Ch 21

The man that had walked in beside the boy was worse for wear than I had originally thought. He apparently stumbled on his way down the hall as when I entered behind them he was on his hands and knees with the helpful, kind-hearted little brat kneeling beside him. The heroic vicomte fanned the man's gin blossom face, as he called for assistance. In their concern for the downed aristocrat, the bellman and the vicomte never saw me walk up the stairs.

Perfect.

I smiled to myself as I closed the door at the top of the stairs behind me. There was a chair in the hall, a beautiful green armchair and a small cherry wood table with a glass-shaded lamp. I moved the chair before the door and the side table against the wall until both pieces of furniture were wedged into place. No one would open this door. Not from down stairs, at least.

Given the hour, there was no one about. Still, I walked with caution down the plush carpeted hall, breath held and muscles tense. Suite 203…Suite 205. She was quite a ways down the hall. My pace quickened. This was not part of my kingdom. My control in the Wisteria was limited as I was not familiar with the lay out.

219….221…I was getting closer and closer to seeing her again, my love, my angel. My heart thumped against my ribcage. 223…225…This was as close as I had been in eight years. The day of the Exhibition hadn't counted as I had stood in the back. The last time we had been separated—near yet separated—was by a door The day she abandoned Alex. Alex—was he here?

She had refused to see me that day. 235….Closer and closer. I could almost smell her lilac water perfume. 239….Her lips, her eyes, the cascade of dark hair down her back were burned like a brand into my mind. Everything about her returned to me in dreams. The first day I had seen her, the first time I had touched her…the last moment before she left with her precious lover.

241. This was it. Her hotel room, Suite 241, where her dark curls rested on a silken pillow, where she laid at night with her lover. Where he crawled on top of her, looked into her eyes, and enjoyed every ounce of pleasure I had ran through my mind day after day, week after week until time turned into long, maddening years.

Suite 241.

I stared at the brass numbers. This was it, the place where nearly a decade of longing would come to an end. I'll never know why I did it, but rather than knock I tried the doorknob.

The damned thing turned. I dug a fingernail into the palm of my hand. This was not a dream. Try again, I thought. Same result. Ah, but of course. The boy. She left it unlocked for her louse of a husband. I wondered then if he drank often, if he spent late nights at bars while she stayed in the hotel with their daughters. Poor beautiful Christine perched on a chaise lounger, knees curled up to her stomach as she read a book. How lonely, how sad, how in need of an angel.

Maybe he was a piggish man like Louis Seuratti. Perhaps he had beaten Christine on occasions when he returned from a night of drinking and womanizing. As far as I was concerned, that was all the more reason for her to come to me.

But who would hurt Christine? What sort of man would lift a hand to such a gentle creature? Who would hit a gentle creature indeed? What was Julia then, if not another helpless angel? The thought made me shiver. So many undeserving suffer.

I was stalling. Everything I wanted was behind that door. I swallowed and steeled my nerves. This was what was important. This is what I wanted.

Christine Daae was what I needed. She belonged to me.

The room was surprisingly large. That was the first thing that I noticed. Large and still fairly well lit for 2:30 in the morning. I suspected I was correct in that de Chagney must have spent many nights gone. Why else, then, would she not have been waiting at the door for him to return.

I left the door open behind me, afraid that the click of it shutting would wake her or rouse the children. Madeline had said that her children were with her. I didn't recall reading it in the note but that was hardly something to dwell on as I stood on the marble foyer scanning the room.

This is what I had given her: a life of luxury. Without my training, what would she be but a girl in the chorus, a ballet dancer slowly fading into retirement? She had a beautiful room with velvet chairs, lace curtains and the thickest wool carpeting I had ever seen.

She would be grateful, if anything.

I wiped my feet on a simple rug and moved quiet as a cat across the length of the room. There were two choices where lights shone down the hall. Both, I assumed, were bedrooms. One must have belonged to the children, the other to Christine. Somehow I found amusement in her children needing a light to fall asleep. Alexandre had always preferred complete darkness.

Alex. Damn him. Where was he?

A soft, unrecognizable sound emerged from the room on the left. I held my breath and heard another noise. A book, I realized. She had closed a book. I heard a drawer slide open and quietly close. The bed creaked. She had been in bed reading.

Withdrawing the mask from the inside of my cloak, I stood in the hall and waited a moment. If she turned down the lamp, approaching her in darkness would frighten the daylights out of her. If I approached her with the lamp on…

There was no going back. I stood in her hotel room, in her hallway. What was left to do but appear in the bedroom doorway?

"Don't scream," I whispered as I slid into view.

That, of course, was wasted breath.

Christine managed to stifle the sound leaving her throat. Her hand raised, trembling as it hit her gaping mouth.

"You…" she whispered.

I nodded and waited for her to regain her composure as she sat tucked into bed, the coverlet over her legs and a surprisingly low-cut night dress displaying more flesh than I had expected. Unabashedly I stared at her, at the woman I adored.

"How did you find me?" she gasped.

A peculiar question. I said that aloud, I think. Of all the people in the world, she should know my ways. Her eyes narrowed on me, slit like a snake's glare.

"How did you get in?"

"The door."

Obviously.

She had not yet settled enough to think rationally. As glad as I was to finally see her, the ignorance of her questions irritated me. Time was passing, time for the boy to find a way around my blocked door. Enough of her questions, it was time for one of my own.

"Where is he?" I asked.

She hesitated, pulling her lace gown to her ankles. "He'll be back soon."

"You sent him out?"

"It's really none of your business."

"Tell me."

She looked away. "Friends of his stopped by yesterday, old friends. Is that what you wanted to know?"

We weren't talking about the same person. Damn her, she was only toying with me, buying time for her savior to return.

"I care nothing for him. Where is Alexandre?"

Her expression changed. She went blank, the color slipping from her face, her eyes turned to nothingness. It was as if she had no idea who Alexandre was.

"Who is Alexandre?" she asked.

My breath caught in my throat and I gaped at her. Before I knew what I did, I was across the room and at her bedside, pointing a finger in her face. "How easily you forget your past," I said, doing everything to keep my voice low. "How you have pushed us aside for so long."

"Is that what you named him?" Christine blinked. "The boy?"

"The...the boy?" My nose wrinkled. She had a very flippant way of referring to our son.

"How old is he now? I have not given him a second thought, not until this moment."

My body shook with rage at how easily she discarded our son. "His name is Alexandre Jean Kire," I announced. "I've told you about him. The letters, the letters, the damn letters over the years."

"I beg your pardon?" She stared at me in terror. By the look on her face I had either turned green or was speaking a language she didn't understand.

"Listen to me," I demanded. "The letters, after your daughter died in Africa—"

"How dare you!" she said boldly though she moved farther across the bed. '"You are speaking madness! I have no idea what letters you speak of."

"I wrote to you!"

She slid off the opposite side. "You've gone mad. You've gone completely mad. If you say one more word to me, I swear to God I will scream and the whole hotel will come in here and find you. Is that what you want? Do you want that all over again?"

All over again, she said. Don Juan Triumphant all over again.

"Are you threatening me?" I asked through my teeth.

"Get out of here."

I swallowed hard. My fingertips had gone numb, my vision turning dark around the edges. For the better part of a decade I had imagined winning Christine back. This was not how I had envisioned this evening.

"No," I said evenly.

Christine glared at me. Somehow I think she looked past the white leather and saw what was beneath the mask. "I had forgotten you," she said bitterly.

"The letters," I said again. "In Africa."

"What letters in Africa? What sort of game are you playing this time?"

"I want to know why!" I shouted. I stepped on the bed and jumped down before her, grabbing her by the arm with one hand and covering her mouth with the other to keep her from screaming. "Listen to me! For one damned moment, listen to me and tell me why you did it."

She had no choice but to nod, and once she swore she would not scream or fight, I released my hand from her perfect lips and settled myself enough to speak in what I hoped was a calm voice.

My hands grazed her shoulders and along her neck. I started to caress her ear, but she turned away and grimaced as though the mere touch of my hand burned her.

"When I heard about the death of your daughter Suzette, I cried for you. For days I could not imagine what you had gone through," I said quietly.

Tears welled in her eyes. She hated me for bringing up her poor little girl but I refused to silence myself. I needed to know.

"I wrote to you. On the back of the paper."

She started to shake her head, but still I pressed on.

"The ink was sensitive to heat. I sent my condolences."

"Erik—"

"Let me finish," I said. My voice rose. I stroked her hair, a silky strand of heaven that trailed down her shoulder. "You wrote back and you thanked me. You thanked me for thinking of you."

She waited a moment, apparently unsure of whether or not I had finished. I leaned forward, wanting to smell her hair but she pushed her hands against my chest and I obeyed her. This was close enough, as close as I would be to her. For now.

"I never saw a note," she replied at last.

"But you wrote back."

She shook her head. "No, no I never wrote back, Erik, I never saw a note. You imagined it."

My chest tightened to the point where breathing became difficult. "I did not imagine it."

"Then you've gone mad."

She thought I was delusional. I shook my head and set my jaw. I would leave her knowing everything or I would not leave at all. At least not alive.

"There was a note. I have kept it for years. I have kept you for years. Don't you understand? I've been waiting for this, for you to return. Alex and I both—" I paused. Alex. Where was he?

"You cannot stay here," she said. "I don't want them to find you."

My opportunity began to slip through my fingers. "Why did you do it? Why did you leave your son?"

Christine looked away. She looked past me and I turned to follow her gaze. Two little dark-haired girls stood in the doorway clutching dolls. They were perfect copies of their mother right down to the shape of their noses and curls of hair.

"He's a friend," Christine said. She glared at me from the corner of her eye, telling me with barely a glance that it was all a ruse to protect her daughters. "Go back to bed and shut the door."

Once the girls were gone, I awaited her answer.

"He was never my son," she mumbled.

I was about to unravel. I could feel my head pounding in frustration.

"I waited too long," she continued in a tone void of emotion. "Too many weeks of going to the physician and changing my mind. When I was certain I could go through with it, they said terminating the fetus would put me in danger." She shook her head. "I either had to give birth or…I risked my life. I figured I could always take him somewhere once he was born and…leave him."

My voice abandoned me. I wanted to vomit over her callus words.

"When I returned to Paris, I saw Meg. The baby wasn't with me. Alex, I think you said? He was with the Sisters of St. Fay. I had left him with the nuns and they were finding a couple to take him. But then Meg mentioned her mother, and I knew…I knew she would take him. I didn't know you were with them. Not until it was too late."

"Too late?" I had no idea if I managed to say it aloud or if it was only in my mind. She was going to leave him with her ballet teacher and when she discovered that the father of her own child was there, she had second thoughts.

"Once I found out you were there, I had my doubts. But Meg swore they would take care of the baby and that I would never have to think of him again. That was what I wanted. I never wanted to think of him again. My God, I never even named him. I asked Madeline to never mention him in letters to me so that he would simply be forgotten."

If there is something within the soul that can crack, mine most certainly shattered and bled. There were tears in my eyes as I stared at her, nearing the point where I could not believe what she said. She had given him life and yet she wanted nothing to do with him. She hadn't even named him.

"I took care of him," I said. And I know the words left my mouth by the look of disbelief on her face. "My son, your son, our son, Christine. I took care of him. All these years I took care of him when he was sick, when he was upset. I stayed up with him at night, I rocked him to sleep. I took care of him. Imagine it, Christine. Imagine the monster, the devil himself looking after your son."

"He's not my son. He's not even our son."

"He is our son."

"No, Erik, if he belongs to anyone then let it be you," she replied. "I don't want him. I never did."

"Why did you do it, then? Why did you ever give yourself to me?"

She shook her head. "Don't do this," she whispered.

My fingers dug into her shoulders. I didn't want to hurt her, God knows I would never want to hurt her, but I needed to know. After all of these years, I needed to know everything.

"Because then you would know," she answered, not looking me in the eye.

"Know what?" I demanded.

Her eyes shot up. If I wanted to be humiliated, her eyes said to me, then so be it. Here is all of your misery, served on a silver platter and garnished with hatred.

"For one time in your life, you would at least have the pleasure of a woman. I did it out of pity, Erik, plain and simple, I gave you my gift out of nothing more than pity. At least you would have the memory of being with a woman."

If she did not think I was a pathetic, miserable fool yet, I proved myself when I spoke. "And the second time?"

Her face darkened. "One of the dancers said before that when she was with child, she slept with a man and she bled again a few days later. I had hoped it would be the same for me."

There was nothing inside of me. No feeling, no sensation of any sort. Not for a long time after she spoke. The next thing I knew, I was seated on her bed and she was gone from the room. She was an insulting woman in every way. She had insinuated that I would not be capable of caring for a child. She had offered her virginity out of pity, not love, not gratitude—and I would have settled for gratitude—but no, she slept in my bed out of pity. What greater slap to the face could there have been?

Emotion returned. Hatred. Loathing. That was what I felt for her. No longer love, no longer need or want or desire but pure disgust, utter rancor for Christine. All these years spent waiting for her to return and now…

Now where was Alexandre?

Voices in the other room made me aware of where I was sitting. I stumbled to my feet and started towards the hall.

Raoul de Chagny met me there, his youthful face stern and red from drinking. Two other men stood behind him and I could see the bloodlust in their eyes the moment they spotted me.

This was it. This was my reward for coming here. Not a fight, I knew, but a beating. I could already see my death in their eyes.