Confessions

"Did you mean it when you said that you loved me?" inquired Erik. All that he got for a reply was a mute nod of the head from Mercedes. "Well, I guess that it is only fair that you know who you are in love with." He couldn't believe that he was going to tell this woman about his past. He hadn't even told Christine.

"I was born with this deformation on my face. I don't know the medical term for it, but chances are pretty good that it is the same birth defect that your friend had suffered as a child. My mother was ashamed of me. She was unable to look at my face, much less treat me as her own. She sent me to travel with Gypsies as part of a freak show. My life for as long as I can remember it was the same day in and day out. I was given the name 'The Devil's Child' and beaten every day, only because of my abhorrent face!" He paused to see Mercedes' reaction to his story. He did not expect what he had seen. He had thought that she would feel pity for him. There seemed to be a little pity in her face, but there was far more anger. That anger almost frightened him.

"One day, while the traveling fair was in Paris, I decided that I didn't want to live life as a freak, only to be paraded in front of jeering crowds. After one especially bad performance, I killed my tormenter. I throttled him. There was only one person who had witnessed me murder another. That was Madame Giry. She had been training as a dancer at the opera, and her troupe had gone to the fair that night. She helped me escape into the catacombs of the Opera Populaire. I have resided there ever since.

"My life was a dark monotony until a few years ago. I'd had nothing to live for until a few years ago. You see, a girl had come to the opera house to train as a dancer and chorus girl. Her father had just died, and she was alone in the world. I started teaching her how to sing. At first the only reason why I helped her was because I saw that she was similar to me. We were both alone in the world. As she grew older, however, my feelings towards her changed. I grew to love her, although she was still too young and innocent to realize that. She eventually betrayed me, leaving me for a boy whom she had known in her childhood. She ripped off my mask on the debut performance of 'Don Juan Triumphant,' the very same opera that you are planning to perform." His story was finally over. An unknown feeling seemed to completely overtake him. It was something that he hadn't known ever before. He was free of his terrible secret. He was who he was and nothing could change that.

"Now you know the hideous monster that you have fallen in love with." he said to her. Dared he look down into her face? He must. He needed to know what this woman thought of him now.

Erik felt a soft, slender hand touch the left side of his face. Her other hand slowly reached up to his white mask, and gently removed it. Her warm hand gently caressed the rough, distorted skin on his right cheek. "You are many things. You are a genius, a man, and so much more. You are not, however, the hideous monster that you think you are." she said, her eyes so full of love that it made Erik want to cry.

"I suppose that it is only fair that you know who I am as well." she said. "I will not hold it against you if, after I am finished my story, you decide that you never want to see me again." He thought that she was being a little extreme, but did not say a word.

"I was born the daughter of a wealthy doctor and a well-to-do daughter of a merchant. Both of my parents, along with a few other respected middle class families, decided to go and serve as missionaries in various parts of Africa. My parents took my brothers and me with them, for they planned to live their lives permanently in Africa. I was the youngest child of six brothers, and was only three years old when we left.

"Things were bad from the start. My parents got lost because our guide deserted us. We got captured by a hostile group and were turned into slaves. They said it was revenge for enslaving their people. We belonged to a cruel master who did not lament whipping my brothers and I, even though I was very young at the time. We were not the only slaves that he owned. Turns out, some other people from other countries had the same idea as my family. My friend, James, the one that had the same disease as you, was from England.

For some obscure reason that I never quite understood, our master had forbidden us the knowledge of reading. My father, as well as some of my older brothers, had to pretend that we were ignorant peasants trying to make a better life for ourselves here. That lie convinced our master that we did not know how to read. My father, however, thought that knowledge was more valuable than anything else, even his life. He taught me how to read. When our master found out, he collected my entire family so that we could watch him beat my father to death.

"I was only eight, and my father was dead. My mother was a ghost of the once vibrant and cheery person she had been. We still went about our work as usual, bearing the pain silently. Everyone had lost their spirit.

"When I was fourteen, my master decided that it was time for me to bear children. He said that my best friend, James, and I were to be wed. Neither of us could marry each other, though. We were best friends, true enough, but we did not love each other that intimately. When we protested, my master killed James the same way that he had killed my father. I couldn't take it any more, so I tried to run away. I was too overcome by grief and fatigue, however, to outrun my master. He caught me, and he raped me."

There was silence. Erik's hands shook violently, furiously. He had been beaten because he was ugly, and she had been violently beaten and raped because of her beauty and spirit! It was oddly ironic.

"It turned out that he had impregnated me. I hated him more than I hated my life, but I was also overcome with joy that I would be having children. Of course I wasn't emotionally ready for the burden, but I was overjoyed none the less. Even my mother seemed to come out of her shell.

"I went into labor a month early. I was very weak, for all throughout my pregnancy I had been forced to work as if I was just as strong as usual, even though I had only turned fifteen and this was my first pregnancy. What little strength that I would have normally had at the end of the day was sapped by my babies. My master refused to get a doctor; indeed he had killed the only one around, my father, without even knowing it.

"My babies, my beautiful twin girls, were born too early for them to survive outside of me. They died before they even knew life. My master didn't care in the least about my sufferings. I was withdrawn from the world, delusional and crazy. I talked to myself and my father, to James and my beautiful daughters, all of whom had died. In the midst of my insanity, my subconscious mind formulated a plan. A plan to get revenge on the one who had caused me all this pain.

"In the middle of the night, I crept quietly to my master's house. I carried a tiny lantern that held only the smallest flame. Who would have known that such a tiny thing could do so much damage? I set my master's room on fire, wedged the doors, and sealed the windows shut. He would not escape the fiery Hell that was his fate. In truth, it was far too kind for him, to die so quickly when I had been dying for years.

"I hadn't planned on the fire spreading, although I knew that fire would inevitably grow. I ran out of the house and away from the small village in which the house was situated. Unfortunately, there was a dry desert breeze that night, and that accursed breeze carried sparks from my fire into the slave's quarters. That breeze carried the sparks to the neighboring houses. That breeze destroyed the entire town in a matter of minutes.

"Those few who were left alive saw me, tears running down my face, and knew that I had killed everyone. They chased my through the desert. I ran as fast as I could to an oasis nearby. There were trees nearby, so I could hide in them for a while. They had sheltered me before. The mob had torches and they burned my only living friends, my trees. I didn't remember anything after that, for I was entirely mad.

"What was probably only two weeks later, I was climbing onto a ship bound for America. I had stolen enough money from people that I had come across in my travels that I could pay for a ticket to America, if nothing else.

"I got to America and took the first job that I could get. I became a maid at one of the hotels in New York City. I invested all of my money in the Stock Market, never really understanding what it was. I simply chose a very cheap stock, and it skyrocketed. I became a wealthy woman, able to live very comfortably without having to work for the rest of my life.

"While in New York, I met a young man whom I fell in love with. He was only nineteen, and I was only seventeen, so we were both very young. I was sure that we were made for each other, I loved him so. When he proposed to me, I eagerly accepted. I wanted so badly to forget my previous life and to create a new one for myself.

On the eve of our wedding, he wanted to make love to me, but I refused him. I could still only remember the pain of my rape. I couldn't bring myself to forget that awful pain and sorrow. I feared that if I attempted to love this man, I would only fell pain and I would have to stop, causing him to hate me. He asked why I wanted to preserve my virginity if we were going to be married in only a day. How little he knew of me! I told him that I was not a virgin, and he immediately became furious with me. He asked me if I was just some common prostitute off the streets! I thought that that was a silly reaction, since he wanted to take my virginity that night anyways. To try and redeem myself, I told him of my past. I told him that I had been raped, and that I resented being called a prostitute.

"He called me a murderess, a seductress, and a prostitute, again. Apparently he did not listen to me correctly. He called the wedding off and ran off with another woman that very same day. He left me in pieces. I felt like I was just some china doll that he had dropped as soon as he got bored with me.

"I immediately left for Europe, not caring where I went. I drifted for about a year, just coming and going when I felt like it. I was like a ghost, unfeeling, unseeing, uncaring. I decided to settle in Paris about two years ago. I was twenty then. Basically, the rest of the story is already known by you." she concluded.

Erik could only stare at her. This poor, poor woman! How little happiness she seemed to know. Her life seemed to be one tragedy after another. Crying into her soft, black hair, he kissed the top of her head and said, "I will never leave you."