Ch 12

Madeline Giry is a bird of the earliest hour. The sun never even thinks of rising before that woman. On any other night I would not have even noticed the bristled brush scraping along the wooden floor at the top of the stairs. I would not have heard her humming a song that I wrote long ago. I wouldn't have heard her curse the bucket as it overturned and toppled down the stairs. Nor my name mentioned for tracking mud in the previous night.

"Must you do this?" I sneered as I pulled the door open. The house was so dark that I scolded only the hallway.

I heard her sigh in disgust, which gave away the spot in which she crouched on the floor.

She didn't even look up to acknowledge me as she crawled backwards down the stairs. She muttered at me to wipe my feet and that was it. I didn't see her after that for several hours.

She left a puddle of suds before the door. I believe it was to irritate me.

After that I returned to my room and locked the door. Once I collapsed on the bed again Bessie joined me. The nudge of her nose against my face made me close my eyes. Leave it to a stinking dog to find acceptance in the mutilated and refuse of the world.

Alone I laid for several hours. No one bothered me until the doorbell rang. By that time I was ravenous as well as sick of my own wretched company.

From a small, round window overlooking the porch, I saw a boy not much older than ten standing with a leather pack slung over his arm. He was moving back and forth, shifting his weight and tapping his hands on the railing. It was difficult not to swing the window open and tell him to stop his incessant fidgeting. I imagine that would have scared the holy hell from him.

"Yes, what is it?" Meg said when she answered the door. Apparently I wasn't the only one in a questionable mood this morning.

"A letter, Madame. Are you Madame Madeline Giry?"

"No, I will get her," Meg replied. She then screamed for her mother. Good God, no wonder she was never a singer. A pretty thing, Meg Lowry, with a voice as pleasant as a sow. I thought for one fleeting moment my ears would bleed.

Madeline stomped through the house to the foyer. I waited impatiently though I knew exactly what was about to happen. The boy was delivering a letter from Christine. Hours remained until I would see my angel, my illustrious angel. Hours until I could drink in her beauty and feast on her voice, that wonderful voice. My creation….my Christine.

My jaw tensed as the door closed and I waited. First I started towards the door, then I pulled away. No, I would come down and see the note for myself, the proof that Madeline and Meg would have lunch later this afternoon. Everything was set into place, each pawn set on the chess board. This was what I had waited nearly a decade for: to see her again.

Madeline came up to me at once. She looked flustered as she handed me the note and turned away.

"Read," she muttered before exiting the room.

I scanned through the note several times before I folded it neatly, tucked it inside the envelope and returned to my room. Madeline made no protest to me keeping the note. Christine had cancelled their meeting. She had no use for it.

With trembling hands, I lit a candle and took a deep breath. She had cancelled lunch with Meg and Madeline. She had not turned me down. If she saw my note—and I knew she would look for my secret message—she would tell me what time to meet her for supper.

She had to meet me for supper.

I held the single sheet of paper over the flame and waited. Nothing. My fingers felt as though they would burn to ash but still I held it, enduring the pain in hopes of dulling another pain, a much worse anguish that tore through every other feeling part of my body.

The page caught fire and I stamped it out with my fists, banging out the flames until blackened ashes rose into my face.

Where was her note? Where was the message to me?

"No," I said aloud. I smoothed the paper again and placed it above the flame. My pounding had sent a river of wax over the desk that stuck to the wooden surface and the bits of ash. The paper dropped from my hands as the temperature grew intolerable.

"No," I said again. There was still nothing. Not even a rose in the corner as she had done before.

A soft knock at the door startled me. Hastily I threw the burnt, crumpled paper into a desk drawer and stormed across the room. Who would dare disturb me?

"Father?" Alex said meekly. He stepped back, sensing my rage.

"What? What is it? What do you want?"

"I….nothing," he mumbled. He turned and started to walk away.

There was only so far I could alienate him from me. With a sigh, I reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "Tell me," I said sternly.

He succumbed to my grasp and obeyed the pull of my arm. For an instant he lifted his arm and touched my hand. It was then that I remembered how much I once had loved him, how it had been before….before this nonsense with the Exposition and the promise of his mother's return.

Strange as it seems, Alexandre has never seen my face. He has only questioned the mask a handful of times, when he was much younger than he is now. In his childish innocence he had looked into my eyes, his tiny hand reaching up. He touched the cold surface, the skin that had become my skin. I had held my breath in dread.

"Papa," he had said, "why do you wear this?"

I had ignored him and went back to reading. I had hoped he would sit on my lap and forget that he had asked anything at all. But he was a curious child—and because he is my child—curiosities don't just die when they are left. They flourish. At the age of three he had already proven himself to be remarkably insatiable. While most children do not study at such an early age, Alex was already counting and learning to read thanks to Meg and Charles.

When I did not answer my son's question, he took it upon himself to find an answer. He tried to take the mask from my face.

I stood up abruptly, startled by the tug at the bottom corner of my mask, and in doing so Alex fell to the floor with a heavy thud. He said nothing. He uttered a small whimper and slunk across the floor. Looking back, I know what I should have done: I should have apologized. But I had instead left him in the parlor in favor of my room. Quite literally I stepped over him and left him, my son, my proof of the one moment I had enjoyed with Christine. I left him and damned myself.

It has been years since Alexandre has questioned the mask. Once in a while he would look on with curiosity but he never said a word.

He has been a blessing in every way, an elixir to the misery I have always felt. After Christine, it was like being at the bottom of a barrel. Losing her was like slipping through a crack and falling further, into solitude and remorse so dark and so deep that one never thought it could exist. The first time I held him I didn't just see that I had someone else, I felt it. It was like a glass half full being refreshed. I had no idea I needed each drop of him.

The greatest joy I felt was when he smiled at me or laughed when I dangled a toy before him. There was nothing else like it, no greater feeling than pleasing him. This was mine. He was still mine, yes, but now he had thoughts of his own and many had turned against me. I could no longer please him with simple games or words. I had not tried to please him with simple things. Christine was coming.

"What did she say?" Alex asked at last.

We had sat for several minutes with him in my armchair while I sat at the desk. This was why he had come upstairs. I knew when I saw him at the door that he would ask.

"She said no," I replied.

Alex looked away. It dawned on me that he may not have known what that meant. He sat in silence and scratched the dog behind the ears.

"Your grand-mere and aunt were to have lunch with her," I explained.

"I know. I was going to ask grand-mere if I could go with them," he whispered with his head down.

I turned away and felt myself smile. I knew him well, even when we did not see eye to eye or communicate often. "I know," I answered.

"Father," he murmured.

My eyes closed. He was asking me again why I wanted to keep her from him, why the man who was so much a mystery gave him nothing but a shadow as a mother. He had more in Christine than I had ever had in my own mother. How lucky he was. I wished I could tell him that knowing nothing was better than knowing hatred.

"Someday…"

"She will be gone in four days," he said before I could finish.

I nodded. I wondered if Madeline or Meg had told him this or if he had seen it in the paper.

"She doesn't have to know who I am," he said. There was such fever in his voice, such determination to offer reasons why he should be allowed to know his own mother. "I could see her from a distance."

No, I thought, distance is worse. Separation brings about longing for something more. I had done this for years, for too many years. I could not let him do as I had done, to create a hell of wanting.

"I want to know what she looks like." His voice cracked and he brought his hand to his mouth in an attempt to hold back his emotion.

Before I could speak, Madeline tapped on the door. "Alex? Leave your father alone a while. Come down for breakfast."

"He's fine," I protested.

"His food will be cold," she replied. The door opened and she appeared. "Ah, you're dressed. Good. Both of you, downstairs."

With a nod, I motioned Alex up. He trudged from the room, passing Madeline who gave him a warning look. She then turned to me.

"You should let him see her just this once," she said quietly, taking my arm before I passed her. "I will take him with me to meet her at the fair. Please, Erik."

"He will meet her," I said back, avoiding her eyes. "I have already decided."

Her hand gripped my arm even tighter, something she had done frequently in the past. "Erik…" she started, "by the week's end, there is one thing you will have for certain. Something that is not worth losing. Remember that."

It was as though she knew my wicked thoughts.