10.
There wasn't much news in Charivari. Paris was the same frozen place it had been when the war began. Peace was supposed to be an objective; the Prussian representative had been admitted in the Parisian Assembly. But bureaucracy moved so slowly. Relieved as I was to see Jean alive, I was alarmed to read his advocating a revolution.
Erik, however, was less nervous. "People are simply hungry and cold. They will follow whoever gives them hope. I do not believe you need to fear for your brother, Mademoiselle."
"But what would revolution mean for us, Erik?"
He shook his head. "No more and no less. I will simply wait for tensions to die down and then proceed with our original plan."
"Smuggle me to England."
"That is the objective. Within a week," he prophesized, "this ridiculous nonsense will blow over."
Ah, but he was wrong. It was rare for Erik to be wrong, but little did he know that the débacle would last another month.
I knew, better than anyone, that Erik's music was, above all else, his main absorption and one of the prime reasons he was still alive. I thought of the skull-head in the filthy cage, his sad eyes leaking and his manacled hands bleeding from the exertion of his violin. Remembering this, and the metaphysical connection we had shared the night he had played, I was in no doubt that, while he kept it secret, his music he was practicing. At night, when he thought I was asleep, I would hear snatches of it. More often now it was pipe organ and not violin, though he had divulged he planned someday to purchase a cottage piano and place it in the as-yet-incomplete parlor.
So when I questioned him about it in March of that year, he was much more forthcoming than I had imagined. "What are you composing?" I asked with considerable nonchalance, despite the knowledge he would brutally cast aside my curiosity.
"My life's work," he answered succinctly, with that strangely reassuring look in the gold of his eyes. "My opera."
"I thought you disdained the overly romantic genre of grand opéra."
"Oh, you misunderstand me," he replied with that misanthropic superiority that so often made him unapproachable. "I have faith in the institution of opera, Mademoiselle." He was toying with the immaculate cuffs of his sleeves, his fingers moving back and forth across the black smear of his waistcoat, smooth aside from the wrinkles around his black pearly buttons. "Fidelio, for example. That was the only opera Beethoven wrote; did you know that?"
I think he took some satisfaction when I shook my head. "You see, the great men only had one great opera in them. The same is true for me." He stood up abruptly, leaning against his chair as sudden passion blazed in his eyes. "Mind you, I will put all those who have come before me to shame." His lip trembled with derision. "These petty sentimentalists that pose for art now . . ." his fist clenched. "I will sear them all with my truth, with my passion."
"You seek to displace the great masters from a hole in the ground?"
His eyes flashed livid, almost supernaturally, "I helped build this hole, Mademoiselle—when this war is over, I will find Garnier himself and show him the finishing plans for this monolith offspring. Do you think it was by accident I situated myself here?"
Delighted to have finally found the source of his passions, I goaded him on. "What is this opera that will make such a mockery of men?"
His hand rose into the air with dizzying, mesmerizing grace: an unexpected, ephemeral movement. "Don Juan Triumphant!"
I had heard tales in my youth—fairy stories if opposition to my religious teachings—of a man who spoke things so beautifully that he had but to speak their name and women would give themselves to him. Erik need only say the name of the most famous libertine in the world and he was poised to conquer as Don Juan had. Immediate sensuality had broken through his austerity, and we remained in awe of it for several moments, his hand still raised in triumph.
I breathed, still, enraptured. There was to him a quality of the absurd—the stick-thinness of his body, the contrasting richness of his vestment, that pooled with the pathos and sensivity in such unseeming forms as his dry, small lips, or his clipped fingernails. He was, I knew, the most fascinating person I would ever meet, and I was sure that God had not put me in this position for no reason.
"May I see the score?" I asked.
"What?" He awoke as if from sleep.
"May I see it?"
"Can you read music?"
"A little."
He stared at me. I wondered what marvelous thoughts were passing through his head, what his genius was making of the situation. He had the unnerving quality of seeming to see through all guiles.
"You have never seen my chamber," he stated. I was saved from the necessity of lying as he gracefully backed out of the room, motioning with his skeletal hand. He opened his chamber door slowly, as if still debating whether he would allow me to enter.
There was his ignored pallet in the corner of the room, tucked away behind a bureau and a chair. There was the massive pipe organ and by it, a bench. Upon the organ were sheaves of music, and a wastebasket below filled overflowing with them. There were books in various piles, interspersed with exotic instruments and more leaves of paper. ON the bureau was a human skull and behind it, a tapestry that said simply, "Dies irea."
"I have plans, of course, to embellish upon my living quarters," he prefaced.
"To work it in red and black. Yes, you've mentioned it."
He lifted a leather-bound leaflet from the organ and handed it to me. "Don Juan Triumphant."
I studied the notes, rendered in Erik's nervous handwriting. " 'And we two shall be as one, when the stars rise above you as I shall, your heated kisses'—"
He snatched the book back from me, clapping it shut over his chest. "I had no idea you were so well-versed in Russian!"
My hands were still full of the empty manuscript. I imagined Erik was still blushing under his mask. "One of the sisters at the convent was Russian by birth. Her psalms were so accented I had her teach me Russian."
"But the Russians are of the Orthodox Church."
I shrugged. "She was converted."
He shook his head in disgust. "You cannot convert the whole world," he said.
"I have no wish to convert anyone."
He set the manuscript down upon the organ. "Oh hardly," I murmured. "It took me three years of constant study. And I was only guessing on the 'kisses.'"
He seemed to flinch in embarrassment. "Truly, communication remains elusive, Mademoiselle."
"Don Juan should not sing in Russian, you know," I hinted.
His hand clenched. "I will be rewriting the lyrics when it time for it to be performed."
"It looks very complex. Will someone be able to sing it?"
"Oh, it is singable, I assure you. And I will find the woman to sing it." He sighed. "A soprano so pure, so unadulterated, so angelic—she must exist somewhere."
"And your Don Juan?"
"I could listen to half a dozen fat, fearful tenors mangle the part of my great libertine, but there is only one who could do the role justice."
There was a ghostly smile from under the mask. Erik thinks he's Don Juan, I thought.
"Would you sing it, then?" He stared at me blankly. "Or play it? Erik, you know how I enjoy your music. You are such a gifted musician."
"Well—" he began in a tone that could have been embarrassment or smug appreciation.
"Just a few bars," I pleaded. "I can't imagine how those flats sound all in a row."
He regarded me suspiciously, as he had from behind the bars of the cage. "You don't know what you're asking," he whispered.
"What could be dangerous about music?"
For a moment, it seemed as though there was firelight reflected in his eyes. That was impossible; there was no fire in the room.
"I suppose a few bars would be relatively harmless. If you are so determined to hear it."
"I don't think I'd ever again have the opportunity to hear a master play."
He cleared his throat. "You are, after all, quite right."
He seated himself on the organ bench, rearranging the manuscript with his thin, dexterous fingers. I moved toward the corner. "May I sit in this chair?"
"Of course, forgive me," he murmured, leaping up to assist me.
"That's not necessary, Erik."
He stared, frozen in unwanted gallantry; his disappointment with humanity confirmed.
Icily he reseated himself, his long coattails floating. He placed his long, skeletal fingers upon the bone-white keys and began to play.
The first notes, I must confess, startled me, for they were like no music I had ever heard before. A more violent, passionate sound that current aesthetics would have banished. Then I was aware of nothing but the pounding of my heart, and the distinct feeling of heat flushing my face. I saw Erik's shoulders heaving over the mellifluous organ, as if heat itself was issuing like steam from his fingertips. Such burning I had never before felt, even near to the warm gas lamps. The warmth filled my head with an uncaring sweetness and such visions passed my eyes as I will not repeat for common decency. This must be how morphine felt, I realized later.
I was swept away, made dumb by the shimmering heat, feeling as though this music was mine and that I was part of it. There was nothing else in the universe that mattered or even existed. There was only this music . . .
Abruptly it stopped. I was only aware because I felt my heart had likewise stopped. Where was that sweet perfume? I wondered groggily. Where was that warmth? Several minutes passed before I realized Erik had stopped playing and was sitting in silence.
My hair had come undone and was tumbled about my shoulders, wild and uncouth. With a start, I noted my collar had been unbuttoned, and three inches of skin felt the coldness of the air with shame. I gasped, noting my breathing was frenzied, that I was thrust forward in my chair.
My breathing was not the only ragged sound in the otherwise silent room. Erik was hunched over the keyboard, his shoulders painfully pitched, as if at some unnatural angle. His waistcoat lay discarded, the blood-red cravat at his feet. His thin body was covered only by his silk shirt, his suspenders dangling uselessly at his sides.
Suddenly, he stood. The bench flew back at his heels as if possessed. The crash as it resounded on the floor was shattering, incredible. Almost the sound of bone breaking. He jumped, shuddering, convulsing. Still in a haze, a barely conscious fog, I leaned forward to help him.
He turned toward the door, rushing to it, pressing his outstretched arms against it, his forehead to the wood, panting wildly. I was struck by the grey beauty of his lonely figure. I was still warmed by his echoing notes, still enchanted by his sorrow and passion. I rose, walking to him. He did not flinch. As I approached, he made no move. I found myself irresistibly drawn to his thin, lithe back, his vertebrae and shoulder blades visible through the thinness of his shirt. My hands moved up to touch the tense muscles of his back.
"No!" he shouted, spinning around to pinion my wrists in his cold hands. I looked to the terrified eyes beyond the mask, the yellow swirling with tears, his sockets strained with hidden veins. He shuddered, dropped my hands, and disappeared through the door.
For long moments I just stood, my hands where he had left them, trying to understand why I had wanted to touch him so badly. Why he had reacted so violently. Left alone in his chamber, I could have ransacked his music, purged his Don Juan, but I sat in shock. What was that? I wondered. Was that intensity Erik's cross, which he bore alone inside the prison of his head? No wonder, I thought, that he did not fear death. Death was silence compared to that furnace he could not bestow on another.
Author's Note
Forgive me, gentle readers, for the long span of time since the last update. As you may have surmised, I'm now a Jonathan Crane fanatic (in part because some of his traits remind me of Erik's) and school has been insane. I will, however, update the rest of this story and hopefully complete it before the end of the year.
Thank you for the reviews. I didn't realize until now I had nearly 50. Can we make it 60 before the next update? Thank you wanderingchild, Immok, Miss Ann Thorpe, Nadiil, stineblicher and Faust for your kind words. Pertie, I hope this chapter sheds more light on the nature of Erik and Manon's relationship—or at least makes it more interesting. HDKingsbury, I'm glad you like Manon was well as Erik. I hope she'll hold your interest. MadLizzy, I'm intrigued at your observation about the lair—and you're right, it's very much the opposite of the ALW lair. My Phantom worries about setting things on fire. ;-) Finally, awoman, I'm unclear what you mean by formatting, but please feel free to explain that further.
Until the next chapter, folks!