Chapter 4

Of vines and parchment

"The vineyards are quite impressive, one gets the feeling it goes on forever until you reach the summit and can scrutinize it properly. Funny, the Monastery looks like a children's play toy from here." Brother James could not hide his pride in that statement. We had been walking the grounds for over an hour looking at the vines and studying the different grapes. It was quite impressive and took my mind off of the music and other matters that had occupied it steadfastly since that night I passed the point of no return. It struck me that Brother James could not be much older than I was. Somehow his countenance left me feeling that he was much older than I. There was a maturity borne of peace in him; I wanted that. I wondered if I would ever get it.

Suddenly, I felt the need to say something so I cleared my throat and began, "Monsieur, I was hoping to convince you to allow me to do some, er, um, renovations and enlargements to the monastery?"

Brother James considered me for a moment and spoke. "Good Monsieur, I'm sure that our current arrangements are adequate; we are much more in need of a fine chapel to go to each day. We currently place an altar and crucifix in the sitting room to have our morning services before sunrise every day. We find it an awkward proposition to have them there. We do not wish to force you out, monsieur, in light of your beautiful and haunting mastery of the pipe organ. Do you mean to tell me that you are an architect as well as a master musician?" His eyes held just the slightest touch of cynicism, honed finely through many years of discipline. God, how I longed for that control. Maybe some day.

"Yes, Brother James, I would be able to do that. I am an architect, as being a musician was not a realistic way to make a living. If you have parchment and mechanicals for me to sketch them, I will begin to design your chapel. We shall need a location to begin with."

"Let me speak with the rest of my brothers and we shall scout out some locations for you to choose from for your design. If you want to come back with me to the Monastery we can get you the supplies to begin your designs."

"Merci, I am deeply grateful to you for that. I must do something to feel worthy of your shelter and companionship. It is difficult to successfully start a new life with indebtedness hanging over ones shoulders. I would be most honored to share my talents with you."

"Then it is settled, we shall go back to the Monastery. It shall be joyous news for my brothers to hear that you have agreed to design a chapel for us to pray in. Our days of makeshift worship are soon to come to a close."

Brother James was true to his word and brought me to the place where they kept their parchment and mechanicals for my planning purposes. I was so delighted that all I could do was to stare at them with my imagination already deciding what I was to place upon them. Smiling absently at Brother James, I took them and wondered down to my small room. I laid the materials out on the small desk and began the inspired drawing of my fevered mind. Soon though, my thoughts left the beautiful building I was erecting in my head to wander to the inspiration for my very existence. Before long, a new piece of parchment replacing the one I had begun the chapel upon was teeming with a seductive and erotic likeness in charcoal of my beloved. I hardly knew when I had begun to sketch her, I only realized that I had when I finished and felt the physical aftermath of this highly lascivious likeness I had created from the confines of my deepest desires. God, how could I ever get her out of my mind? What was I to do with this now? Gazing upon it for some time, I let out a feral groan and began to burn it with my candle. I had to stop allowing her to occupy space in my world. Deciding that this was getting too hard to handle, I withdrew one of the robes hanging in the box they chose to call a wardrobe. I took great care to remove all of my good clothes and carefully put them up. I would wash and press them and return them for a day when I may need them again. For the time being, it was enough to know they still existed. On some plane, I was still attempting to grasp at the genteel lifestyle I had never been accepted into, even if only when I looked in here... I conceded to the life I was in for now, placing on the robe I had removed from this simple wardrobe. I would not place the sandals upon my feet, however, that was much more than I was yet willing to even consider. Next I decided to go to my Christine and play for a while. Maybe it was time to compose—no, I would wait to do that. I needed release before I exploded in rage and overwhelming frustration over my situation.

I approached the organ, my Christine, with something coming very near to awe, such was the gratitude I felt at music being allowed to continue in my life. I felt a connection to Christine the woman through the instrument, as music was so much a part of hers and my souls. The union was always fervid and we would never lose that no matter what, one's imagination always heard the other's voice. I knew it for I saw it when she was performing. She heard me singing in her ear, though I obviously was not there. She could not put her heart into it without me there, which is why I was her soul. She could not work without me; someday she would shut down without my voice in her head. I only hoped I could make myself escape that same inevitability through this Monastery. So, knowing nothing else to do, I began to play. Think of Me automatically came out of the organ, and I could imagine her singing it with her beautiful white dress and the bejeweled locks of brown hair hanging down her slender exposed shoulders and breasts. She was a vision of beauty that night and I would never be the same from then on. She had coiled herself completely around my soul at that moment. It was then that I discovered my eyes were wet. I quickly wiped the exposed eye and stopped the song. The few brothers who were in the sitting room looked up from their tasks, such was the abruptness with which I stopped playing; it shocked them from what they were doing. I rose from the instrument and looked at them, shrugging my shoulders as I bid a hasty retreat to my room once again. Night was falling and I recoiled at the idea of another night in this room. I had to find something to do, so I decided to return to the sitting room and find a book to return to my room with.

There were many books on theology, naturally, but I was not necessarily interested in these, so I continued to look around blankly. Not particularly happy with what I was finding, I was about to give up to the desperation I felt at night with nothing to occupy my mind when Brother James came up behind me.

"Monsieur, if you care to do something to occupy your thoughts and you are not interested in various theologies as your reading, you are welcome to glance at some of our foreign books. We have language books for several different languages. We have Latin, Greek, Russian and Hindi. We are trying to expand our knowledge of our universe through learning other ways to speak our word. Would you care to try them?"

There was a slight interest in what he was proposing, so I agreed and he began to show me the section on the various languages. There was one that stood out to me immediately and I knew then that it would be sweet torture, but still, there were things that I longed to know so I chose the book that had gathered sudden interest.

"Ah, Swedish, that is a unique choice, not too many decide to learn that one. We received that, donated by a Swedish violinist who stopped here many, many years ago on his way to the Opera House in Paris to see his daughter. She was staying with his friend at the Opera Populaire. He died shortly after the visit he made here; I got the impression that he was trying to tie up loose ends for his daughter when he stopped here. There was desperation in him that made him almost melancholy when he played his violin for us. After staying here he left us this book, so we would always remember how much he appreciated our hospitality. We have not really had many using it since its arrival here. Please, Monsieur, go ahead and keep it, you may find it helps you to learn Swedish, you may not, but it has got beautiful pictures in it."

My heart constricted painfully to be learning something of Christine's past that she probably didn't even know. She probably would never know of her fathers stop here. God, did nothing sever the bonds created between us? Was this the state of mind I would remain in for the rest of my life? I opened the book hungrily and began to look through the pages, devouring the beauty of the land that I was beginning to believe that I very much wanted to see some day. The words were beautiful and they were exotic to read. I had to figure out the syntax so that it would not be impossible to speak this language. Suddenly I stopped, my fingers frozen to the page before me. My breath caught in my lungs; it seemed I had forgotten how to release it. There were cold fingers stretching from the stony ground to clutch my heart. There in the page, as a book mark, was a picture. I needed no explanation to know what I was seeing. It was Gustave Daae, with his beautiful young daughter Christine, and standing with his arm around her possessively, already at their young ages, was a very rogue Raoul de Chagny. I had to sit down. This was the fateful time they first met, by the seaside. This was when Raoul had saved her red scarf from the sea, and they listened to the stories, this was where it all began, both Raoul's love for Christine and her attachment to my own alter ego, the Angel of Music.

This discovery naturally sent me into a litany of thoughts yet again. This descent into madness was beginning to become quite annoying. I had to find a way out, so I naturally did just what I should to begin the climb yet again; I walked off with the book stowed under my arm, near my heart, breaking it as I walked to my room to drink in the image of my beloved and dream of what-ifs yet again.

As I sat on the bed, staring at the picture, noticing how Christine looked like her father, and how she must have taken after her mother in the features of her hairline, her beautiful arch to her brow, as well as the delicate swell of her lips, so tender to my touch, I felt the tears come hot and unbidden. I was loathe to stop them, had I not earned the right to feel this way? Had I not been the noble one who let her go to her prince charming, leaving the monster to rot in his lair in solitude? I felt my bitter anger begin to creak, then crack, bits falling free, and suddenly I was sobbing as the wall of my anger crumbled before me to a million pieces. I felt suddenly as if the piercing ache in my heart had become a living thing, it was not locked in the tight confines of my madness and anger any longer, I seemed to suddenly remember why she was not with me. For the first time, that last scene, when she kissed me and I told her to leave me, came back to my mind in its entirety. There was no way she could have stayed with me. I was not going to have a future as far as we could see, so even if she had wanted to sincerely stay with me when she brought the ring back to me, she could not have seen anything but death in my future. I still didn't see anything but death in my future. Though there are many ways to die, and I was experiencing yet another way now.

I wept as a child for his mother, deep railing sobs leaving me as I could not contain the pain in my soul anymore. It was suffocating me and I was destitute. I don't have any idea how long this went on, I only know that at the end I could not move beyond removing my mask and lying there, gathering my breath in deep gulps of air.

Composing myself at last enough to take measurable amounts of air once again, I cleaned the sorrow from my shattered face, feeling utterly empty inside. I decided that it was time to try to draw that chapel now, and the thoughts of the chapel were all that occupied my mind for the rest of the night. As I sat in simple, peaceful, solitude, creating a masterpiece in its simple functionality and reverence to their station in the church, I was glad for the emptiness I felt. It was comforting after the ravaged emotions I had been suffering for so long. By morning I had designed the perfect chapel for these simple people, yet it was something that could never be called simple in architectural terms. It was using the stones of the area to their best advantage and the native woods and grapevine designs to give natural feel to the simplistic nature of these men. It would fit rightfully anywhere they would choose to build it. I was ready to begin immediately. I was also devising a room to isolate myself from them, set to the side of the chapel for solitude. If I didn't stay here forever, at least they would have a place to put other guests, as it seems they were often a sanctuary for one traveler or another. I had to plan the cost and give them the funds and the list to go and order the supplies necessary to build this creation. The other thing I had to devise yet was where I was going to put my Christine, she was going to hold a place of honor there, yet be where I alone could enjoy her beauty. Her sound to be heard through the hills, my eyes to be the ones to behold the beauty as it sang out for all to hear. Yes, I was pleased with this and I was going to enjoy building once more instead of destroying all I beheld. This was to be my swansong, and then I would live out my life here to compose in solitude and learn to relish the peace that had been handed to me as the roses I once handed to my Beloved. I held no malice as I thought this, only a sad resignation that this was my life and I had chosen it through my actions as surely as if it had always been my future. The reason for my birth. That was the beginning of my peace.