Thanks to my second reviewer:)

Chapter Three – Paris after Midnight

When she wakes after what seems half an eternity, she finds herself snuggled into her bed.

Her eyes fall on Leah's sleeping face on the other side of the room. On the chair between the beds lie Carla's clothes, hidden under Leah's what proofes that she went to sleep earlier than her friend.

"So today is Opera day, eh?" she mumbles and stands up, pulling her black bath robe close around her.

Black bath robe... She stops in the middle of her movement. She is still wearing Erik's bath robe. Precious black satin.

All strength leaves her body and she lands not very gracefully on the floor.

"Seems I have a new habit." she groans, rubbing her knee.

"O beauty o' the morning." comes a croaking voice from Leah's bed "Hast thou fallen on the ghastly ground?"

"I slipped." Carla answers, pushing herself up again.

"Flashy thing this gown. I didn't know you own stuff like that."

"It was a present..."

"Uh, a rich and passionate lover?" Leah grins and then yawns and twists to scratch her back.

"Gosh, I hope not..." hastily Carla gets rid of the robe and goes to her wardrobe to dig out some fresh underwear. She stiffens when she sees the dark violet bruises on her upper arms, but Leah is already speeding to the toilet and has no eyes for anything else.

While draping some ceddar cheese onto her bread, Carla mumbles into Leah's direction: "The Opera..."

"Uh, yeah, the Opera! Wasn't that a gasp? Man, and these cellars! All the time I was asking myself if Erik's ghost might be watching us!" she giggles "I was looking so hard, all the shadows could have been him! And that guide woman was really up to date. She gave me a hard time proving my supreme nerdyness while all these impressions where battering my brain. And you? I didn't see anything of you until we left again and then you didn't say a word for the rest of the day."

Carla clears her throat, then she tries a guess.

"It wasn't that hard to be silent, I mean, you were talking for two..." she lets her voice trail off.

"Bahbahbah. But, ok, you're right. I should be thankful that you listened to my acute fit of phantomania without a word of complaint." she pours herself another glass of orange juice "Perhaps that's the reason why you are my best friend. I can't ignite the holy fire of Erik in your heart but at least your ears are made of the finest Mithril of Khazad-dûm and don't break, whatever comes."

"It's Mithril from Númenor, I tell you."

"Pah. It isn't proved that they found Mithril at Númenor."

"Take my ears as proof. Now. Want some hazelnut bribe? A little is left."

"Sure. Ringfreak."

After the breakfast, Leah returns to the Opera to have another look at the upper levels. Carla goes for a walk in the Jardins de Luxembourg, leaving her friend alone so that she mustn't consider the fragile dignity of her un-phan-y companion and can sing as loud as she wants.

When she finally arrives in the silence in the middle of Paris, she drags one of the green chairs under a tree, sits down and sighs.

What was it that happened to her yesterday? Was she really in two places at the same time? Was it a Carla dummy that listened to Leahs phantomania? Or was just her mind with Erik?

But if it was just her mind, how did the bath robe come to her hotel chamber?

So it must be the dummy solution. But how could someone design something so complicated so fast? Even for a genius that would be too tough.

So she must cling to Einstein, eh? Matter is energy and an electron is never only in one place?

Or perhaps there simply is no explanation. Or she has to go back to ask Erik.

Her stomach grumbles.

"Nah, expensive organ." Carla sighs and gets up to leave the park and buy something to eat. When she digs in her pocket for money, she finds a piece of paper that doesn't belong there.

Distorted red letters say:

'There is a gate at the Rue Scribe. You own the key tonight. -E.'

She stands there staring for what seems only a moment, but when she looks up from the letter again, the shadows have wandered quite far and her knees are weak from the lack of glucose.

Back at her flat she ponders if she should tell Leah the whole strange story. But although Leah is the one person she tells even her darkest and most ridiculous secrets, she knows that she would be no help in this concern.

So she tries something different.

"Imagine Erik was real..."

"Waaaaah!" Leah screams "That I live to see this day!"

"Man, calm down..."

"Dearest, be welcome in the warm arms of phandom. Sit down. Take a cookie. Tell me everything."

"I mean, if Erik was really real. Not as you see him, not as anyone imagined him, but as he really was..."

"Huh?" Leah pulls a face "Seems I lost you somewhere..."

"Imagine he really lived, but all that was written about him is fiction. You know, like... bad researched biographies."

"Ah, I see. Go on."

Carla snuggles into her pillow and thinks for a moment.

"Imagine you knew about him no more than what some hyperactive minds scribbled on paper and published. Imagine the story that started it all was manipulated by him. Imagine he faked the dokuments Leroux based his novel on, imagine he forced the persian to tell lies, imagine he didn't die... Imagine this stranger kidnaps you and asks you to stay with him for fifteen days."

"Darn, Carla." Leah sighs "You have one monster of an imagination... I don't know if I'd stay. I think..." she falls silent. "I guess I'd need some time to meditate about this."

"And if you had only a few hours to decide?"

"Yeah, go on pushing it, girl. Perhaps you should ask yourself: What would good ol' Frodo do in my situation?" She gives a devilish grin.

"Gosh, I read it five times. Compared to the twentyfour..."

"Twentyfive."

"...twentyfife times you read Kay's Phantom it is nothing."

"But you surf the web for LotR-stuff."

"And you have over thirty phantom bookmarks in your browser. Now give me some chocolate."

Leah lays the back of her hand to her forehead and groans.

"If you go on eating like that I'll die of adiposity."

(For all who didn't figure it out till now: It's a joke between them. Leah weighs a little too much for her taste although she eats normal, and Carla has a more 'ideal' frame although she eats very much. So they say Leah grows fat because Carla eats so much)

"Sure you will. But to come back to my question..."

"Ok. Back to the real world... So in the essence you want me to tell you if I'd stay with an absolute stranger who claims to be the Phantom of the Opera..."

"No, who really is Erik." Carla interrupts her. "Imagine you just know he is the real person who lives under the Opera and messed around with Leroux' novel about some infamous Phantom."

Leah bites her lower lip. Then she wildly gestures: "Gosh, but if all novels are a lie then he isn't the Phantom but just someone who I absolutely don't know although I think I know him for he is what I think to know to be the fictional... Ok, I lost myself somewhere..." She clears her throat. "Now, the Phantom is the guy from the novels. The man who kidnapped me is someone different, someone I absolutely don't know... It could be any perverted freak. He could have sex with rats... Man... Not even for the thrill of it would I stay!" she frowns "Uh... I guess I... suddenly understand Christine..."

Carla sighs.

"Thanks for your suggestion, Leah. It was pretty insightful..."

"You're welcome. Now, give me some of that evil chocolate... Gosh, I understand Christine... I feel like a traitor."

She wakes with a start in the middle of the night.

Yawning she gropes for her clock on the floor besides her bed, but all she finds is a small piece of paper.

In the puddle of silvery moonlight light the red ink looks black. It's the letter she found in her pocket and she can't remember having it taken out of there again after she returned to the flat.

'There is a gate at the Rue Scribe.'

"There is no gate!" she mumbles angrily to the paper. "I've been there yesterday ago and I've seen no darn gate!"

But the letter insists that there is one.

"This is madness. Sheer surreal madness!" She throws the paper on the ground, snuggles under her blanket again and makes an attempt to fall asleep. But the blackened red words don't let her come to a rest.

"I had just forgotten that I own a black bath robe." she whispers "I had forgotten that I accidentially bruised my arms. I have written that letter myself because I am absolutely out of my mind and should be in an asylum."

But neither the letter nor the gown does believe her. Not to speak of herself.

She can feel the seconds ticking away while she struggles with herself.

"What? Go out there? Now? Are you nuts?"

'You own the key tonight.' the letter reminds her.

"Now you shut up. I didn't ask for your opinion." she growls. "Darn, it's the middle of the night and you're not even half awake, Carla. Ignore these idiots and get some sleep. Or even Frodo couldn't carry the rings you'll have under your eyes tomorrow." She lays her hands over her face. "I don't want to go back! Not even to return you stupid gown! Now be quiet!"

Some moments of utter silence pass away.

"Damn you all."

Her boots make no sound on the pavement as she passes shop displays and flashy neon signs. Small groups of people move through the twilight, some silent, some talking. All that seems to be far away and Carla feels utterly alone with her fears.

So she begins to talk softly to the rolled bath gown in her arms.

"I'll rip you at the seams. Just for fun. And then I'll burn the letter. Just for fun, too. I hate you both. Why do you do all this to me? I didn't ask you to wake me in the middle of the night and send me on a journey to a nonexistent gate, talking to inanimate objects! I only wish I hadn't such a good memory. I only wish I would get lost in this big hell of a city and never find the Opera!"

But finally she steps out on the Rue Scribe.

"Ok, there is no gate. No darn gate. See?" She stampers down the street, tracing the wall of the Opera with her hand. And there really is no gate. "Wanna see it again, stupid robe?" she returns to her starting point in the same manner. "Again, no gate. No fking gate! And now, once we're here we could go to have a closer look at La Madeleine by night as well." she decides and begins to shuffle down Rue Scribe again.

Then a draft hits her cheek and sends a wisp of hair across her face. When she slowly turns, her eyes fall onto the black bars of a massive iron gate, hanging silently on it's hinges as if it's been there for ages.

Panting she reaches into her pocket to pull out a huge key. She stares down at the silvery metal, for a moment unable to think and unable to move. Total numbness.

Her fingers claw into the black satin of the robe as she violently shakes her head.

"Now, you should have been prepared for something like this." she finally grates "He already showed you what he's capable of, didn't he?"

Silence.

"Would there be any use in refusing?"

Silence.

"I'm afraid! Heck! Let me go. Please!" Softly she begins to sob.