Once again, thank you to everyone for reviewing! For MariaY and anyone else concerned about the absence of a deep and meaningful conversation between Raoul and Christine: I promise I haven't copped out on it. Much as I dislike quoting Disney... "Patience, Iago." ;)
I lied about a shorter chapter this time. This is another long one, but it looks like the next two really will be shorter.
Chapter 11 – You Can Run
Madame Giry picked up her cup and sipped slowly, watching her daughter and Christine over the rim. She had allowed them to sleep late as usual after a night's performance, and so they were having breakfast while she was taking her second coffee for the morning. At the rate this particular morning was progressing, Madame Giry thought she could well be on her third cup by midday.
"It is a beautiful day outside," she tried again. "And you are both free until tomorrow's rehearsals. Why don't you take the beltline train and go for a walk in the Bois de Boulogne?"
"No, maman," Meg said, "We must practice."
"You cannot practice alone, Meg, and I shall not be here to play the piano until this evening. We can practice then, but I insist that you go to the park and get some sun; you are pale as wax and I do not like these mournful looks one bit. You too, Christine Daaé, you are worse than my daughter. What is the matter with you this morning?"
"Nothing, Madame Giry."
"Nothing, maman. Only Christine broke off her engagement."
"Meg!" exclaimed Christine, just as Madame Giry said, "Christine!"
"Well, it's true," Meg said decisively. She stopped poking at her omelette and set down her fork. "You cannot keep such a thing secret."
"I had not meant to keep it secret! It is only that I," Christine stumbled, "I did not want to talk about it now."
Madame Giry looked from her daughter's defiant gaze, unhappy at being forced to keep silent on so serious a subject, to Christine's bruised, tired eyes. She sighed.
"Christine is right, Meg. We will not talk about it now. Finish your breakfast please, then we shall see."
She rose and went to make herself that third cup of coffee. Between the worrying talk of war in the boulevards, and now this, it did not promise to be an easy day.
She had just taken the coffee-pot off the stove when there was a knock on the door.
"I'll get it!" Meg called from the dining-room, and a moment later – "It's the laundry!"
The delivery girl, a bright-faced child in a worker's kerchief with her arms full of neatly pressed linen, ducked her head into the kitchen. Meg leaned into the kitchen after her, looked to see that Madame Giry was there, then went back out.
"Your washing, madame."
"Yes – thank you, Marie. Leave it over here please." Madame Giry moved the dented kettle off the counter and the girl deposited the stack of linen there.
"Ma says to tell you it'll be two sous extra this week, because of the mending."
"Mending?"
"A seam on a nightgown, here." Marie turned back the corner of a white lacy garment on top of the stack.
Madame Giry frowned. The gown was Christine's; the back seam had evidently been torn from the neckline down to just below the shoulder.
"Ma sewed it up for you, but she says it mightn't hold long, seeing as it's such fine fabric and it was stitched up so messy, last time." The girl clucked with the air of a professional who disapproved of shoddy work.
Madame Giry counted out the money into her hand: "Thank you, I'll be sure to patch it. Wait a minute, my daughter will bring this week's things for you. Ah, here she is."
Meg walked in with a bulging sack made out of a pillowcase, full of dirty linen.
"Shall I help you carry it?" she asked the child, earning herself a grown-up scornful look.
"No thank you, mademoiselle. I do it myself."
"Of course," Meg apologised gravely. "Let me get the door for you."
Exit working-class dignity, stage left, Madame Giry thought with a sad smile. This was precisely the life she had never wanted for her daughter and Christine, the life her own parents had never wanted for her. But what was so different after all about ballet dormitories and practice halls? She felt no more tired after scrubbing the floors in the Théâtre Français than she had felt after several hours of rehearsal.
She examined the garments Marie had left, running a finger over the stitched-up seam of the nightgown. It was odd that Christine had not asked her to mend it.
o o o
Getting to the Gare de l'Est train station in time for the second train to Sedan had turned out to be far more difficult than Erik could have ever suspected. He sat in the cab, bleary-eyed after his tormented night, nursing the sense that he had lost a battle without ever knowing who his opponent had been. He no longer cared where the hell he was going. What mattered above all was the need to get out of this prison, this city whose every street beckoned him treacherously towards Christine.
The streets roiled with a throng like the Opéra masquerades on a grander scale: every last Parisian seemed to be outside this morning, soaking up the atmosphere of a festival. Erik found its vulgarity distasteful; its marching rhythm rang with the false notes of militant hypocrisy. Open landau carriages dressed with Chinese lanterns rolled past, and on top of these stood women in strange clothing, singing patriotic songs. Erik recognised one of them when his cab became wedged in the traffic behind her conveyance: it was la Carlotta herself, who had apparently forgotten all about her mourning for dear Piangi when presented with this rare opportunity to display her vocal cords and other dubious assets. Her red-dyed hair was elaborately coiffed, and she was wrapped in a blue, white and red stole, which on closer inspection turned out to be a tricolour flag. She waved it around. She sang. She waved. She sang some more. It was horrible.
Erik suffered this cacophony the rest of the way to the station. For the first time, he thought he could appreciate the plight of his audience at Don Juan Triumphant: one had to be attuned to the mood to appreciate such dissonance, and he felt about as attuned to this swarm of humanity as a tonedeaf corpse to his funeral march.
He paid the driver and took himself and his travel bag through the colonnaded entranceway of the station and into the immense hall, where the crowd was as thick and as noisy as in the streets. The big clock struck midday, each chime an assault on Erik's sensitised hearing. Light streaming in through the coloured glass of the rose window high above splashed patches of yellow, blue and orange across the clothes and faces of the passengers; everyone hurrying, yelling, gesticulating, mothers hauling squalling children by their wrists, gentlemen in top hats swerving around old peasant women bent over their precious bundles.
A piercing scream startled Erik. His heart thumped until he realised it was only the whistle of a departing train.
He battled the impulse to turn around and walk out, back to a cab and the privacy of his own room. Louise Gandon seemed to have forgotten the previous night's incident with the stairs; she had made no more mention of his moving out, but he had thought it best to leave the next fortnight's rent with Jean just in case. He had no wish to return to Paris to find his few possessions strewn across the sidewalk. In light of the new day, he had to admit the argument over the stairs had certainly not been one of his finest moments – but considering the entire distressing evening at the café and his encounter with... with the future Vicomtesse de Chagny, Erik decided it could have been a lot worse. At the very least, nobody was dead.
"One to Sedan," he said into the little glass window where the ticket clerk sat in his raised chair.
"What class?" the clerk asked in a bored voice, without looking at him.
Erik hesitated. Class? Surely 'bourgeois' would not be the right answer...
"Get second," recommended a lady behind him. She had the pinched expression of a migraine sufferer, which probably explained the look of commiseration she gave him. No doubt she enjoyed all this noise as little as he did.
"Second class," Erik said into the window. He nodded fractionally to the woman in acknowledgement.
"One moment please."
"Have you never travelled by train?" Madame Migraine-Sufferer inquired. "Or is it that you don't recall..." She made a sympathetic gesture at the bandage wrapped around half his head. "Memory loss? They say it can happen with a concussion..."
"Memory loss!" Erik sputtered, startled despite himself into amusement. "My thanks, madame – that's certainly one I have not heard before. At least, not as far as I can remember."
He paid, took his ticket and walked off in search of the right platform. To his surprise, the crowd did not seem to be bothering him quite as much anymore. In fact... He looked down the line of platforms and found that he felt almost at ease, even somewhat interested by this new method of travel.
It had been an excellent idea to get out of Paris. From the next two weeks he could endeavour to put everything from his mind save the plans for this courthouse. There would be no chance meetings in Sedan; no dark, twisting dreams of Christine. Like a blinded man learning to walk again, he would teach himself to live without her, a step at a time.
He wondered what she was doing at this moment.
o o o
The coffee was growing cold; Madame Giry poured it quickly and went back into the dining-room. Meg was gathering the dishes from breakfast, but Christine was nowhere in sight.
Meg stopped as soon as she saw her, the last plate still on the table. "You must talk to her, maman. I'm afraid I upset her."
Madame Giry gave her daughter a reproachful look.
"It was badly done, Meg. Would you like it if Christine were to blurt out your confidences that way?"
Meg looked abashed. "No. But I worry about her... She has been so strange these past few days. Angry and sad and... I don't know. Not herself. There was such a scene at the Variétés last night, you would not have recognised her! She was shouting at Helena, right there in the dressing room. And now this thing with Raoul. Maman, I don't know what's wrong. Christine won't tell me anything."
"You mustn't push her, Meg. It has been a difficult year."
"I know." Meg picked up the last of the plates. "You will talk to her?"
"Of course." Madame Giry touched her daughter's shoulder briefly in comfort. "But no more tantrums at the table, do you hear?"
"Yes, maman. I'm sorry, that was childish."
"Very childish. Take care of things here please, while I find Christine. She is in her room?"
"I think so."
The door to Christine's bedroom was ajar, but Madame Giry knocked anyway, loathe to intrude on the girl's privacy.
"I'll be out in a moment." Christine's voice was muffled.
"Christine? I should like to talk to you, my dear. May I come inside?"
"Yes... One moment. Come in."
The door opened on Christine, dressed in a dark skirt and blouse, and holding a hair comb. The sombre outfit lent her skin an even paler hue, against which her red-rimmed eyes and nervously bitten lips stood out as starkly as if they had been painted for the stage.
"I should not have run off, I'm sorry. I'll go help Meg."
"No, Christine." Gently, Madame Giry took her cold hand. "Come sit down with me for a moment."
Christine stood aside reluctantly to allow Madame Giry to enter. The drapes had been shut tight and the room was nearly dark; what little light filtered through the fabric had the reddish dusty quality of twilight. Madame Giry strode over to the window to open it, but Christine stopped her:
"No, please. It is better... My head aches."
"Shutting the window will do your head little good. You are not a vampire; you need fresh air and sunlight."
Nonetheless, Madame Giry left the window alone and perched beside Christine on the edge of the bed. There was nowhere else to sit; the room was the same as Meg's, with space only for a wardrobe, a bed, and a dresser with shelves in place of a mirror. The furnishings had come from the ballet dormitories at the Opéra Populaire; one of the few rooms untouched by fire. The managers had allowed the staff to take what they could before selling the rest at auction, as a small extra payout on top of the precious little they had received after bankruptcy had been declared. On the dresser was a portrait of Christine's father, some plain jewellery she had evidently been choosing from, and a little round mirror with a jewelled handle, a present from Raoul.
Madame Giry watched Christine toy aimlessly with the comb in her hands. She waited for her to speak, trusting that it would be wiser to let the girl find her own words.
"What Meg said... It's true, Madame Giry." Christine held up her hand, to show her bare ring finger.
Madame Giry waited.
"You must think I'm insane."
"I think no such thing. You are quite old enough to make your own choices, Christine. I wish only for you to be certain that you do not make them rashly, or for the wrong reason."
Christine ran a fingernail over the teeth of the comb, producing a nervous staccato. She said nothing.
"Did your fiancé do something to upset you?"
"No... It was me. I did something to upset him. I – hurt him. Many times."
Madame Giry raised her eyebrows a fraction.
"You don't believe me," said Christine.
"I have my doubts." Her lips quirked, "Yours is not the face of a femme fatale, child."
"My face!" Christine jerked her head at the mirror on the dresser. "You're just like Raoul! He thinks I look innocent so I must be an angel. He's so sure of it that he cannot believe the truth even when he sees it with his own eyes, even when he sees – when he..."
"Come now." Madame Giry gently pried the comb from Christine's clutching fingers and set it on the dresser.
"If you have indeed done something you regret then you must set it right. It is no use hiding here in the dark. The world will not go away because you have shut your eyes."
"Don't you understand? I lied to him! You said I should not make choices for the wrong reasons but I did, I took Raoul's ring and told myself it was right and swore to myself that I would never again – that from now on... Damn it!" Christine exploded, surprising Madame Giry.
She ran to the window and tore the drapes open, flooding the room with sunlight. Madame Giry raised a hand against the brightness, even as Christine flung open the window with a loud crash of the shutters.
"This!" she said, whirling around. "This is how it happened! This is what I am, Madame Giry! So how can I be innocent, how can I marry him now!"
"Christine, stop these dramatics." Madame Giry did not raise her voice, but she felt a cold anxiety welling within her.
"Tell me what happened. Calmly, please."
"He was here," Christine said in a hollow voice. "The night after the ball. I opened the window, and the Phantom came inside."
"...I see."
Madame Giry heard the words drop, a breath gone.
The discipline of her body was ironclad; it would not betray her. Only her mind was turning black, a great deal of blood pulsing out to darken her vision. She had known he would seek her out one day; she had not forgotten the sight of Christine's ring burning in his dirty palm – but not like this. Never like this.
Damn him, she had pitied him. Again. She had told him to find his honour. She had saved him again for this, for doing to this girl with his body what he had once done with his voice.
Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.
Madame Giry moved her head from side to side, as in denial; caught the movement and stopped it.
"Child, the Phantom..."
"I am not a child. His name is Erik."
"Yes, you're right," Madame Giry moved her lips to speak. Erik: the name she had once guarded as closely as his home, the name of a little boy. She saw his hands on Christine's body on stage, before the audience of Don Juan. She had known then that he was no child; nor Christine. She could not admit it.
"I touched him," Christine spoke with blood in the words, as though determined to make this as painful as she could. "I had kissed him once before, down in the tunnels, I told you..."
Madame Giry nodded slightly.
"This time he kissed me. I ... wanted him to." In the sunlight from the window, Christine's face was burning white; she was shaking. "I betrayed Raoul, Madame Giry. I betrayed myself..."
The nightgown, Madame Giry thought numbly. The torn seam that Christine had tried to mend.
"I should have stopped it but I didn't, I couldn't, it was like the music – I can't explain, please don't make me..."
"And afterwards?" asked Madame Giry mechanically.
"He ran away."
She bit back an obscenity. "Through the window?"
"Yes. Like a ghost." The blood rushed back to Christine's face.
Madame Giry glanced at the sun-drenched windowsill. She could just make out a corner of the dining-room balcony through it. Not like a ghost, she thought painfully. Like a coward.
"I miss him." Christine spoke barely above a whisper. "I miss him! It's like he's inside me, in my bones – he's not a ghost, I know, and Raoul knows as well because he sees, he know what happens to me... I can't marry Raoul. I can't. I know it's crazy; I don't expect you to understand..."
Madame Giry rose, half-unseeing. "It is all right, my dear. I do understand, better than you think. It isn't your fault."
"How can it not be my fault!"
"Christine, you are young. Too young."
Somehow, she managed to embrace Christine, kiss her clammy forehead, promise her that everything would be fine. Thinking of it later, she could not recall a word she had said, but it seemed to have worked well enough. Christine had calmed down, and had then stood patiently while Madame Giry helped her tidy her hair and get ready for a day at the Bois de Boulogne with Meg, a nice stroll through a park.
How all this was managed, Madame Giry could not say. She knew only that she moved with the mute precision of a wooden dancer in a German clock, backwards and forwards along the familiar track. Only when she had finally shut the door behind the two girls did she allow herself to walk – slowly – to her room, to collect her hat and gloves, and to find the calling card with the address of Monsieur Duchamp's office.
She had no choice. Monsieur le Fantôme would have to face the music.
Madame Giry pulled the calling card from the hat-box where she kept all the little things, scraps of paper and the accumulated trinkets of a life. There were ribbons cut from costumes, and brittle, yellowed newspaper clippings, testament to a girl's vanity – a critique of her very first solo, in La Sylphide, praising a promising young talent. There were many after that, then none at all. She had been luckier than most. Madame Giry swept the clippings to one side, searching for something else.
At the bottom of the box she found it: a small cream-coloured envelope with a broken seal of red wax. Inside was a square of card cut around the edges to resemble lace; a fortnight's work for a child's meticulous hands. The writing was plain, without the florid sarcasm that he had picked up later, she never knew where from.
Reading it made her age-old grief and anger burst afresh:
Come and play with me, Mademoiselle White Girl.
I'll show you the lake, it's very big. I want you to live here, too.
Erik.
She remembered finding him after that; explanations muttered through a wall about her job in the ballet, which he had neither understood nor cared to hear. All he could understand of her words was 'no'. She had been fifteen. When next she heard from him, he no longer referred to himself as Erik, and she no longer referred to herself as Mademoiselle – yet she never did learn to think of him as the Phantom. When Christine had heard him sing and believed him to be the Angel of Music, she had not the strength to deprive the little girl of the fairytale that had restored her joy; nor could she deprive Erik of the only person who had ever thought him beautiful, the child who loved him for his voice. So she had allowed these music lessons to go on – idiot that she had been! – thinking the deception could do no harm, two orphans helping each other...
She had been a fool to trust him.
She had to keep him away from Christine now. This much was obvious. She had to take the card with his address to the police, give her testimony about the deaths in the Opéra, and protect Christine.
Madame Giry stood up, found her legs unsteady, and sat again.
For many minutes she sat unmoving, holding the child's letter in her hand. Holding a child's life in her hand. She did not know how one came to the decision to kill; she had no experience with the planning of a murder. The thought of him imprisoned behind bars, caged as he had been as a boy, was abhorrent. Yet how many chances could one man have? The murders, the fire, kidnapping, God only knew what else, and now this – with Christine... Had he come here for vengeance, trying to destroy the future Christine had refused to share with him? Or ...
She thought suddenly of Christine's ring in his hand – and realised what she had to do.
Madame Giry closed the hat-box and stowed it back under her bed. With brisk steps she returned to the dining-room, took out the inkwell and a pen and sat down at the table. She allowed herself one final look at the note – this beautiful, precious thing she had kept for so many years – and silently bid it goodbye.
On the obverse of the card she wrote:
Monsieur —
Kindly recall the difference between a man and a ghost. A man takes responsibility for the actions of his body and his soul; a ghost is dead. If you cannot be the former, I shall be pleased to aid the gendarmes in helping you become the latter.
A. G.
The initials stared back at her, mockingly. The irony was too painful. Resolutely, she blew on the ink to set it, put the note back into its faded envelope and slipped it into her purse. Then she strode out of the apartment, but not for the prefecture of police.
She slammed the door of the building behind her, and headed straight for Monsieur Duchamp's office.