Where did you come from, monsieur?" Too bright and cheerful, but she must continue as she had begun. "With the name Erik, I would think you a countryman of mine."
"I can claim no such kinship, mademoiselle," her companion answered, his voice blessedly even once more. "I have neither family nor country, and took the name Erik by chance."
"Then you cannot claim it is your country's custom, to prove one's love by kidnapping the beloved and imprisoning her underground." Christine stopped short and took a breath. Too intense, too quickly. He'd promised to let her go in five days, and yet it wasn't enough. She tried to gentle her tone. "I've never heard of anyone who could fall in love in a grave." She gestured around her, feeling a trifle foolish: the parlor could hardly have looked less like a tomb. "Was there no other way to speak to me than to deceive me and kidnap me?"
"One takes whatever rendezvous one can get." His voice twisted a bit on the words, an odd ironic flavor to them that Christine recognized but could not interpret. Here lay something more than her rejection. Before she could say anything, or indeed think of anything to say, her captor -- Erik, she must think of him by name -- rose to his feet and offered her his hand. "If you are finished, mademoiselle, I would like to show you my apartment."
Christine reached out to take his hand -- and remembered how cold and clammy it had been against her skin. She hesitated for just a moment, steeling herself for the contact, and in that moment he dropped his hand. "Forgive me," he said, golden voice unexpectedly harsh. "I do not go out in society, and so forget that well-brought-up young ladies are not accustomed to touch such as I."
I did not hesitate because of your moral failings, monsieur, but because your hands are cold! But even as Christine opened her mouth to say so, Erik turned away and walked to another door. She sighed, pushed back her chair, and followed him into a room hung with black and red. Like a mortuary -- no, a mortuary would be black alone, unrelieved by any hint of color. This seemed more like an antechamber to Hell. "What is this?" she murmured.
"My room," Erik replied from off to one side.
She walked in slowly, peering through the relative gloom: no oil lamps here, only two candles burning across the room. Carpeting as thick and soft as in her chambers caressed and warmed her bare feet -- the warmth especially noticeable because of the slight chill in the air, where the other rooms held in the warmth almost too well. The hints of red on the walls proved to be a pattern of musical notes against the black, leading to a canopy of red brocade over a…that was a coffin. She looked at Erik.
He looked back, expressionless behind that damnable mask. "I sleep in it. One must get used to everything in life, Christine Daae. Even eternity."
Christine nodded and turned back, attempting to ignore the queer shiver that ran up and down her spine. Beyond the dark pit of the coffin, an organ took up the entirety of the far wall: the two candles sat perched on either side of the music stand. Musical score lay scattered across the stand and fallen on the keyboard, the paper covered with notes like drops of blood. Christine leaned in to look at it closer, then hesitated. It would only be polite…she glanced back at Erik. "May I?"
He nodded once.
She picked up a few of the sheets of paper; at the top of each was scrawled DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT. "Your work." The words came out half-question, half-statement.
"I compose sometimes," Erik said from just behind her (how in the name of heaven had he gotten there? He'd been across the room not a breath before!) "I began that twenty years ago…and when it is finished at last, I shall tuck it away into the coffin and rest at last from my life's labors."
Christine kept her eyes on the score. Neither angel nor ghost, so he too was mortal… "You must work on it as seldom as possible, then," she said awkwardly.
A moment's pause, but no more than a moment -- did he smile, shake his head? She turned her head to see, but even as she did so, he moved past her, taking the pages from her hand. "Sometimes I work on it for weeks at a time, day and night, living on music alone." He bent and began gathering the score together, arranging the pages into some kind of order. "But then I leave it be for years."
"Will you…play me something from it?" The notes nagged at Christine's memory, some image just out of reach. Was this the music he had sung to call her from her dressing room, last night? No, something earlier -- like something from a dream --
"No." Erik set the pages on the music stand without looking at her. "Do not ask me that, Christine. The only Don Juan you know is Mozart's creation, preoccupied with drink and love affairs and all the pleasures of the world, and at the last dragged away to heavenly judgment. I shall gladly play Mozart for you if you wish to hear the story again: you may weep, but you would remain yourself. My Don Juan burns the soul, Christine, and not with the fire of heaven --" He broke off abruptly, abandoning the organ to stride past her, back to the parlor.
Christine hesitated for a moment, looking at the music, then followed. What little she'd eaten felt as if it had knotted into a lump in her belly. M. Reyer shouted at the singers often enough that they needed more emotion, more passion!, and her Angel had bidden her sing with your heart, but though she had trembled, the music had never burned her. No matter how beautiful, it was only music.
In the right hands, sung with all the power of your soul behind me, there is nothing that can be called 'only music'. The Angel had told her that not a week after their lessons had begun. Christine swallowed hard.
Erik seated himself at the pianoforte, and glanced over his shoulder. "You see, Christine," he said, conversationally, as if he'd never stopped, certainly not as if he knew what she was thinking, "some music refreshes whoever hears it, pure and sweet as clear water. But other music consumes like a forest fire whoever listens to it. You are not yet strong enough to withstand it. If you sang it now, no one would recognize you when you returned to Paris. No, Christine Daae…" His golden voice darkened and twisted with something more than just irony. "Let us sing music of the Opera instead."
What did we sing? Something dramatic: the final duet from Otello, if I recall correctly. God knows it seemed fitting. I dare swear I never sang the part of Desdemona as convincingly before or since in my life! I was terrified and exhilarated both, the mingled passions lending power to my voice and dizzying my mind. Erik might love me or kill me, and I would in that instant have given myself over to either.
The images from my dream returned to me with doubled strength as I sang: the black mask lent itself to the image of Othello. What did he look like, behind that mask? Such music could only come from an Angel -- but what if I was wrong once more? What if he were some bored nobleman, who sought to steal my heart and honor for some low jest? Or worse, what if he were a fallen angel in truth, a demon come to corrupt and damn me like Marguerite in Faust, Death himself come to laugh and destroy me for daring to love one whom I thought an Angel?
Curiosity, fear, and that terrible excitement fed upon each other. I could bear it no longer. I reached out and snatched off Erik's mask.
Oh, God --!
"DAMN YOU! Give me back my--"
No. Oh, God in heaven no, she couldn't look, she must not look --
"Damn you -- no, Christine, you wanted to see your Angel and by God you'll see him!" Hand on her shoulder, cruelly hard, not allowing her to run away, not allowing her to even move. She fruitlessly turned her face away. "No --" Dear heaven, that voice, not sweet and golden now but furious -- "No, look at me -- damn you, look at me, feast your eyes on it!"
He let go of her shoulder, but her knees buckled under her so she almost fell. She couldn't look away now, as if he had chained her eyes to him. This could not be happening, it couldn't be like this.
"Truly something to be proud of, to boast to your friends in the ballet chorus, won't you?" His voice dropped to a soft, sulpherous hiss. He leaned over her but did not touch her again. "They brag of this comte and that duc paying them court, while you have a corpse that loves you and will never leave you, never, not while you live -- are you not proud of it, Christine?"
Christine shook her head frantically, tearing her eyes away from him once more. No use, dear God, that face was burned into her mind --
"Look at me, damn you!" His hand in her hair, not tangled and pulling but tense enough that she knew he would if she did not raise her head once more. "You were so terribly curious a few minutes ago -- but perhaps you think this is another mask. Come, I'll help you pull it off the same way you did the other one --" He dropped to one knee, snatched up her hands and brought them to his face.
"No, please." Was that her voice? It sounded so hoarse and strangled, as if she'd been crying. "No, please, it isn't a mask, I know it isn't -- Erik, please…"
Erik let her hands go. "No."
The silence that followed filled the air until it hurt to breathe, worse even than his anger. Christine looked up again. Erik had not risen to his feet again: he still knelt there, not a step away from her, and this time, without the mask to hide it, she could see his cheeks streaked with the wet tracks of tears.
"Why couldn't you leave it be?" he murmured. "My own mother gave me my first mask so she wouldn't have to look at me. You would have returned, before…but now you wouldn't return at all, so I can't let you leave." He rose to his feet once more and vanished into his room without a look back.
If only he had not been right.
I had loved my Angel of Music, loved him with an innocent's quick and complete passion. But the Angel of Music was not real: he was a story for children, as much a mask as the fabric I still held crumpled in my hand. Behind the mask stood Erik, a man. A man with a face like death, the Phantom of the Opera indeed. Perhaps, if I had not given in, I would indeed have returned of my own free will, and learnt to know this man with a voice like an angel's, before being confronted with the devil. Perhaps. If I had not given in.
Oh, I wanted my Angel, then. The might-have-beens crowded my mind like shouting children, and I sat on the floor and wept like a child myself, impotently furious at my own fear and curiosity.
Then, through my tears, I heard music.
Not the music that had lured me from my dressing room the previous night, nor yet the music that now I remembered, that had called me to a deserted rehearsal room in the basements, months before. But it held the same uncanny magic in its notes: wistful and haunting, the melody of unending pain and anger learning at last to love, daring to look up and be loved in return. Erik's composition. No wonder he spoke so slightingly of 'music of the Opera'.
I took a deep breath as I had been trained, gathering courage from the music. Then I smoothed out the mask I still held, rose to my feet, and went to his door. My bravado took me a step inside, then deserted me.
The music fell silent as Christine stopped, just beyond the doorway. Erik rose to his feet, but did not turn around.
Christine looked down at the black silk in her hand. "Erik. I --" She what? What could she possibly say under the circumstances? "I beg your pardon for the intrusion." So stiff and formal. Well, they would have to do for a beginning.
"I bade you consider this house as your own," Erik said, still not turning around. He sounded as formal as she did. "You need not apologize. Was there something you wished?"
Christine took another breath -- funny, the room smelled of incense and candlewax, like a church rather than a tomb -- and deliberately forced her hand to relax, so the mask fell to the floor. She crossed the room with careful steps, skirting the coffin, and stopped next to him. "Please…"
At last Erik turned to face her. The face didn't shock her as it had the first time, somehow, less the face of a demon and more the face of a man. "Yes, Mademoiselle Daae?"
Christine met his eyes and did not flinch. "You spoke of spending time with music."