CHAPTER TEN
(in which all masks are removed and all choices made)
I was not frightened.
I cannot justify this fact, only state it as plain truth. It was not the momentary peace of spirit I had felt only a few heartbeats before: rather it was a sort of dreadful silence of spirit that I can only compare to the calm that an observer might feel, standing out on an open plain as the clouds thicken and darken overhead, and the growl of thunder approaches -- the moment's silence just before the skies open and the wind lashes all the trees to a frenzy, a silence as if the earth itself held her breath and waited.
That silence surrounded me as I descended from the roof. Raoul de Chagny? What did he matter? Let him rage as he would: he was not Erik, it could not touch me. I soothed him absently, mouthed the necessary reassurances and promises to get him to leave me alone in my dressing room, and at last sent him off with the certainty I would elope with him after my performance the following day.
Once he was safely out of earshot, I called Erik by name, at first softly, then louder. No one answered -- not even my dresser bustling in as before. I consoled myself with the uncomfortable knowledge that even if Erik had responded, I did not know what to say to him.
That must be my first concern, and for that, I needed time and privacy. About the time I could do nothing: matters would come to a head, and soon, but I had lost all right to have any say as to when not an hour since, up on the roof of the Paris Opera. But privacy -- there I did have some control. If I stayed, Meg would pop in to gossip, or la Sorelli to give me further advice, or Jeanne to ask for advice -- my dressing room was small and out of the way, but it did not give me any certainty of being alone, not any more. So. Back home to Mme. Valerius, to a place where no one would pester me.
"The Comte de Chagny wishes to speak with me," Christine repeated. The words sounded no more comprehensible the second time.
"So his note said," Mama Valerius agreed, with far more cheerfulness than Christine thought the event warranted. "About a 'very important matter.' I beg your pardon for opening it, but when the footman came, I thought…"
"No. No, it's…thank you." Christine swallowed, and held out her hand for the note.
It was written on monogrammed paper, in a firm hand not unlike Raoul's -- he had not entrusted this to his secretary, then. It said little more than Mama Valerius had already told her, however. What more did it need, after all? She knew perfectly well what, or rather who, the 'very important matter' was, and between Sorelli's word and her own observation, she had an excellent idea what he wanted to say to her. A secret engagement, she thought desperately. A sop to Raoul's pride, something to keep him happy and out of Erik's way for three weeks. A last chance to enjoy the normal pleasures that a girl was supposed to have, before turning away and giving herself completely and utterly to her Angel who was no angel, and to the music. No one was supposed to be hurt. No one was supposed to know.
But they did, and now she must say something to Phillipe de Chagny. She sat at her tiny desk, dipped her pen, and stared at the blank piece of paper in front of her.
Dear. M. le Comte de Chagny, do consider, despite your rank, your brother is a grown man and should be allowed to do as he wishes-- No.
Dear sir, I assure you, I never had any intentions upon the vicomte-- Oh, indeed.
Dear Phillipe, do you believe in the Phantom of the Opera? For pity's sake, this was getting her nowhere. The entire situation was ridiculous.
She put her pen back into the inkwell, rose to her feet, and paced over to her window. Twilight in the streets of Paris. A lamplighter on his ladder, down at the end of the street, rose on tiptoe and set flame to wick. Christine watched him for a few moments, until she realized she had begun the careful, steady breaths Erik had taught her.
Dear monsieur, within a day's time, one way or another, you will not need worry about Christine Daae again.
Christine sighed, returned to the table, and wrote a short, stiff note to Phillipe de Chagny, declining the appointment.
I did not sing that night -- not for the sake of avoiding Erik, merely because it was one of the theater's weekly 'dark' nights. When I returned to the Opera the next afternoon, I remained wrapped in the detached calm that had descended on me the previous day. I have no notion how I looked, though I can make a guess -- Mme. Valerius clucked her tongue and pressed tea on me before she would allow me to go, and I heard little Cecile Jammes telling Meg that I must have forgotten to touch the iron horseshoe coming in, for truly I seemed bewitched. The Persian found me backstage after warm-ups, and looked into my eyes for a very long moment, as if he thought to read my heart. No one spoke to me. No one asked me what was wrong. The quiet within remained untouched.
The strains of the overture woke me at last. I remembered, all too well, the prickling sensation of being watched that had accompanied my last performance. Erik would be watching again: of that I had no doubt. I took a deep breath, and wrapped myself in the notes and the rituals of singing. Stand tall, breathe so, let the music come from the bottom of your lungs and the depths of your heart. I gave way to it, wanting to lose myself in the music. If the opera ended, and nothing happened, then the storm had somehow passed me by -- I was superstitiously certain of this. But I would not allow myself to think on it. The music -- only the music was important.
Holy angel, in heaven blessed --
--up, up, soaring into the heavens myself --
My spirit longs with thee to rest!
And there is a breathless pause before Faust calls, Marguerite!
In that moment, the lights went out, and the ground vanished from under me. I had time to think, ah, a trapdoor, and then how did I come to be standing on a trapdoor? before I landed, badly, all my breath knocked out of me. Then a death-cold hand closed around my wrist and pulled me to my feet, and I knew the storm had broken at last.
The hand released her the moment she'd regained her feet, leaving her to stand alone in the dark. She could hear nothing above her; no outcry, no sign she'd vanished from the stage, no sign she'd been missed at all. Perhaps she hadn't fallen at all -- but no, her breath still hitched in her throat, and her knees felt scraped raw.
"Erik?" she whispered.
For answer, the cold hand closed around her right wrist again and pulled. She stumbled and caught herself before she could fall again. The hand tugged again sharply, and she followed its pull, stepping as carefully as she might. It was Erik. It could be no one else. But why so silent?
Because he knows. Because he saw. Why else, you fool? She bit her tongue, and willed herself not to shiver.
Down, down, down stairs and steep passageways, still wrapped in darkness. Had Erik turned off every light in the Opera? Down, down, step after stumbling step, down toward the lake beneath the lowest cellars: Christine could already smell the rank mustiness of water too long unmoving. The hand left her wrist at last, and came to press against her waist, guiding her forward into -- ah. Naturally. Into the boat. She sank to her knees, feeling the boat rock beneath her as her companion climbed in. Down here, the distant fires of the furnaces provided a little light, enough for her to see the pale, stocky pillars that supported the entire Opera Garnier, rising out of the water. She watched them pass.
The last of the pillars vanished behind her, the sound of water against the boat ceased, and the boat rocked violently again. They had reached the far side of the lake. She reached out a hand without looking: his cold hand seized it again, and pulled her to her feet, then out onto the dock, far less gently than the first time she had trod this path. Along the dock, to the door that opened before them…Christine wondered if the parlor would be full of flowers once more, as if she'd somehow erased the past weeks. Despite Erik's insistent hand on her wrist, she slowed.
The door swung open in front of her, and she stopped short, unable to force herself forward those two steps more. Erik's hand vanished from her wrist, but he did not step around her. Instead, she felt his arm come around her waist, like a loose embrace, and the press of his body against her, unexpectedly warm. His hand dropped to encircle her wrist again, loosely, then traced its way up her bare arm, before his voice murmured in her ear. "Will you wait for me, Christine?"
"Yes," she whispered, before she could think better of it.
"Good." She could feel his breath against her neck, now, as if he were about to kiss her, warm and intimate -- his hand was so cold against her arm, how could anything about him be warm like this… Then he abruptly stepped away from her, the only breath against her a chill breeze from nowhere. "I must visit my banker. No tricks, my dear, or I shall tie you up when I return."
His voice faded as he spoke. She stood there, trembling and bewildered, and held her breath -- but all she heard was the sound of oars, receding. He was leaving. He was leaving. She whirled around, but boat and man both had vanished into the uncertain shadows on the lake. She opened her mouth to scream after him, but shut it instead, turned on her heel, and went inside.
My first business was to wash and change (Erik had, prior to my first visit, by methods into which I had never dared inquire, procured several dresses fit to my measurements). I did not know when to expect Erik's return, and I did not wish to be wearing Marguerite's prison tatters when next I faced him.
I cannot say what I expected from that confrontation. That I would have to explain what he had overheard on the rooftop, certainly, and why I no longer wore his ring. But I believed -- I hoped -- that this conversation, awkward and angry as it must be, would be the entirety of it.
I knew better. I cannot claim I did not. But I hoped.
She did not hear him return, though she had strained her ears long enough waiting for the sound of the boat bumping into the dock and footsteps approaching the door. Instead, as she sat staring down at a recent newspaper she'd found upon the table in the parlor, she felt the shivery, skin-prickling awareness of being watched. She closed her eyes, and tried to remember her breathing. "Erik?"
A soft, unnerving chuckle that seemed to come from the wall behind her. "No one else would come here without an invitation, mademoiselle. Although there are those…" He broke off, and chuckled again.
"Like Joseph Buquet." Christine glanced up cautiously. Where was Erik? Nowhere in her line of sight, at least. Surely he would not have built hidden places into his very apartment, would he?
"Among others." The brush of cool fingers against Christine's cheek made her jump, and she looked up full into Erik's face. He wore the mask, elegant and invisible, his eyes hardly more than a golden gleam in shadow. "You've a taste for being watched, haven't you?"
"Among -- Erik, what are you talking about?" He'd said that his house was surrounded by 'particular protections' --
"I watched you for months before I spoke," he continued, as if he hadn't heard her. His fingertips lingered against her skin, tracing the line of her cheekbone down along her chin. "So innocent. So beautiful."
"Erik, if someone else is trapped--"
"You do not flinch from my hand any more." As if to demonstrate this, his hand cupped her face, then glided down her neck to linger by her collarbone. "You'll grow used to me, my love. You blushed when I watched you. You let me see--"
"Erik, is someone else coming?" Anything to change the subject. Her face felt hot -- Mary mother of saints, surely even Erik's anger would be easier to bear than this peculiar possessive whisper. She didn't want to remember what she'd done six months ago, before she knew who watched her so intently.
Erik's hand tightened on her shoulder. "Of course," he said flatly. "At least I expect so -- I confess, I did not stop and give your lover directions myself, but my old friend will be more than willing to show him the way."
Old friend? Oh . Of course. "The Persian knows the way here?"
Erik chuckled again. The sound had not become less goblin-like or unnerving with repetition. "He knows what I have chosen for him to know." He let go of her shoulder abruptly, and knelt down beside her, meeting her eyes with that golden gaze like hellfire. "I don't expect them for a few hours yet -- the police must be called in, and your lover must despair of them first before he is likely to trust anyone else. You have time to compose your maidenly blushes."
"Raoul de Chagny is not my lover," Christine said desperately.
Erik did not answer, only took her left hand in his, and produced from his waistcoat pocket a familiar ring, which he held out to her -- in offering, in accusation, it was impossible to tell which. Her breath strangled in her throat, and she stared down at it until he closed his hand on it and rose to his feet again.
"You lost your ring," he said from somewhere overhead. "You should take greater care, Christine."
"Erik--"
"Come, my dear." Hand on her shoulders, demanding rather than coaxing her to her feet. "You must make your choice."
It would have been easier if he had begun by shouting at me, I think, though I cannot say easier in what sense. Easier to shout back defiance, perhaps, or easier to turn my back on him. 'How dare you kidnap me! Am I to be your prey instead of your wife? Let me go!' It would not have resolved the problem of Raoul -- Erik had a better notion of Raoul's mind than I would have expected possible, after all my efforts to keep them from ever meeting -- but it would have given me firm ground to stand upon, the Maiden in Durance Vile.
Instead, he left me shivering from unwilling memories, and wooed me with arrogant, terrifying seduction. He had gambled all upon this night, after all. I could not expect him to grant me even a moment to breathe, still less to think.
"Not like this," Christine whispered, forcing the words out one by one.
"Would you have preferred some other way?" Erik's voice vibrated now like a snapped violin string. He knelt down beside her chair without touching her. "I would have wooed you, Christine, courted you like any other man -- I love you, and you go up to the rooftop of my Opera house with that damned pup of a Vicomte--" His voice leapt up to a mocking falsetto, "'oh, he cannot hear us there!'," then back down to its normal register, rough as she had only heard it once, "but I, I hear everything in my Opera, even the damned lying words of the woman I love!"
"I did not lie!"
"Did you not?" He rose to his feet and leaned over her, hands braced upon the arms of the chair. Christine tightened her hands in her lap and did not flinch back. "When Rahim told you I had killed, and would kill again, you answered him look for look and word for word. And yet you told your boy that you feared me every moment you were in my company, called me a murderer and a monster--"
"You yourself confessed to the death of Joseph Buquet!"
"I kill when I must, mademoiselle." How calm he sounded, Christine thought dazedly, as if he spoke of taking a daily constitutional stroll upon the Bois. "If you wanted to know such things, you had only to ask."
"Ask?" For a wild moment, Christine envisioned such a conversation. How many have you killed? Monsieur le Persian insists you killed for pleasure, once upon a time--
"Only love me," Erik said, so close that she could feel his breath against her forehead, and could not see his face at all, mask or no, "and you shall save me. I shall submit myself entirely to your governance, and we shall live like such ordinary people, Christine, like any other husband and wife --"
"This is mockery," Christine breathed. Ordinary people? He wanted to live like ordinary people? Erik knew far better even than she did that his face would prevent any sort of acceptance by society, and the mask would attract as much attention as it deflected. But even if he somehow found a way to mask himself such that no questions would be asked -- could he ever live an 'ordinary' life?
Don't be a fool, Christine. He was not seeking your opinion on the matter, but offering… Offering what? In addition to his hand in marriage. Dear God, why had she ever thought matters would be simpler if only her Angel had a human form?
"Mockery?" She could hear the fury she'd expected, now, like an undertone beneath his words, still faint. He still leaned over her. "Is it so impossible that I should want to live like any other man? Did you think I desired this? Did you believe I chose to live alone, without hope, without love?"
He paused, as if expecting an answer, but Christine could think of none, beyond no, of course not, which answered very little. She remained silent, and tried not to tremble -- he was too close, he would feel it.
"I ask only for a 'yes', Christine." The words came whispered into her ear, almost a caress. "You no longer flinch away from me. You no longer fear the monster at your feet."
"Erik--"
"I know why you hesitate." He stood up, at last, no longer so close that her breath stifled in her throat. "Your handsome Vicomte has turned your head, and I…" A moment's hesitation, and he stepped away from her, just a little. "My own mother fled from me." He spoke quietly, as if telling her the time of day. "I wore a mask before any other clothing."
"Erik --" What could she say? He himself had just claimed she did not flinch, and then told her this. "She was wrong, you are not a monster --"
"I did not tell you to seek your pity, mademoiselle." His eyes seemed to glitter behind his mask, and for a moment the iron anger had returned to his voice, distant thunder. Then it vanished again, as he offered her his hand -- no hesitation now. "Here, I shall spare your maidenly blushes and make your choice simple. You need not even say yes."
Or 'no'. Although since she could hardly find the breath to so much as speak to him, she could not imagine where she would find the courage to refuse him. She bit her tongue, hard, and accepted his hand. He led her over to…dear God. The door to her own room. Her heart stilled in her breast for an aching moment, then leapt into double-time. He would -- he meant to --
But he did not even glance at the bed in the center of the room. Instead, he led her over to the mantelpiece she had hardly noticed, where two carved wooden boxes sat on either side of the center like a pair of rather dull ornaments. These boxes he unlocked with a small key, produced from who knew where -- the air, perhaps -- and said, "Look inside, Christine, and tell me what you see."
She obediently rose up on her toes and peered in. Each box appeared to contain a small statue, far better ornament than the wooden boxes, in her opinion: a bronze grasshopper on the left, a bronze scorpion on the right. "Two statues of bronze," she said.
"The statues turn upon their bases -- no, don't test them, you must trust me in this. If you turn the scorpion, then I shall know your answer is yes."
Christine stared down at the statues. "And the grasshopper?" she ventured, when Erik said nothing for too long a space.
Erik chuckled, that darkling, sinister little chuckle. "Means no," was all he said.
A bell rang in the next room, so sudden in the quiet that Christine jumped. Erik merely tilted his head, then bowed to Christine. "Pardon me, mademoiselle," he said ironically. "I must go greet our visitors."
And still he did not shout, and still he did not scream, and still he behaved as if I were an innocent girl who merely hesitated because of her maidenly blushes.
I did blush. He spoke to me with all the intimate frankness of an acknowledged and accepted lover, or of my long-ago dream at Perros-Guirec. But I did not hesitate out of innocence, or from a lingering desire for Raoul, despite my performance on the rooftop. I hesitated because I knew that Erik could consider my choice, when it came, to be binding. And he would not be satisfied with fine words and sweet smiles alone, the half-measures I had given Raoul.
I have given you my soul, I had once said to the Angel of Music. Erik would be satisfied with nothing less. And by the time the deadline he had set for my decision -- eleven o'clock the following evening -- approached, I was exhausted from resisting him.
"Why did you bring Raoul into this?"
"Why did I bring the vicomte into this?" Erik's voice lingered cuttingly on the words: she did not dare turn to see any physical reaction. "I was not the one who hesitated, and did not turn him away when given the opportunity, more than once, nor the one who gave him her hand in betrothal, nor the one who betrayed the man who loved her--"
"I was not the one who lured an innocent man down to his death!" She folded her arms across her chest, keeping her eyes fixed on the polished surface of the table rather than allowing them to drift to the door, toward where she had heard those desperate, demanding voices, in the torture room just beyond her own bedroom. Erik's dark humor at work. "Let him go. He has done nothing to you -- the fault is mine, not his. Let him go."
"He distracts you," Erik said gently, as if reasoning with a child. He stood on the far side of the table: she could see him out of the corner of her eye now. "I will not have you distracted."
"And so you hold him hostage instead!" She turned, and caught herself as she reached out for his sleeve, his hand, any thing to make him look at her with those all-seeing eyes. She allowed her hand to fall to her side again, and drew in a shuddering breath, seeking to contain the emotion that seethed in her breast. "Am I to believe that you shall let him go if I choose…if I agree to marry you?"
"Perhaps. You do not need two husbands."
How often must she say this, or something like it? "I have not married Raoul de Chagny --"
"No, not yet." The gentleness had fallen from his voice, leaving something colder than winter, cold as the Angel at His most distant and furious. He still did not look at her. "Did you think I did not know of your 'secret engagement'?"
He had known. Of course he had known, oh, why had she ever thought discretion -- "How long did you overlisten our conversation?"
"Oh, long enough, mademoiselle. Quite illuminating -- I had not realized that you spent your time here in captivity, imprisoned by a monster rather than a man!" Now, at last, he swung around to face her. His golden eyes were dimmed, and Christine wondered painfully if he wept. "You look surprised," he said.
"Not surprised." For a miracle, her own voice held steady, and without the dreaded glow of anger in his eyes, she dared look at him directly. "I thought you an honorable man -- yes, despite all the proofs I have had otherwise, despite the way you have treated me, I believed you when you told me I was safe, I and those I took under my care."
Erik stiffened, and his eyes narrowed. "Nor did I lay a hand on you or your boy of a suitor," he said in that same chill, distant, stinging voice. "But mark the limits of my promise." He reached out and seized her right wrist, holding her hand up before her eyes. "You do not wear my ring, dear Christine."
She would not struggle, no matter how cruelly tight he held her. She must not struggle, no matter how much she burned with the rising desire to do so. "Then what shall I say? If I accept you, then by your own words, you shall kill a man for no worse fault than loving me and not sharing your twisted face." Erik did not so much as flinch from the accusation, only watched her, hand unyielding on her wrist. "If I do not, then what? Raoul dies, and the Persian with him, and I suffer your lusts?"
A moment's pause, then Erik said, "No. You shall not suffer anything." He sounded as if he were smiling, as if at some hideous joke known only to himself. He released her, however, long enough to take his watch out and look at the time, then reach up and remove his mask, without explanation, allowing it to fall carelessly to the floor. As she stared at him, he offered her his arm. "Come, my dear. It's nearly eleven. Let us begin the final act."
She drew in a long, trembling breath, then let it out. She had known this would come -- the point when Erik would lose patience, when she must choose. "Now?" Was it truly almost eleven? She hadn't slept since Erik brought her down here. "In front of you?"
Erik stopped in the doorway, and turned to face her once more. "Then tell me now." For the first time, he sounded not cold or calm or even seductive, only tired. He had not slept either, she remembered. Both of them were surely near the end of themselves by now. "Tell me the truth. Either say you shall marry me, and give yourself wholly to my keeping, as I shall give myself to you -- or say no, and turn the grasshopper."
"The grasshopper," Christine repeated. "Erik, what is this about the grasshopper?"
"It controls an electric current. There is beneath our feet several tons of gunpowder -- I never bothered to measure how much. Turn the grasshopper, Christine, and we shall all be blown to bits, and all the Opera with us."
Oh. Oh. She had only thought she had gone beyond surprise: now she stood stock-still until Erik pulled at her arm once more and drew her the last steps into the room. There he let her go, and said, "Christine. I await your choice."
"Erik!" This voice was muffled, and only barely familiar. "Erik, are you there?"
"I must ask you to be quiet, daroga," Erik said, never taking his eyes from Christine. "Mademoiselle Daae had not yet spoken."
"Christine? Christine!" Raoul's voice, hoarse and painful to hear now. "Christine, don't do it, please, don't sacrifice yourself--"
Erik, ignoring the shouts from the torture room, withdrew his watch from his pocket once more and checked it. "It is eleven, mademoiselle. No answer?"
No. Yes. Her stubborn limbs would not move, her voice seemed clenched in her throat. He knew what answer she would give, what answer she must give, why did he torture her so?
But Erik had paused, it seemed, only for effect. "Then it shall be the grasshopper," he said, and began to cross the room.
The muffled shouts reached a new pitch, but to Christine's ears they might as well have been only echoes. "Erik!" She was across the room without knowing how she got there, her hand on his wrist this time. He obediently stopped. Another deep breath, then she let go of his wrist and rose up on her toes and opened the right-hand box and, with startling ease, turned the scorpion.
The shouting stopped. She distantly hoped she had not killed them after all. She could not afford to look: her entire self must focus on Erik. "Never do that again," she said, the words tumbling out. "They are not to blame."
He had not moved since she seized his wrist, only the flicker of his eyes betraying the depth of the feelings that wracked him. "Christine…"
"Erik." The scorpion was practice. This was the moment of choice. "Listen to me."
"You love me?" His voice cracked, not mocking but aching hope, more painful than any torture to hear.
Yes. Perhaps. No -- he'd learned from her own lips not to trust her words. Instead, Christine boldly dipped her fingers into his waistcoat pocket and drew out the ring, then slid it onto the third finger of her left hand. You may now… She must not give him time to think -- she must not give herself time to think. She reached up and drew his head down to hers.
It was not like kissing Raoul had been. Erik hesitated, lips still and cool against hers -- and then his hands came to rest on her waist, and his lips opened under hers. He kissed with all his heart, passionate and uncertain all at once, as if the kiss gave him as much pain as pleasure. She broke the kiss after a long, long moment, and looked up at him. Erik looked back at her gravely. One hand came up to brush over her cheek, and she realized distantly that she was weeping. So was he.
"I've made my choice," she whispered. "Now you must do the same."
"Yes. I know." But Erik did not move away. He stood there, looking down into her eyes for a long, long time.