Ch 5 – Duet

A/N – The title needs no explanation. This chapter is set about 10-12 months before the events in the movie.

"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose," the saying goes. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I've never found that to be true. There are times when things seem to change as rapidly as if they are hurtling downhill; there are defining moments that mark the start of enormous transitions in one's life.

Once Christine had resumed her lessons with me, we remained on an even footing, but things were never exactly the same between us. To my surprise, she began to be even more aware of me than she had been previously. She'd always known I was there and had accepted it, but she now exhibited a curiosity about me that has not been present before. She made enquiries of Madame Giry, who delicately shrugged them aside.

And about a year after the costume incident, she began to have a curious reaction to the sound of my voice.

I was demonstrating a technique I wanted her to try by performing an extended solo. When I finished, I noticed that her eyes were closed, her head titled, her mouth slightly open. She looked as though she were in some sort of trance.

"Christine…?" I asked.

"Oh…" she came to herself and opened her eyes.

"What's the matter?" I asked, gently. "Are you listening?"

Suddenly she seemed to realize where she was. A flush crept into her cheeks.

"Oh! I'm…so sorry. I seem to be a trifle indisposed…Dear Maestro, would it be all right if I excused myself early? I need…"

She didn't finish. She was now bright crimson. I excused her, and she fled the room, nearly knocking down Madame Giry, who was outside the door.

This happened a few more times to Christine alone before I felt the strange alchemy, too.

We were singing a duet – a love song. Our voices had always blended well, but this time, an indescribable rapture crept over both of us. It was as if the heavens had opened and allowed us to sing as angels. Every glissando, every tremolo, was a real and tactile thing. My voice slid around hers, supporting, upholding; hers soared to heights of pure tonal ecstasy but then dipped easily and caressed my own. Time seemed to hold still. She anticipated my every move, and I hers. It was as if our souls had become entwined. We had become one being, through the music.

It was magic.

Neither of us wanted it to end. When it did, I stood in stunned silence in my darkness, staring at her.

She was in her trancelike pose, and only gradually opened her eyes. Her breathing was now shallow and rapid.

"Maestro…"

"Yes. I know."

There were no words for such an experience. We remained silent for awhile, wondering, and then she left without saying a word.

I had to think about this. I hardly dared think about this. I hardly dared breathe.

Falling in love with Christine is something I can't even remember doing. My feeling for her is so much a part of me that it seems to have been there always, a secret treasure stored in my heart, to be revealed gradually and expressed differently, but built into the very fiber of my being.

For the first time, I dared to entertain the notion that she might feel something in return.

Hope can be a cruel thing. It delights us with visions of paradise in one moment, only to torment us with the realization that such bliss may never be attained in the next.

What had just happened? Something had just happened. There seemed to be no name for it, but it hung there in my thoughts, a shimmering thing of impossible beauty that we had created together, and which was now part of both of us, binding us in some strange fashion, more closely than we had been bound before.

When I recovered my senses a bit, I tried to reason with myself. It was a fluke, some sort of miracle allowed to us for just this one time.

But then the miracle happened again. And again. Rarely; not during every lesson; not even every time we sang together, but too often to be dismissed.

Christine began begging to see me. She began asking questions even more frequently, though gently, as was her way, of me, and of Madame Giry. She seemed to make no firm connections regarding her Angel of Music, the Phantom, and her Maestro – now she doubted, now she believed, now she didn't know what to think – but she clearly wondered. I knew that someday, if our association continued, she was going to have to know the truth…about everything.

And I realized something else – something that filled my heart with joy and fear, and with that beautiful tormenter, hope.

I thought for the first time in years of the fable that had comforted me in childhood. I believed in my human nightingales the way Christine believed in her Angel of Music – it was true in my heart, even if other people would not have understood.

I had found my nightingale. My Christine. And I began to hope against all hope, against every rational possibility, that it was I who was destined to be her mate.

I made changes to the place on the secret underground lake. I dressed as a gentleman always, but I made some improvements to my toilette, all the same. I built a kingdom for her – a place where she and music would reign together: a physical expression of the places each held in my heart.

And I began making preparations to let her see me. I was afraid, but it was inevitable.