A writer's virtue: flexibility...:D

Dear readers, I have changed the story a bit: Carla and Leah are not visiting Paris, they've just arrived to go to university there.

Chapter Five – No Coffin

The next morning Carla wakes from a strange dream. She can't really recall it but it had to do with a child that was turned into a ghost and therefor couldn't sing anymore although singing would have been the the only way for it to regain it's human form.

Ignoring her breakfast she directly walks into the library, searching for distraction.

"How about a guided tour through the really interesting parts of these cellars?"

"So you don't sleep in a coffin?" she exclaims, barely hiding the disappointment.

"Well, at least it has a canopy and black curtains." he answers, following the odd need to defend his chosen resting place.

"Oh, no offense intended!" Carla hurries to say. "It's just... an inseparable pairing in my mind, the Phantom and his coffin."

'But I won't comment on the huge organ, nope, never, noo.' she mumbles in her mind. 'Although it's really extraordinary huge... No, Carla! Keep quiet. Don't be an utter shame!' So she concentrates on his as well huge but far less equivocal wardrobe.

After visiting Erik's chamber, they stroll through wide rooms full of musical instruments of all kinds, a studio with easels, loads of canvases (author's comment: plural, uh?O.o), brushes, vessels with pigments and oils, blocks with drawings, some abstract, some photorealistic, several large laboratories stuffed with experimental apparati, chemicals, tons of scientific instruments and books, and finally a surprisingly small chamber containing only a mainframe and a writing desk with a G4 Powerbook (author's comment: As if Erik would use a PC, pah:D).

"So this is your internet connection?" Carla bravely comments this sight.

"Yes. But sadly there is no connection for the next fifteen days." Erik answers.

"Meaning?"

"In a nutshell it means that while you experience a time span of fifteen days down here, on the surface only approximately three hours pass."

Carla stands dumbstruck for a moment.

"No wait... So you can really manipulate time?"

Erik nods.

"My state of existence has some advantages."

"Why did you then do the dummy thing when you first took me here?"

"Dummy?" he frowns.

"Leah told me that I was with her all the day."

"Ah, that. Well, you weren't with Leah that day. I just prevented her from perceiving your absence."

"Gosh, you mean she talked to her self all the day?"

"Exactly."

"Oh... But again: why didn't you fake time on that occasion?"

"Well..." he clears his throat "All is relative, but there are several degrees and time has the highest. It is easy to manipulate in comparison with - for example - matter, but it takes... well, time to get a hold of it, to specify 'where' and 'how much' time you want to form. Perhaps you remember the moment you stared at my letter, that turned out to have been over two hours..."

Carla puts her hands on her hips.

"You were watching me?"

"Of course. If you make an experiment, you should be able to see the outcome, don't you think?"

"So I was your guinea pig?" she asks, not very happy with that idea.

In a defensive gesture he puts up his hands.

"I was planning to put you into a manipulated time field for fifteen days, I had to see if your body would be able to cope with it."

"Oh... yes, that was necessary." Carla admits. "Now... what about time travel? Can you do that?"

"I can 'travel' forward, like you did on the letter occasion. But there is no way back in time."

"Ok. And now tell me how exactly you do this messing around with time!" she demands to prevent him from giving in to sad thoughts that could petrify the atomsphere again.

"First you tell me how exactly you bring your muscles to strech and contract at your will."

Carla pulls a face.

"Meaning?"

"It's just the same thing. I don't know how exactly I do it, but it works."

Carla sighs.

"Ok."

When they return to the library, Carla walks over to a small shelf filled with Poto-literature. She pulls out Leroux' version and strolls back to her stool.

"Now, you wrote this, right?" she asks, holding up the small black book.

"One could say that. I provided most of the vital information Leroux based his 'report' on."

"For example?"

"Christine's letters. I wrote them."

"You mean you dictated it to someone who copied her handwriting...?" Carla asks automatically.

"No."

"But... with all due respect... I mean, your writing is... at least clumsy..."

"So you think someone who can draw photorealistic isn't capable of reproducing something as simple as some letters?"

The unmistakable aggression in his voice causes her to put up her hands in a gesture of self-defense.

"I'm sorry, I didn't intend to upset you with my question. It's just... Why do you write like a child then?"

He hesitates.

"I... I drew Christine's letters. I don't like writing. I... don't understand it. Call it a disability. Why shouldn't my distortion spread out to my brain?" An angry finger that is poked willingly into a wound that isn't even trying to heal anymore.

A long moment of silence follows in which his breathing calms down again.

As he doesn't leave or send her away, Carla continues her interrogation: "What about Nadir? Did he tell the truth?"

"The Daroga..." Erik sighs. "Well... I gave him the faked letters and told him the story that he had to reproduce for Leroux. It didn't take half a day to convince him that what I told him was the truth. He had always possessed a rather unstable sanity and seeing me again alife and well nearly thirty years after he believed me to be dead did the rest... But he was a good detective in his time." he adds, his voice edged with regret.

"And... why did you do all this? Why did you invest all this energy to interfere with Leroux' research?"

"Because I had the right to determine what this overly curious journalist found out about me and Christine." his hands are clinched to tight fists "Because I had the right to protect our story from being displayed in an ignorant world. They'd never understand why..." he sighs "But that would go too far. I shouldn't tell you the end of the story first. Now, let me hear some more questions about the book."

"Ok..." Carla consents. "Since you are not dead and Leroux proved that it can't be a communard... whose is the skeleton they found in the catacombs?"

The stiffening of his posture tells her that this was the wrong question. She bites her lips and takes breath to say something, but Erik pre-empts her.

"It's the skeleton of Raoul de Chagny."

"No, wait!" Carla stares at him unbelieving and with an odd trace of hope. "Does that mean you buried the young hero in your... your front garden? After he died at your hands, I assume...?"

He gives a bitter loughter.

"The young hero, yes. But he killed me first. Or at least tried to do so."

"Ok... Uhm, are there any other significant people buried down here?... Other aristocrats? Or a Primadonna?"

There is a moment of deadly silence before Erik answers: "I buried Christine right beside him."

"Ah... but... I... uhm..." Carla stammers "Some years later, you mean."

"It was the same night." His voice is nearly inaudible.

Carla swallows sadly. So his story has not the peaceful ending that she instinctively hoped for when he told her about Raoul's death.

"They didn't find her, though?" she then asks softly.

"I took her remains to a safe place after they found Raoul." he explains, making a great effort to let his words sound firm and calm. "Then I stole him back for her. She wouldn't have wanted to be parted from him..."

There is a strong feeling of sadness, emanating from Erik's presence, that Carla would like to flee very much, so she asks: "Would you like to be alone for a while?"

But Erik shakes his head.

"Please don't feel oblieged to leave... Why don't you tell me something about yourself? You're from Grenoble, right?"

"Is my accent that obvious?" she whines with played despair, supporting his attempt to turn his mind to more pleasant topics. "Well, I'm afraid there isn't much to say about me. I'm the only child of an ingeneer and the manager of a small student bar. At the moment I'm studying archaeology and philosophy here in Paris and hope that I'll soon dig my first scientific hole into the hot sands of egypt. In Grenoble I have a yellow tomcat who's named Canary, four canaries who are called Tomcat and one canary who prefers to be called Phoenix after she survived Canary's first and last canary hunt. My oldest and best friend is Leah, the phreak; we share practically everything, sadly including our taste in men. Uhm... The weirdest thing I've ever eaten was tuna with strawberries and..." she shrugs "the weirdest thing I've ever done was a walk through a gate that wasn't there one moment ago... I guess my life is mostly rather boring for the noninvolved observer... But I could tell you about some good books I read. 'The Lord of the Rings' for example. Do you know the story?"

"I only heard about it."

"Oh, you should read it when you have the time. Tolkien designed thousands of years of history and many different languages for his creatures."

"Well." Erik stands up. "That sounds creative. Tell me more while I prepare a meal for you."

The next two days are filled with increasingly relaxed discussions about books they both read, here and there digging deeper into philosophical or historical topics, and when Carla enters the library on the sixth day of her visit, a big smile appears on her face.

"You seem to have slept well." Erik greets her.

"Oh, like a baby. But the main reason for my facial expression is that when I opened the door the sight of you and all your books was so familiar. I guess I've arrived here. It's important for my wellbeing to feel like that."

"I'm happy to hear that."

"So..." she lets herself fall on her stool "Did you sleep well, too?"

"Relatively, yes." he answers, obviously feeling honoured by her question.

"And do you feel in the mood to tell me the next chapter of your story?"