It Was The Ghost!
The afternoon practice session seemed to go by much faster than the morning session. Perhaps it was because the afternoon was solely devoted to the choreographed segments that would be preformed on stage and were, therefore, much more interesting to watch than the warm-ups and combinations of the morning. I think it more likely, however, that the afternoon flew by because my mind was fully engaged. The music I was playing was simple to memorize and I was soon watching the dancers with greater attention than the music in front of me.
To watch the ballet was an enjoyable thing in itself. The dancers were well trained and graceful, and Madame Giry was clearly an excellent choreographer. My interest went deeper than the movements of the dancers, however. I was intrigued by the personalities in the room: Madame Giry who could alternate between grounded and fanciful so quickly; Meg who was such a talker, and yet seemed to be carefully guarding a secret for her friend; then there was Christine, herself. She was the one who puzzled me most. She was a graceful dancer, it's true, but her mind was not on her dancing. Madame Giry often had to repeat an instruction to Christine, and, while her reprimand to the girl for not paying attention would be sharp, she seemed to be gentler to the girl than to the others. I would never have thought that Madame Giry had a penchant for favoritism, but that was how it looked in her treatment of Christine.
The more I watched, however, the more I realized that it was not so much favoritism as a sort of gentle understanding. It crossed my mind that perhaps Christine was not quite…well…normal. Perhaps she was slow mentally. She did not seem so when I was speaking to her, just quiet. While she was dancing, however, she seemed unaware of her surroundings, and not in the enraptured way that the best primas did. She was just absent minded.
As I watched Christine, I remembered the gentle smile on her face when I asked about her father. I also remembered the change in expression when I had asked about whether she was musical: she had looked embarrassed and confused; it was Meg who had to rescue her.
It was as these thoughts passed through my head that it occurred to me what was occasionally wrong with Christine's dancing: she was listening to the music, not as a dancer, but as a musician: as a singer. The places where she would make mistakes were in those bars of music where there would be singing as well as dancing. To test my theory I paid close attention to her when we came to the end of the piece. It was the finale to act one. It was meant to be a spectacular scene, complete with singing, dancing, and even an elephant (or at least that is what the staging notes Madame Giry had been giving called for). It was at this finale that Christine was closest to the piano and I could see her lips slightly moving. Sure enough she was late on one of her steps. She was thinking of the words, the breath control, the pitch, even the timing, but not the steps.
Madame Giry noticed her error as well, for as soon as I stopped playing at the end of the piece she addressed Christine's mistake. Overall, however, Madame Giry seemed pleased with the progress of her dancers for she dismissed them after a few minutes of stretching. The girls quickly deserted the room, but I lingered to ask Madame Giry a few questions.
She looked my way as she gathered her notes, "Mlle. Sauvon?"
"What is the rehearsal schedule is for the next few days? I want to be sure not to miss anything."
"Tomorrow's schedule it is identical to todays: we meet here at 10 rehearse to noon, reconvene at 2 and dance until 5 or so. Thursday we join the full cast on stage for rehearsals, you may come to that if you wish, but we will have the orchestra so I will only need you to warm the girls up at 1 o'clock. Friday we will warm up at 9 and have our final rehearsals that day. We open Friday evening. From the time the show starts I will need you primarily for a warm up session before performances at 6 o'clock. After the run we will go back to our primary rehearsal schedule."
Madame Giry went through this all so fast that I was having trouble remembering all the times for the different days. She must have seen my confusion, for she gave a slight smile and handed me a sheet of paper that had the whole thing written down.
"Thank you Madame Giry," I said with a slightly sheepish smile of my own.
"Is there anything else?"
"Yes actually, I was wondering if I might come here and play on my own, when the room is not wanted by others of course." At this point the piano in the dancing room was better than no piano at all.
"I suppose you might if you wish, but I believe there is a room with a piano on your own floor. Perhaps it would be more convenient?"
"Why that would be wonderful if no one else needed it!"
"I don't believe the room is commonly used. I will show it to you before dinner."
"Thank you."
Madame Giry showed me the way back to my room, and I was relatively certain I would be able to find the dance room on my own the next day.
I washed for dinner, and Madame Giry came for me a little earlier than punctuality demanded so she could show me the piano room nearest my own. I was surprised at how out of the way it was. We went to the end of the long hall my room was on and turned left into another long, windowless corridor, at the very end of which was a door leading to a cell like chamber that contained nothing but a piano and its accompanying stool. This room was the opposite of the dance room. There were no windows, the room was perfectly dark. The only light was that which it borrowed from the insufficient illumination of the hall. I looked around in the gloom.
"You will have to bring a lamp, of course, but it is much more convenient to your room." Madame Giry was entirely her practical self in this ghastly chamber and I was glad of it. I had an eerie feeling in that room. I was thankful Madame Giry had turned to lead the way out to the hall for dinner.
Dinner was a noisy affair with staff from all areas of the opera: stage hands, chorus girls, seamstresses, cleaning women, prop and set designers and builders, even some of the lesser singers and members of the orchestra. Prices were so outrageous throughout Paris then that the opera, with its ample kitchen, offered meals to their staff. If you signed up to eat at the opera a portion of your wages was withheld to pay for it, but it was by far a more economical choice than trying to eat at even a simplistic Parisian restaurant. I believed cooking frugally for oneself might have been slightly less expensive, but for that one would have to have a kitchen, and besides, who had time to cook when one was a slave to one's art?
The food was quite good, and in any case it gave me a chance to meet more of my fellow employees. Dinner was much more crowded than lunch. I was to find that lunch ran from 12 to 3, (and the corps de ballet ate at the earlier, less popular time) whereas dinner was only from 7 to 8 on days when there was not a performance. I noticed Christine and Meg at a table with a group of girls, some of whom were from the corps de ballet, and others whom I did not recognize.
Madame Giry was hailed by a rather official looking person who was briefly introduced as Honri the casting director. He had some apparently vital news concerning the upcoming auditions for the corps de ballet and guided Madame Giry to his table. I glanced around uncertainly, thankful that a large number of people were also standing looking for their friends. The only difference between myself and the others standing about was that I did not have anyone to look for.
I had just resolved to head to a side board, pick up a roll, and return to my room, when a gentle hand on my arm caught my attention. I looked over my shoulder to see Christine's placed face smiling at me.
"Dinner can be quite a zoo." She spoke loudly so I could hear her over the din. "Meg is saving you a spot if you don't mind eating with us again."
I smiled with relief and thanked her. I was nearly ten years older than these girls but I believed we could become friends. Christine led me to a long table where I could pick a plate of food. I was about to select a plate containing a slice of what looked like pork, when Christine recommended I take the chicken instead. I looked at her quizzically, but took the plate of chicken. As we headed over to the table where she and Meg had seats, she explained that the pork was left over from the previous week, and was not that good even when it was fresh. I was thankful to have someone with me who knew these things and I told her so.
I was introduced to the girls at the table whom I did not already know from rehearsals. They all politely acknowledged me, and then resumed the conversation they had been having before I came. One of dancers, Pauline, I think her name was, was regaling the table with a strange occurrence that had befallen her when she went to an abandoned dressing room in one of the lower levels of the opera to keep a tryst with her lover. Apparently she had arrived first, and reached into the wardrobe to pull out an old riding cloak (she did not say why she needed it, but my suspicion was that she intended to lay it on the floor for her and her lover to lie on). As she reached in, however, a cold boney hand grabbed hers.
"Well you can imagine I did not wait a moment to be gone," she said, "I pulled my hand away and ran out of the door. Jean was just coming and I ran to him. I told him what had happened. He is so brave he insisted on going into the room to see the rascal who had scared me. I did not want to go, because I knew who it was. Jean went in, however, and so did I. And do you know what we found?"
All of the girls, including myself I'm ashamed to say, leaned in waiting for the climax of the tale.
Meg could finally contain herself no longer: "What! What did you find?"
"There was no one there! We checked the wardrobe first and then the rest of the room. There was absolutely no one there, at least no one living!"
"Perhaps the person left while you were talking to Jean?" One of the seamstresses voiced my own opinion.
"No that could not be," Pauline continued, "for there is only the one door, and I met Jean right outside of it. My back was practically touching the door the entire time we spoke outside the room, and certainly no one came out."
This caused an outbreak of excited comments the foremost of which was "It was the Ghost!"
"The opera is haunted, then?" I asked in a somewhat jocular manner. The girls did not notice my facetiousness, however, for they all started talking over each other to relate the various doings of the Opera Ghost. I noticed Christine did not join in, but looked rather paler than usual. Meg also seemed uneasy.
"Be quite all of you!" The table silenced and all eyes turned to Meg, who had issued the command. "You know it is not wise to speak about the Ghost."
To my surprise the girls did as Meg asked, and, after a short silence, another topic of conversation caught the lively interest of the girls.
All things considered, dinner passed quite pleasantly. My muse was beckoning, however, so while the other girls sipped coffee and chatted long after they had finished their meal, I excused myself, and made my way back to my chamber.
I took the lamp from my desk, as well as my stack of lined paper and a couple of pens, and headed down the hall to the piano room. The room was more congenial with the lamp glowing brightly on the piano, but I was still slightly uneasy. I decided that the best was to dispel my discomfort was to throw myself into composing.
I was soon lost in a world of sound and possible sound. There is nothing like the thrill of creating; and to create music is, for me, the height of creative bliss. Music is an intangible substance that goes straight to the heart. It can possess one's soul and drag it to the depths of misery or to the heights of beatification simply by changing the key.
I passed the better part of an hour in this exhilarating way, until something, I could not say what, brought me back to temporal reality. I paused, and was seized with a sense of terror. I was not alone in the room, I knew it. I dreaded to turn around. I suddenly knew how the heroines felt in horror stories when they look in the mirror to see only their own face looking back at them, but they know, they know, that when they turn around they will see the dreaded but un-reflected vampire behind them.
I forced myself to turn. I nearly fainted with relief: there was no one there. No one living. That comment of Pauline's from dinner came unbidden to my mind. I swiftly gathered up my papers and the light and left the room. I felt as stupid as I ever have in life, but I did not stop until my door was closed behind me and I took a good look around my room.
"Stop it right now!" I told myself firmly. "You are acting like a flighty, teenage idiot!" I was able to gain some measure of control over myself. I sat on the edge of my bed. I was shocked at my behavior. I was never inclined to surges of panic. And yet I had been panicked. I could not have been more so had a truly awful visage been leaning over me with bloodied knife ready to strike. I should almost have felt better if there was really something there; at least then I could have raised an alarm. I even thought of going to Madam Giry. But no: she wanted someone who was not given to superstitious flights of fancy. I could not go and tell her I was afraid of unseen phantoms in the piano room.
It was then that I remembered her strange behavior earlier that day when she had spoken of one who knew the opera house. Surly she could not believe in the Opera Ghost? She had told me it was better not to inquire about him. Meg! Meg at dinner had said that it was unwise to talk about the Opera Ghost, and the girls had listened to her. I began to be convinced that the Giry ladies knew more than they let on. Or, at least, they were more superstitious than they let on.
I gave myself a mental shake. Enough, I told myself. I decided that I would force myself to overcome this silly panic that had taken me. I again gathered the articles necessary to composition and threw open my door. I found myself heading, not for the piano room on my floor, however, but to the dance room. As I climbed the stairs, I made all sorts of excuses to myself: I wanted to be sure I could find the practice room in the morning, the piano in the practice room was in slightly better shape and tune (true enough), but no matter how many excuses went through my mind, I knew that the only real reason I was going to the upper stories was because I was afraid to enter that other room.
As I approached the rehearsal room I was captivated by the most beautiful voice. It was a pure, clear soprano. The woman was singing an aria from act three of Hannibal. I knew who it was before I opened the door, but it was still incredible to see Christine doing what she was meant to do, what she was born for. She looked unlike herself. She had the sort of divine radiance I had always pictured Dante's Beatrice as having.
Singing was obviously an intensely personal act for her so I turned to leave without disturbing her. I suppose my movement must have finally caught her eye for she stopped singing abruptly and flushed a deep red.
"Lucette!"
"Forgive me Christine, I did not mean to disturb you."
"Oh no, it is I…I mean I shouldn't have…Madam Giry told me to practice my dancing not…Oh Lucette, please, please, don't tell anyone."
Of all the things Christine could have said that was what I least expected.
"Why ever not?" I asked before really thinking about my reply.
"Please Lucette, no one is supposed to know, except Madam Giry and Meg found out, but he will never teach me again if anyone else knows!"
"Don't worry Christine, I will of course never tell a soul if you don't want me to. But if it is because of a teacher, I am sure he must want the world to hear you. You cannot hide your talent it would do the world a great misfortune!"
"You sound just like him! But we must wait just a little longer, and it is imperative that no one know just yet."
"Very well then, I shan't tell a soul."
I turned to leave but Christine insisted that if I needed the room it was she who should go. I assured her that I merely needed the room for my own selfish purposes, and there were other places I could go.
"Why, Lucette, do you dance?"
The thought made me laugh. "Heavens no! Since you have shared your secret with me, I will share mine with you: I compose."
"Really? I have never met a female composer before!"
"Very few people have, which is why you may never meet a successful female composer." Some of the bitterness I had been suppressing all day worked its way into my voice.
"I'm sorry; I did not mean to bring up a painful topic."
"Please don't apologize. I should not be so bitter. It is just shameful that the world will ignore talent because of the person it is given to."
"Will you play something of yours for me? If I'm not being too presumptuous in asking."
I looked at Christine. For some reason she was easier to talk to about these things than most other people I had met, and an idea formed in my mind. It would be the fulfillment of a dream in so many ways.
"Christine," I asked, "would you be willing to sing something of mine? I have never heard some of my most beautiful works sung the way they should be."
Somewhat to my surprise, Christine agreed. I pulled out an aria, one of my best from the opera I had been trying to have preformed. Christine looked it over for a few minutes, and I played the accompaniment through twice. Then we began. I had never heard anything so beautiful. Christine's voice was perfect and so was my music. It was glorious, just as I knew it would be. Perfect. By the end of the piece I was ashamed to realize that I was crying.
Christine was silent for a moment and I waited to hear what she thought.
"That was truly exquisite, Lucette, thank you for letting me be the first to sing it!"
Here all I could do was to assure her as best I could that I was the one who was grateful. I could die now that I had heard one of my pieces soar the way it should. With orchestral accompaniment it would be even better, but it was enough for now to have heard the most perfect voice I had ever heard sing my music.
It was not long after that I was in bed contemplating what a strange first day I had. I was intrigued by those around me: Christine with her mysterious teacher (I would like to give that man a piece on my mind for hiding her for so long), Meg with her fierce protectiveness towards Christine, and Madame Giry. Madam Giry puzzled me. Now that I knew Christine's secret I was determined to discover Madame Giry's, particularly as it related to the Opera Ghost.