Erik's old habit of sleeplessness returned to him, such that he awoke early enough to be reasonably sure of not meeting Christine. Regardless, he dressed carefully. He was not as thin as he had been during the days of his madness, and he had not replaced the collection of wigs burned in the fire. His appearance would always be loathsome, but he was satisfied to no longer look quite so imposing, now that he was not in the business of scaring people for a living.
Still, he was glad that Christine was not in the small dining room. Both Giry women were. Meg, as ever, was bolting an amount of food that was surprising for so slight a girl. Giry looked exhausted. By the time he had finished buttering his toast, Erik had decided what to say.
"I thought I would go out," he said, as if it was perfectly natural. "Is there anything you need?"
Meg stared at him, and Giry sighed. "You will hide from her, then? For how long?"
Erik gritted his teeth. "Given that the sight of me makes her weep, I should think it wise to give her time to compose herself." He had not slept at all well. It was a struggle to remain polite.
Giry nodded. "Just so long as you are not going to do something foolish like disappear or give up your home."
Erik blinked at her. He wondered at her ability to know what he had been thinking. To be understood was a marvel. It was also a little frightening. Despite his moments of lucidity, he had in fact been thinking that it would be better to disappear.
"What a mess," he sighed to his plate; then he scowled at Meg's giggle.
Strange, how little used he still was to daylight. Late summer was still too warm for the camouflage of a cloak, and he felt exposed, wandering the streets with only a hat to blunt the strangeness of his masked face. It was all an act, this business of lounging at a café, his long legs dwarfing the tiny chair, sipping coffee as if he cared not one bit that his face was a ruin, that he wore a mask for all to see. Yet he did it.
And all the while that he sat, it might have looked as if he was engrossed in his book of Italian poetry, in the notes he was making in a small notebook, or even in the highly polished tip of his boot. That, too, was an act. He marveled at the talent that his hands possessed for not trembling. He praised his foot for not tapping and his lungs for breathing as if all was right with the world and Christine Daae did not sit again in his home. There was too much to think of. For one: what, really, did he want to say to her? For another: why in God's name was she not to marry the Vicomte? What did she plan? Both critical and terrifying: did she really hate him? Beyond anything, he wanted for her not to hate him. He had no idea how to go about it. He no longer had a lair to be filled with seductive tricks, and he was no longer the master of a domain built on fantasy.
He started a letter. My beloved angel was crossed out, as were my dearest love, eternal darling, and most exquisite of women. Very quickly, he was simply writing as fast as his hand could move. Christine. My angel. Can you ever forgive me for the wrongs I have done to you? For all that I have adored you utterly, I have been unfair. I sought to bewitch and overwhelm you. I never once gave you the respect that you deserved or asked —much less worked—for your affection. In my misery and selfishness, I did not treat you as one who is loved. I made you into a thing to be possessed. God, how I longed to possess you. Here, he stopped. His hand was, finally, trembling. The page was ripped from his book and crumpled into a tiny ball.
"If only I could write a duet for tenor and violin that would make her understand," he thought, and then he grimaced at himself. There would be no making her do anything—he had to make sure of that. He was done controlling anyone but himself. He hoped. He prayed, fervently, every day. The coffee was cold. Erik sighed with irritation and left the café to wander the streets, hardly knowing where he went. He could not keep his thoughts in order. He wanted to show her how much he regretted his madness. He wanted to make amends for his sins. He wanted to protect her from fear and danger and to do anything she asked to promote her happiness. Then, too, he wanted to crush her in his arms, to feel her mouth pressed against his. The thought of her lying in a bed separated from his by no more than a wall tormented him. There could be nothing more heavenly than to be able to reach for her, to trace her cheek with his fingertips. Once, he had watched her sleeping in his bed, and it was the height of beauty. He shook his head. No, there was. She had been even more gorgeous last night, vibrant and happy, until she had caught sight of him. In these calmer days, he no longer found himself weeping with despair. On occasion, he missed it—he would welcome the release.
Erik looked up and realized that his feet had carried him back to the start of it all. There was no sign that anyone was ready to reclaim the property—the ruins remained untouched. He stood with his hands in his pockets and stared at his shattered kingdom. The building had been everything to him—home, school, playground. He remembered very little of his early childhood, and he did not want to remember the years of captivity. For him, life began when Giry took his hand, ran with him through the streets to a loose grate that led to a warren of stone corridors that pressed on him coldly but in comfort. How he had always loved to see what was above and below him, with no dizzying expanse of sky. He had learned, had explored, had watched, and his watching had led to blackmail, which had led to control. Looking back, he very nearly felt sympathy for M. Lefevre and his taste for opium and boy whores, even though it was this that had allowed Erik to cultivate his taste for fine clothing, to build his comfortable lair and, eventually, the secret passageways and silent doors that had enabled him to bewitch Christine. It was a long story, with her at the center.
He remembered the first time he saw her. It was not long after she had come to the Opéra, so she was seven years old. He was not sure how old he was—he had been a young man, although past his gawkiness. Those were his days of skulking about trying to catch a glimpse of a bare breast or of the strangely thrilling thatch of hair between a woman's legs. Normally, a child would have held no interest for him. He was passing back down toward his home. There was a room in the upper basement that inexplicably had a stained-glass window of an angel and a votive stand. Some of the Opéra members used it as an ersatz chapel—Erik had found it to be a good spot for gathering useful information, which was why his usual path took him past it.
A small voice was singing. He did not understand the language, and it would be many weeks before his studies told him that she was singing in Swedish. The song was obviously a lullaby, but the child did not finish it—before long the song was cut off by miserable sobs. It was the singing that intrigued him; misery was no stranger. He was curious as to what kind of child would have such technique, as if she had been trained.
Erik peered through a hidden crack in the frame of the window at the weeping little girl, dressed as a ballet student, huddled on the floor. He could not understand the language she spoke, but the word "Papa" was frequent and clear. He was idly sympathetic, but he did not pause for long. Yet because she lived in the ballet dormitory and had been taken under Giry's wing, he soon learned about her—orphan of the Swedish violinist Daae, who patron had seen fit to give the virtuoso a magnificent tomb but not a sou to his daughter. So the language and the training were explained. Her orphan status made her marginally more interesting. She evidently struggled with French, but as he heard her in passing, more often he heard the word "angel." One day, as he listened to her plead to the spirit of her father to send the Angel of Music to her, he was struck by a perverse notion. Pitching his voice as low as possible, he said, "Child, I am here." She screamed in terror and ran from the room. It was many days before she returned.
Erik shook his head to clear it of memories. That had been more than a decade before. Ten years of tumultuousness. He wondered whether she even remembered the language of her birth. He wondered whether she remembered that day and what she thought of her Angel now. If fate was kind, he would ask her some day. In the meantime, the sun was setting, and he turned for the comfort of home.