Thanks so much for the reviews, guys! I was particularly happy about the different reactions to M. Egrot's character. A bit of ambivalence is a good thing. ;)
More Erik in this chapter.
Chapter 17 – Snakeskin
"Away from Paris?"
Madame Giry gave a slight nod. "It is an out-of-town commission for an architect's office. I am told he should be back within a fortnight."
Christine put down the stocking she had been mending. She was alone with Madame Giry this evening; Meg had gone to call on Helena Weiss and Christine had declined to join them, shrinking from the idea of such a visit after her shameful scene at the Variétés. She should have known better than to hope for a quiet evening in her room. Madame Giry seemed determined to keep her from wallowing in self-pity, and to this end they were now sitting on the divan in the parlour with a pile of mending between them. It was necessary work, but Christine could not concentrate. Not after this news.
"An architect," she repeated. "He is an architect, in a city office?" She heard her voice rising in bewilderment.
Madame Giry acknowledged her surprise. "I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner."
"Two weeks..." Christine was at a loss. It had cost her a horrible, sleepless night to come to the decision to meet with him, only to find out now that he was out of town. He was busy.
She struggled to juxtapose the image of the Phantom with that of a city architect: one of those polished gentlemen with a folio under one arm and a ivory-topped cane in the other, striding purposefully along the boulevards to some office in town. It was neither ridiculous nor amusing. It hurt.
Thinking of him these past months, she had imagined the man she had seen so briefly, only twice: a scarred man with unkempt hair and bare face, with eyes that burned her with their pain and fury, a man whose mouth she had wanted to touch... In her mind, she had learned to call him by name. Yet now she thought of the way he had looked long before that: the elegant suit and the gleaming, spotless mask. She could picture that man as an architect, easily – but she could not give him his name.
So he had moved on with his life, left behind the Opéra and the things he had done, the burnt theatre, the murders, the broken lives.
While she was at home, in the parlour, sewing up stockings and petticoats, without a fiancé, without her singing, with her entire future turned to a mess of uncertainty. Afraid to visit her father's tomb, jumping at shadows because she imagined the walls sighing her name, carrying memories of horrors she would keep to the end of her days. This was all the life he had left her... And she could not meet with him for two weeks – because he was busy.
Madame Giry's needle flashed in the lamp-light as she fixed the last stitch and snipped the thread. Christine picked up her own sewing, attacking the torn stocking with a renewed determination.
"Then you still wish to meet with him?" Madame Giry asked from the other side of the divan.
"Yes." Christine did not look up. She softened her voice slightly, not wishing to be rude. "Yes, please write to him. What is his last name?" It occurred to her that she did not know it.
"Andersson," Madame Giry said slowly. "It is the name he gave Monsieur Duchamp; I have not heard it before."
"All right." Christine turned the stocking around to finish darning the toe. "Then I'll see Monsieur Andersson. I don't think we have ever had a civilised meeting before. There are things to say." She shook her head slightly, at herself. "You were right, Madame Giry. I have had more than my fill of mystery."
And for the next two weeks, she strove to convince herself of that. She went to dance rehearsals for the huge gala in support of the soldiers; she ate and slept and went to art shows with Meg and Madame Giry, she strolled through the park. Yet she still woke up in the night thinking she had heard the shadows crying, and when she tried her voice, she found she could not sing. Once, she and Meg caught the omnibus from the theatre up to the cemetery, but halfway there Christine thought of the last time she had gone to her father's tomb. She had known by then there was no angel, but still she could not resist his voice. Grabbing Meg's wrist, she all but dragged her off the omnibus, jostling the other passengers in her haste.
If the supper with Monsieur Andersson could be tomorrow, Christine thought, it would not be soon enough.
o o o
In all the years of existence that had passed for Erik's life, he had never imagined he could become a guest in another's home.
This victory was so unexpected, so unlikely, that at first he felt only a confused cheer, like a man clubbed over the head who awakens to forget all about his wallet. Egrot and his wife had invited him in, blissfully unaware that he was a murderer who knew little more than the descent from a cage to the lowest cellar, from hatred to madness to death. Erik watched them at dinner, this provincial woman and her husband whose only claim to distinction was a monthly trip all the way to Paris. They ceded him the empty chair that had been their son's, and served him their food, and they seemed to want nothing from him. Erik wondered what would happen if they knew.
Their home in Bazeilles was a short ride from Sedan, and he found himself lured again and again by the warmth of that sturdy house, by the squares of light in the windows, by the glimpse of a life that was not his and could never be his. In a different way, this dream was almost as dangerous as the portrait of Christine in the lodging-house in Sedan, but he could not give it up. There was power in the knowledge of who he really was, and in their ignorance.
Sometimes, Erik imagined telling them, before they could stumble on the truth themselves. He thought he could kill them both, and have this dream remain with him forever, unspoiled.
Mostly, however, he found he was content in that village.
He walked the forest paths, moving through the cool green light of summer, breathing in the moist smells of life that were so unlike the chill dampness of the Opéra. There was nothing like this in the city, and Erik found himself continually amazed by the details: the shape of an oak leaf that was like and yet unlike the gilded leaves in picture-frames; the quick dart of a squirrel; the sound of water that lapped at pebbles and grass instead of cold stone.
It was only natural that he should incorporate these things into the design for the courthouse. The preliminary sketches he had brought with him from Paris were duly consigned to the trash pile. Instead Erik expanded on the ideas he had put to paper on his first night in Bazeilles, interpreting for builders and engineers the lines of forest and river, the view from the windows of a train, the tendrils of grapevines and pots of geraniums spilling from the windowsills. The Egrots seemed flattered by his requests to see more of the surrounds, and Erik rewarded them occasionally by a display of one or other of his drawings. A fragment of a decorative pilaster or some other trinket was enough to fascinate these uncomplicated minds.
He did not entirely abandon his rooms in Sedan, but he had shut up the bright study with the nerve-singeing portrait on the wall, and never went inside. When he had to work there, he cleared a space on the small table in the bedchamber and made do with that. More often, he took his work to Bazeilles.
Two days before he was due to depart for Paris, the news came through that the army had need of extra transport carriages and locomotives. Egrot questioned Erik incessantly about the significance of this, eager to share his opinion that this could only mean a push into German territory, and thus that a great battle was imminent. These speculations invariably sent Madame Egrot flying white-faced to her chambers, and brought on grumbles from Egrot about losing his wife along with his son while this nonsense continued. Erik, whose already limited interest in the whole affair had evaporated completely in recent weeks, could condone only so much pointless debate before his irritation surfaced.
"Did you not suggest fishing, Egrot?" he asked at last, in the hope of diverting the man's attention to something that would not require him to talk of politics, or indeed, at all. "I had some hope of seeing your famed fishing sites before I must leave again for Paris."
"Ah yes! Yes, indeed. Blast it, why did you not remind me sooner? We shall have to go tomorrow, first thing! The early fish catches the worm... or was it bird? Well, you and I shall catch that early fish, my friend."
Erik assured Egrot that the prospect filled him with unspeakable delight, and true to his word, Egrot met him in the kitchen at the crack of dawn, bristling like a hedgehog with rods and fishing tackle. Curious about the function of all these odd-looking items, Erik joined him. They made their way past shuttered houses to the outskirts of the village, then through a patch of tame woods still dim with pre-dawn shadows, heading down to the river.
The forest air grew lighter as they walked, becoming noisy with the trill of birds, which Erik had learned to identify by their voices. Occasionally Egrot would point out the name of a shrub or tree, as he often did on these walks, and Erik took these lessons with better humour than he thought he could have managed two weeks ago. They came out onto the riverbank, into the bright sunlight of true morning.
"Now you'll see how it's done, mind my word!" said Egrot, and Erik quirked a brow in response, humouring the challenge.
"Be wary, Monsieur Egrot. I may not have done this before, but I am a fast learner."
"We shall see, we shall see," Egrot chuckled as he unfolded the two fishing-stools and began to set up the rods.
Soon after they had set themselves up in the shade of a willow, in Egrot's preferred spot on a little elevation above a bend in the river, other fishermen appeared. They nodded their good-mornings as they passed them and, Erik noticed with amusement, cast an eye to the empty bucket between him and Egrot, in what could only be a superior fashion.
The morning wore on in a pleasant, sleepy near-silence. There was no talk, but dragonflies and clouds of gnats buzzed over the water, and a light wind made the river mutter to itself, glittering in the sunlight. Erik shifted in his seat, trying to arrange his long legs around the fishing-stool. Although he could not seem to find the same comfort in the pose that Egrot's stouter, shorter frame suggested, Erik thought he could appreciate why people did this. He looked down the riverbank, at the distant clumps of other men bent over their fishing-rods. They gave the impression of people who were content to do this all day, snoozing in the sun.
He was still trying to imitate their laziness when all of a sudden, Egrot leapt up with a whoop.
"Here he comes! Oho, look at that!"
Erik found himself on his feet as well, caught up in the man's excitement. Egrot fought to keep steady, reeling in the line as the rod flexed under the weight of something living – and there it was. A silver fish rose out of the water in sinuous jerks, scales glittering and flashing in the sun. Egrot gave another cry of pure triumph, reaching for his prey.
Erik backed away.
He was gagging; the fish seemed centimetres from his face. It stank. It stank foully of death. Blood trickled out of its mouth and its eyes bulged out...
A corpse. A corpse dangling on the end of a line. Blood and bulging eyes, a dead man, a dead ballet girl in a white dress. Egrot's look of triumph was ghastly as he pulled the steel hook from the corpse's mouth and flung it into the underground lake... no, the bucket of water... the water turning a thin pink from the blood.
"Beauty, isn't he? What did I tell you!"
Egrot's joy-distorted face, his pride at his catch, was worse than a mirror. Erik recoiled, nauseated. He took a step back, then another.
Was this how he himself had looked when he dropped a man from the flies to plunge to his death? This bright sickness in the eyes, a killer's glee – was this the face Christine had fled from?
No, his was worse. Of course. Christine's voice whispered in his head: Hardly a face in the darkness... The darkness...
"Andersson?"
"Get away from me!" he roared. With an immense effort he managed to hold Egrot's bewildered gaze, enough to say – "I must have eaten something – I am not well – forgive me..."
Egrot let him go. For that alone, Erik thought later, he would be grateful to the end of his days.
That night he could not breathe. Back in Sedan, the air came in sharp, hard convulsions that had nothing in common with tears, so that he had to force strips of bandage between his teeth to keep the sound from carrying in the darkness.
He had returned to the lodging-house with no explanation for his departure, leaving Egrot and his wife in Bazeilles to think what they would. He could not be their architect right now, he could not be anything at all. Never had he felt such a strong urge to return to the Opéra, to shed his ugly carcass and become a ghost, to dissipate, to forget who he was. Perhaps if the catacombs had still been there, he would have returned that very night, across a hundred miles of open country – but the catacombs had collapsed long ago, and he was left outside, alone with himself.
He bound his chest with a white sheet like a shroud, airtight linen to shut him in, to stop moving, stop thrashing. Sweating like a beast, he was terrified of himself, of the night, of every sound he could not hear. Later, he remembered that he had burst into the study and saw Christine's face there, the anger in the curve of her mouth. He had thrown the sheet away and stood naked before her face, like a blind pallid creature from the filthy depths of the ocean, torn out of its shell – and laughed and laughed...
Daybreak came slowly, wedging light between Erik's swollen eyelids with the tip of a knife. He realised he had slept, or else had abandoned sanity for a time. The bedchamber was in a frightful state. Sketches of the courthouse were strewn all over the floor, some crushed with boot-prints over them, others bulging with splashes of candlewax. All ruined. The results of two weeks of work, one night's despair.
Erik's eyes travelled dully over the destruction, uncaring, until he found what he searched for. The portrait from the study lay on top of a pile of drawings on the floor. The frame and glass were undamaged, but the drawing inside had been turned around, and it was the foreign face of the Empress that looked out at him from within.
Erik realised that for the first night in months he had not dreamed of Christine, but it was at best a hollow triumph. He faced a simple truth now as he had not dared to do before: This was his life.
This was all there had ever been, and no girl's hands would come and rest against the malformed part of his soul, no amount of playing the architect or the refined gentleman would change what he was, what he would always be. This was all.
A bugle sounded from the fortress, and the windows of the bed-chamber rattled with the now-familiar heavy rumble of ammunition wagons, the echo of war. Erik got to his feet and began to gather up the drawings.
When the elderly landlady came in, hours after he had packed up what remained of his sketchbooks and cleaned up the worst of the mess, he was ready with an explanation – wine and cards – but she did not ask. She informed him only that the post had arrived from Paris. Erik accepted the letter dutifully and followed the directives. Monsieur Duchamp warned him of delays on the Paris line, caused by the shortage of trains after they had been requisitioned by the army, and advised him to set out early and return by mail coach or farmer's wagon, or any other means he could find.
Erik therefore paid for his rooms, adding more than enough to cover the damage from the candlewax and crushed charcoal on the floor, and set off for Paris. A pointless energy made him go through the motions of the role he had been playing for so long, and he remained the architect, the gentleman. It was easiest that way, and Erik found a mean sort of comfort in this indifference. Like a piece of driftwood or a corpse being washed downstream, he had no need of decisions. The role carried him back to Paris, and he let it. He had left the portrait behind in Sedan but brought Christine's ring back with him; he could not have said why.
The journey that had been so easy by railroad stretched into two gruelling days by a wagon, coach and finally suburban train, so that when Erik found himself at last back at the entrance to Louise Gandon's store in Montmartre, he summoned enough strength to feel glad. It was not home, he had no home, yet he was glad to see it all the same.
"Well, the prodigal tenant!" she exclaimed, looking him over from head to foot and raising her eyebrows. "And don't you look a sight. Could pass for one of them country folk, with that rumpled suit of yours. There's a letter come for you a few days ago."
She rummaged through a box at the side of the shop counter, and handed Erik a small envelope. "Says here it's from a Madame Giry."
"My thanks," Erik said wearily. He tucked the letter into his folio alongside the crumpled and ruined sketches, and trudged upstairs. He felt too drained even to wonder what Madame Giry could possibly want from him.
Louise knocked on his door later, at what seemed like the middle of the night. Erik lifted his head from the bed where he lay, momentarily disoriented by the sunlight in the window. It was perhaps three o'clock in the afternoon. He wondered vaguely if it was even the same day.
The knocking resumed, gaining a few notches in volume, so that Erik deemed it best to open the door to her and get it over with.
Louise stood on the threshold with a saucepan and spoon, looking annoyed. A delicious smell of onion soup rose from the saucepan, tricking Erik into awareness.
"For God's sake!" She screwed up her bulbous nose at the sight of the room, and Erik's dishevelled appearance. "Eat something, man." She thrust the saucepan and spoon at him. "You'd think you're one of them returning wounded, sneaking in all quiet-like from the front."
Erik glowered at her silently. His eyes felt like sand.
"And cut your hair for pity's sake, before you bring lice into my house."
"Wounded?"
"Border skirmishes, don't you know? We've taken Saarbrücken. Big sodding victory for the Empire, Jean'll tell you." She shrugged dismissively. "You get cleaned up and have a rest before you come downstairs, you hear? I've worries aplenty without a living ghost to scare the shit out of every customer what pokes their head through the door."
Before Erik could figure out how to respond to this mixed offer of insults and food, Louise had turned to go.
"Eat!" she threw over her shoulder, before cluttering down the clean-scrubbed stairs.
Erik slammed the door and shoved the saucepan of soup onto his work-table. He thought to go back to sleep, but his stomach growled in protest. There was nothing for it; he had lost all discipline in the time he had spent above the ground... A day without food had become sufficient to make him nauseous. He would have to cure himself of that, but not now. Now, he decided it made more sense to eat.
A square of white attracted his attention; it was the letter from Madame Giry, fallen out of his folio onto the floor. Erik picked it up without much interest, opening it as he started on the soup.
The spoon froze mid-air in his hand. Slowly, he lowered it, and turned over the card.
Yes, his own writing was still there... He turned the card back, and read again Madame Giry's empty threat: Kindly recall the difference between a man and a ghost...The gendarmes... A.G.
He upended the envelope, and a second card fell out. It was an invitation, politely phrased and addressed to Monsieur Erik Andersson. An invitation to supper. It seemed he should have amends to make to one Mlle Christine Daaé.
Erik set the card aside and clasped his hands on the table before him. He noted, impartially, the jagged tremor that had begun in his fingertips and spread down to his wrists. It took a long time to bring it under control, but he managed it.
When at last he rose from the table, he had come to a decision. He could be an architect. He could make amends. He could be the gentleman Madame Giry thought to make him; he would play their game and attend their ludicrous idea of a supper. Mirrors, music, portraits, death and Christine: those were in the past.
Erik shuddered, sloughing off his lethargy like the old skin of a serpent, beneath which gleamed the new, iridescent layer of scales.
He replied to the invitation at once.