Disclaimer: "Hallelujia" by Rufus Wainright. PTO by Andrew Lloyd Webber--Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber--and Gaston Leroux and numerous other people who are not me. Me make no money. Me mean no harm. You please no sue, b'wanna...
Warning: Character death.
One of the two small candles perched in the candlabrum flickered out, deepening the shadows around the lonely piano and the masked man playing it.
I've heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord
Erik pounded through several chords on his organ. The final phrase of the chorus echoed in his head, demanding completion--demanding closure of the verse. "God have mercy on--" Erik's inner voice echoed the melody again as he fumbled, looking for the perfect chord. "--me..."
But you don't really care for music, do you?
The chord came out strangled--like the discordant yelps of a baying pack of animals with a discordant wail.
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift
Chords fell out through his fingers. Again and again, he pounded chords and each was a disappointment to the melody.
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
And so, spent, he closed the folder of scrambled pages, diappointment bowing his shoulders. His muse had fled--leaving the song unfinished and him a broken king in his dark underground kingdom.. And all he could do was push the rest of the chorus into the air...
Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
God couldn't hear him down here, could he? If He could not hear a prayer down here, how could He answer?
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
Erik had seen her on the roof of the opera--relishing the wet tears of rain pouring down her cheeks and her wet skirts clinging tightly to her. No gentle rain this--but a downpour that soaked her to the skin. She shed all pretense and modesty as the storm fled before her, bathing her shivering form in the moonlight at last.
She tied you to a kitchen chair
Her innocent honesty captured him when he brought her down to his lair. Unaware of herself, as only a true ingenue could be, she sat in front of the fireplace, brushing her hair dry. The ghostly form of her limbs shadowed through the linen gown and he was riveted to his chair by the samovar in the kitchen.
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
Yet, she was a restless soul. She rendered him powerless in a solitary note on an empty stage the first time he heard her. He a slave to her will with a descant and helplessly ensnared in her melody. He was powerless and powerful and broken in a single song as he swayed to her rhythms even as those rhythms changed.
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
And now, he could feel the music rising in him again as soft whispers pushed words into the still air of the staircase as he rose again, like Lazarus, to the surface.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Maybe I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
Erik's feet traced the steps to wander his way around to through the grand stages and up the horseshoe stair cases. The steps were familiar--a well worn path through and around--but strangely different. She had walked past here too.
I used to live alone before I knew you
Ahh, solitude! It was his comfort and companion and now had fled. It was all empty without her.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Even the flapping posters and banners, proclaiming her next performance at the Opera were no comfort now that she had left him behind. He had been what he thought was the better man--let her have her head--but now the Opera was nothing without her. As silent as only a stone building could be, the hallways swallowing his song...
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
There was a time you let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
There was a time when she told him everything. Like a small child chatting about everything and anything she whispered to him all those months. She was as clear to him as a crystal goblet of water--refreshing in her unabashed frankness.
Then she stopped...
And remember when I moved in you?
The holy dark was moving too And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
He brought her closer to him, drawing her into the sacred shadows he had hidden in, trying desperately to cope with this new side to her. She was hiding things from him--her little liasons with Raoul for one--but now the crystaline water had become dark as claret. Over night, it seemed, she became a woman with all the feminine games that women played to keep things from men.
She had joined him in darkness, seeming to relish her time with him like some children relish honey candy. Voracious in her curiosity, she stalked around his lair like a cat getting the feel of a place before settling in. Ahh...to have that time again where they feasted on each others' company and on music and singing...
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And the tragedy had wound to its climactic close. DeChangy had fired on him before--almost shot him in the back as he spied on the younger man one night. He had burned with rage--any gentleman may expect to be met face to face but deChagny had sought to shoot him down like a mad dog. How ironic Fate's temper was since their last meeting was when his own home was invaded. By the grace of his own swift reflexes and deChagny's exhaustion, he had struck--winding his Punjab lasso around the younger man's neck. He remembered Christine's agonized face when he forced her to make her choice between them--cutting one of them out forever. It had all spun so far out of his control--he never meant to hurt Christine so much. Yet, he and deChangy had been locked in almost mortal combat since their first acquaintance, wrestling like two tigers over a singular mate.
And now it was over--scarcely three days after the love affair had collapsed upon itself in a blaze of passion...
It's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
What was left now? he silently cried to the hollow halls of the Opera. What more could be taken from him? He was left with no great moral--no great sense of closure or accomplishment. It was all emptiness. Just the vague relief that it was over and the aching bitterness of emptiness.
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
All that was left was a mournful whisper of a song pushed into the air as he paused in the shadow of a winding staircase to look at a last paper banner hanging from the opposite wall.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
A flicker of movement drew his attention. Looking up he saw the twisted face of young Raoul, staring at an advertisment for her next performance some four weeks hence. Sorrow and grief had marked his face, streaking his normally blonde hair with grey and leaving dark circles under his eyes.
Erik started to back away, until he heard the whisper, "Don't go."
So, for a time, they both stared at the banner proclaiming that Christine Daee's performance of Margaurite in Faust was canceled. Christine was preserved eternally in her blue and brown peasant costume with a secretive, thoughtful smile on her face like a modern Madonna.
"Did she suffer? Was she in pain?" Erik felt the words push from him.
After an eternal moment of silence, he saw Raoul shake his head. Another moment passed as they considered the poster. "No... No, she didn't." Raoul's head bowed. "The end was quick."
Erik grimaced.
The younger man crumpled for a moment before the portait of his love. "She never told me. Never said that she was ill--" His sobbed for a moment. "Certainly not with cancer." He whimpered softly, like a puppy in pain then let out a short, grim hiccough of laughter. "She wanted to go on as though nothing were wrong. So she'd take laudaum or morphine if the pain was bad and go on. She never even told me that she was in pain...," He sobbed again. "I don't even know if she knew it was me with her--"
Erik fumbled for words. Offering sympathy was unknown to him--he was no courtier to mouth platitudes and sweet nothings. "I'm sure that she knew she was with you..." Rather than me hung unspoken in the air.
Raoul stopped for a moment. From under his cloak and pulled a bouquet of white roses. "Do you think so?" he asked idly, catching his breath. "It was so sudden. She hadn't been feeling well since we left the Opera--well, it got worse when she left here to live at my estates--but she didn't say a word about it. She'd fob me off on some excuse or other. And then she'd hurry to return to rehearsals here. I asked her about it the--the last time. She had had a bad cough and I was taking her to see my physician when we stopped for some tea at a cafe." Raoul took a shuddering breath. "She started coughing into her kerchief. I saw--I saw blood. I asked her about it...and she said not to worry. She balled the kerchief up and started to throw it away and I tried to grab it. She dodged out of my reach--laughing--and fell into the street..."
Erik swallowed heavily. Four horses pulling some anonymous nobleman's carriage and family wickedly fast had done in moments what the cancer would do in a few more weeks or a few months. Or a few days.
Raoul laid the flowers at the bottom of the poster. Saying a brief prayer, he stood up and straightened his cloak. Turning, he faced Erik directly.
"She spoke highly of you--always," he stuttered. "Even...even in the end." He sighed, and laid the bouquet on the floor beneath the poster for Faust. "I never meant to return to the Opera--but I wanted to do this for her." He stood and glanced again at the likeness of Christine. "I will not return to the Opera." He turned slowly--like an old man. "I cannot..."
Erik nodded. As the younger man walked away, he offered hesitantly, "Perhaps we can speak later...? Perhaps..." He fumbled again with his words. Who else would understand the depth of his loss? "Perhaps we can meet again...?"
"Perhaps," the younger man said, stopping. His loss echoed in his eyes. "But I cannot return here."
The two men faced each other finally. Bruised and aching from their mutual loss they could only watch each other--enemies in sympathy with each other's agony. Raoul nodded gracefully, touching the dark grey brim of his hat. Erik, touched the brim of his fedora. In swirls of capes, they turned away. They would never be friends, but perhaps...
...perhaps they were at least no longer enemies.