50) Faith and love

While Raoul visited the land of dreams, this time not having a single nightmare, no one at the opera could afford to sleep anymore. Some people were busy preparing the stage, others cleaned the auditorium. The private boxes received a special treatment, of course. Only Box Five remained untouched. Not even the bravest dared go in there, afraid of infuriating the Ghost.

Said Ghost spent the morning wandering through his opera. He appeared at the most unlikely places and vanished again, chuckling about the thought of how many new tales his odd behaviour would doubtlessly cause. It was an amusing distraction from his worries concerning a certain blond dancer. He hadn´t seen her today yet, but this wasn´t extraordinary. No member of the chorus had to be here before the afternoon.

He was certain she´d understand that the opera he had composed was about her and him actually. This wasn´t his problem. But what if she wouldn´t be impressed by it? He could still remember the gap that had been between them the last time they had seen each other. It couldn´t be overcome by some nice songs; only true love would close it. And Meg´s feelings were one of the few things not even he could influence.

His thoughts also circled around the second young woman who was a part of his life. Although he´d never had admitted it, her constant presence had helped him a lot. Something very strange had happened: He had got used to having company. And now he didn´t want to be alone anymore. This was what made him even more anxious. Today after the performance Christine would be free to go. She´d surely stay if he asked her to, but that would only mean raising hopes in the girl.

He knew the Vicomte would return today as well, expecting an answer from Christine. Though Erik wasn´t an overly curious person, he´d have liked to find out what this answer might be. It seemed that the girl was wavering. She had avoided talking about the subject, as if she had tried to pretend the boy didn´t exist. Yet Erik had seen her with the Vicomte´s letter a couple of times. When she had noticed him she had stuffed it into her pocket and suddenly became very interested in a book or the newspaper.

Thinking about newspapers made Erik smile. There had been a few articles on the mysterious new composer and his opera, but all in all the public hadn´t been exactly fascinated by the topic. After some days, however, someone had found out who the composer really was: the legendary Opera Ghost. The managers had been furious and threatened to dismiss the one responsible. Yet they had quickly changed their mind when the number of tickets sold had nearly doubled. From that day on they seemed to love publicity as well.

As he checked his pocket watch he realised that the morning was already over. Instantly he felt restless and almost a little frightened, as if he was no longer safe in his own opera. Due to the fact that her mother had to be here early anyway Meg usually was one of the first dancers to arrive. But instead of hiding somewhere to watch her he headed back to the cellars. He didn´t know where it came from, yet suddenly he was obsessed with the idea that, like a groom on his wedding day, he shouldn´t see her before the performance.

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While Erik was on his way down Christine prepared lunch for them. Or rather, she had prepared lunch. For the last five minutes she had been stirring the vegetable soup absent-mindedly, pondering like so many times before about Raoul´s question. Should she marry him? She enjoyed his presence and she could very well imagine living with him. But these things weren´t the most important conditions for a marriage.

It all came down to the question behind Raoul´s proposal: Did she love him? She cared about him, that was true. Yet there were also her feelings for Erik, which were of an entirely other kind. Raoul had never made her heart leap like Erik did, even though she had tried her best to become more indifferent towards him. The days with her teacher had been like a wonderful gift that she had been allowed to play with, but not to keep. With every moment which had passed she had accepted a little more the cruel fact that he simply didn´t love her. Even if Meg would reject him tonight, this wouldn´t change their situation.

It was all about love, that strange and unique emotion no one could quite comprehend. How was she supposed to understand it when thousands of poets, artists and philosophers hadn´t managed to do so? As she heard the door being opened she looked up. Without wasting any time on greeting him she asked: "What is love, Erik? How can you know that you love someone?".

Erik, who hadn´t expected such questions after weeks of nearly completely avoiding this topic, threw her a surprised glance. Men wiser than himself had spent years pondering over this subject, and now Christine wanted him to find answers in a minute. Smiling at her a little helplessly he suddenly noticed an odd smell. "Is there something in the oven?", he wanted to know. "Oh no! The beef!", the girl cried. As she opened the oven door a cloud of smoke emerged. Coughing she seized a towel and pulled out something dark brown only vaguely resembling beef anymore. "See?", Erik couldn´t help commenting. "That´s why one should never mix up cooking and philosophy."