A/N: Thank you for your reviews of the last chapter, and especially to those of you who shared such thoughtful analyses of the characters and the situation! It makes posting this story so rewarding for me, and justifies the many, many hours of work that go into it. In response to Jessica's question about whether this is the storyline I intended all along: actually yes, I'm finding that despite the hiatus, it is unfolding almost exactly as in my original outline. Some things happened in a different way to what I expected, or at different points, but this is still very much the story I've always wanted to tell. The historical setting keeps things on track, but really it's about the characters and their development. I've had these people in my head for over a decade and I still love them all in their different ways!
A note on the music. The song here will of course be instantly recognisable, but it has a very different tone in Adolphe Adam's original (try listening to it in French, eg by Mireille Mathieu, to hear the difference from the much gentler English). It was written in 1855 and was extremely popular, but became regarded with suspicion by the church because of its martial and revolutionary tone, and its secularisation. The first verse was later changed by the lyricist, Capeau, to remove references to original sin, and this modified version is the one quoted here (although it never attained popularity in French, the commonly performed English translation is closer to this modified version). I couldn't find an adequate rendering of the "revolutionary" second verse, so the translation of that is mine.
Phew. Enough of that! On with the story...
Chapter 49 — The Solemn Hour
A full house, Erik thought numbly as he went to take the stage. And he with no costume to shield him, without a single prepared line, rumpled, unshaven, ugly as sin, with nothing but the flimsy bandage and the few sheets of paper rustling in his hands with each heavy step. It was not enough. He should have been facing a hall of hatred, but the Vicomte's mad courage had robbed him even of that. Hatred was expected, he could have used it, but this… The noise of the crowd dwindled to silence and his guards fell behind, leaving him to make the ascent on his own — and then he stood before them in the hot blinding light.
Their hero. Their damned murdering hero.
Cheers burst out and spurted afresh through the ranked audience. What did they see? They were all looking at him: Jean and the others at a table by the piano and Louise below the stage, and beyond, dead centre in the audience, Madame Giry and her daughter, and the Vicomte in a wheelchair… Christine, where was Christine? Erik skimmed his gaze past Chagny's tailored uniform and pale face, unwilling to be drawn into gratitude for what must surely be the most absurd farce these walls had ever witnessed. The Vicomte had named him murderer and bade them love him for it, and they did. They did. The cause was just, the blood must flow. So months ago Louise Gandon had cheered him for the destruction of the Empire's Opéra, untroubled by the misery and flames. The faces blurred into a sickening mêlée peppered with grins and shouts and kepis of the National Guard. The theatre tilted and swayed.
"Erik Andersson," Jean called.
It was then he finally saw Christine. She had been leaning into Madame Giry's shoulder and now she turned towards the stage, lowering her arms, and looked up at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red, but her face was frank and open and waiting, and Erik knew that here, truly, was his judgement. Christine straightened up, and shaped his name: Erik.
He came forward.
The rest of the hall receded; there was only Christine. She watched him approach the edge of the stage. The glamour Chagny cast had not deceived her; Erik saw the war reflected in the depth of her horror, and he held onto that lifeline, steadying himself against the cheers.
He pressed his fingers into the pages he held.
"We've heard Lieutenant de Chagny's testimony," Jean continued, "and I for one would gladly offer you my heartfelt thanks for your what you did at Sedan. Franc-tireurs are a rare breed, and you risked a terrible price for your courage; we have only last week learned of the appalling events in Châteaudun when the free shooters of that town stood against the Prussians…" He paused and the audience sobered; the dream of glory was wearing off, exposing the nightmare beneath. "But as my friends rightly remind me," Jean indicated the others of the National Guard behind the table, "there remains the question of what you do in Paris. Andersson, bear with us — we must get to the bottom of this misunderstanding."
"Indeed," Erik said carefully, his eyes never leaving Christine.
She caught the deep resonance in his voice almost before he was aware of it himself, and her brows furrowed uncertainly: she recognised that particular tone. Madame Giry and Meg had recognised it too; Erik saw them draw back, and glimpsed the Vicomte's equally appalled expression. The Phantom's voice issued again from his mouth:
"Let us have no more misunderstandings, messieurs."
Oh God, but it felt good. To command their attention like this, to turn their elation to fear at will, to drink that heady draught and turn it to a sorcery of his own, stronger by far than the Vicomte's earnest oratory…
Christine held his gaze, and slowly, painfully, Erik felt the vice loosen its grip. The back of his shirt under his coat grew damp with cold sweat. It took all his self-possession to rein himself in, to release no more than this faintest echo of the role that still lived within him. He concentrated on each heartbeat, wrenching his body away from old familiar habits. Locked in his mirrored room, he had tried to prepare himself, but that had been as nothing compared with standing here in his own skin.
Jean motioned to the guards and Christine's music book was brought out, gleaming with its embossed writing on the front: Daaé. Erik felt Christine flinch at the abrupt way the book was placed on the table before Jean and the clerk.
"Mademoiselle Daaé assures us this is her own notebook intended for composition and nothing more. Is that so?"
"It is."
"And you are Mademoiselle Daaé's — tutor?"
A laugh from the audience suggested an alternative that made Christine's eyes flash; but Erik tramped his own anger down. Carefully now. Oh, so carefully.
He said, "We sing together. I would offer a small demonstration, if Mademoiselle Daaé permits it." The words resonated over the audience, and a fresh wave of perspiration dampened his shirt. Christ, he wanted a mask.
Christine tensed, but her eyes were still on him, questioning, trying to understand. Erik silently asked her forbearance, and tried to commit to memory the way she looked back at him: the line between her brows, a loose curl she brushed impatiently from her eyes — and that fragile, fearful trust. She had heard the dangerous echo. She knew he could slip now and fall willingly into the inferno; the rage he had fed for so long needed only a few puffs of air to be rekindled, a few miserable breaths. But Christine held him, and did not let go.
"Let them sing then!" someone cried from the audience, and Erik recognised Louise's voice, brighter than he had ever heard it. Others joined to support her in ragged counterpoint: "Go on! Let them sing!"
Jean nodded to Louise, and then addressed Christine: "Will you oblige us? There is no need if—"
"I will."
Christine had already slipped to the front, where the children and the terminally curious pressed around her. The rest pulled back a few paces, but these only crowded nearer, not bothering to hide their curiosity. She tugged surreptitiously at something near her hips, and with a shock Erik realised what she was doing: loosening the sides of her corset to permit singing. A new heat spread through him, and it was only with the greatest effort that he kept hold of the Phantom's voice as he bowed to her:
"Mademoiselle Daaé."
"My book, monsieur." Christine looked up towards the table, hands ready to receive it, but with a gesture Erik stopped Jean from passing it down.
"No. That music is… unfinished. Here; something more appropriate to the occasion."
He fanned out the pages he held to reveal the ruled staves and scattering of notes. The men at the table peered at it and the crowd began to whisper, but Jean recognised it at once:
"Of course; the paper you requested." To the clerk he said, "This is Andersson's work; it has not been out of his hands since last night."
"Not mine in the least — but it will do." Jean was taken aback, but Erik swept on, "We shall need an accompanist." He peered into the sea of assembled faces, certain there must be at least one mediocre pianist among them. This was a dance-hall; someone must have played the abused instrument that had been gathering dust on the stage, before he and Christine had restored it to life.
"Yeah, all right," said a child of about thirteen, a lanky girl with sharp elbows and thin wrists protruding from too-short sleeves. She shoved to the front and pushed untidy dark hair back under a cap. "Let's see the music then." Then as an afterthought, she glanced at the table where Jean and the others presided, and added, "If it's all right with you, papa."
Maréchal, one of Jean's confederates, gave a shrug of his burly shoulders, feigning indifference, but glanced askance at the rest of the gathering, daring them to object. The proud father, Erik thought, and the girl grinned, charming but cocky as a street-wise gamin. Erik recalled Jean's tales of this same child smuggling newspapers into the city, and looking at her, he was not at all surprised she had succeeded.
"Our young Marie," Jean greeted her, and the audience murmured its approval; evidently the girl was well liked. "Thank you."
She climbed easily to the stage, dusted off her skirts, and looked from Erik down to Christine and back again to Erik, staring him insolently up and down.
"Well?" she demanded.
Erik measured her against the sort of accompanist he might have expected, but in truth, there were no other volunteers; she would have to do. Provided she could at least distinguish the white keys from the black, he could not possibly make the arrangement any more simple.
"Mademoiselle." He held out the loose sheets of paper to her. "Can you play it?"
Marie looked at both sides of the first page, then gave a derisory snort. "A monkey could play it. But a bit early in the year for this sort of thing, isn't it?"
Erik ignored this, and the girl went to take a seat at the piano. The floorboards squeaked as she pushed the bench closer. Below, Christine followed this in puzzlement, but Erik had nothing for her; there was no time to explain, he had to trust she would understand his intention. The audience waited.
The music began.
Christine's caution dissolved with the tentative opening chords, turning first to incredulity and then, slowly, blossoming into joy. The tension left her shoulders, her eyes shone, and Erik thought he could not care less what they chose to do to him after this.
He raised his bandaged face and started the first verse.
Minuit, chrétiens, c'est l'heure solennelle…
O holy night, the stars are brightly shining...
The people gasped and stirred. They could hardly have failed to recognise the song; its very popularity had seen it escape its Opéra roots so completely that Erik had little doubt none of them would know in its author the creator of Giselle. The melody brought back a past he had almost forgotten: an ancient Christmas Eve in the Opéra, a parcel of almond rolls waiting in Box 5, oranges and the smell of spiced wine, Christine's young voice soaring into the darkness of their chapel, and backstage, everyone from costumiers to drunken stagehands humming the same song. It poured from the stage to the wings, into the offices, into the streets. It no longer mattered what it had been, it had become a Marseillaise of a sort, a hymn, but not of blood. He caught sight of Madame Giry for a moment; she had recognised it too, and she shook her head in wonder.
Où dans l'heureux Bethléem, vint au jour…
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth…
People were starting to laugh: a Christmas song, in October! Men elbowed their neighbours, pointing, their awe of the hero forgotten in this new spectacle; women jeered at all this unwelcome religiosity. Fools; the Phantom could draw them deep into complacency and then turn on them, snarling, until they trembled in their places. He could hide his face.
Christine watched him.
To Hell with the Phantom.
Doggedly, Erik sang on.
Le messager de la bonne nouvelle—
Of He who brought to us the word from Heaven—
He had rendered Adam's score faithfully, only lowering the key enough to permit Christine to weave in her part, but the words were a later version seldom performed: the poet had tried in vain to remove sin from his first verse; the song had been taken up by too many voices by then. But Erik sang it now and saw Christine recognise it, and treasure it:
Qui fit, des lois de sang, la loi d'amour.
—Where once was blood, there would be only love.
She joined him on the next verse, making her own voice angel-clear and urgent, irresistible, completing the effect he asked of her and creating something greater still, entwining with him to take their song beyond anything one voice could have created. Between them, the music grew.
The laughter faded away. People were listening: men in their National Guard uniforms, errand boys in imitation kepis, students, schoolteachers, careworn women clutching ration cards and young laundry-girls with sleeves rolled up to the elbow. It was a motley crowd, but they were all shouldering unwittingly forward, drawn by no magic other than song.
They reached the darkest of the verses, the one the Angel of Music had always avoided, but Christine did not hesitate for an instant, and buoyed by her assurance, Erik threw himself into the fire of the words:
Le Roi des rois naît dans une humble crèche:
Puissants du jour, fiers de votre grandeur,
A votre orgueil, c'est de là que Dieu prêche.
Courbez vos fronts devant le Rédempteur.
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger:
O mighty ones, so certain of your world,
It is your pride that He has come to vanquish,
So bow your heads to sing before the Lord.
The people joined in on the chorus, more and more of them with each turn of the spiralling sound, hundreds of untutored haphazard voices merging into a single perfect whole and setting the theatre to humming like an enormous bell. It was beautiful, and it made each one of them seem beautiful:
Peuple à genoux, attends ta délivrance...
Fall to your knees, await your liberation...
Erik could no longer hope to direct this music. It frightened him; it ruled him; his soul knelt at its bidding, making vague, shuddering promises, like a freak-child whipped to bleeding and then all of a sudden released, forgotten, free…
He groped for a way to break it. He needed a mask and a cloak and the safety of his anger, he wanted a world that made sense and a part he knew through and through. He wanted nothing of that terrible pronoun, "we". He was not one of them.
And yet he sang. Christine's voice wrapped over his own, soothing the roughness from it, chasing away the remnants of the Phantom's echo, lifting away his mask — until what remained was a sound Erik knew was his. Truly his.
Peuple debout! Chante ta délivrance,
Noël, Noël, chantons le Rédempteur!
People, arise! And sing your liberation,
Raise up your voice to praise the One who saves!
It was done. The people were on their feet, holding their hats, faces streaming. Their regard was a blast of heat in his face, as if he stood before a furnace, and at the centre of it all was Christine. She stood unsteadily, her face tipped up, her cheeks wet, but the trust in her eyes was the most precious thing Erik had ever held.
Erik stepped off the edge of the stage, dropping like a stone into the mass of humanity, and felt his knees give way as his legs folded uselessly beneath him.
He struck the floor and knelt, and Christine knelt with him. No; she must not do it — he kept trying to tell her to stand, only perhaps he did not speak this but merely thought it, because Christine stayed on the floor and caught the front of his coat, crushing the fabric with bruising force.
"Erik," she kept repeating, "Erik," and he thought he could stay on this cold filthy flagging for eternity if she would only keep saying his name. He waited for the world to stop spinning.
"Andersson," came the Vicomte's voice behind her, in a kind of fascinated horror, "What happened?" and right behind his wheelchair, Madame Giry was sweeping the crowd aside: "Move back! Move back, I said!"
For a wonder, they obeyed, and a circle of blessed air opened out around him and Christine. The Vicomte looked down at them over the rim of a wheel, and Erik could do nothing but remain where he was. Then, incomprehensibly, Chagny held out his arm.
Erik clasped it and climbed to his feet, as Christine did the same behind him, with far more grace. "Thank you," she said to Chagny. The words chimed inside Erik's skull, a beautiful pain.
Chagny nodded to her, then turned his chair and permitted the nun to wheel him away. People stood aside to let them pass.
"Chagny!" Erik called. When the Vicomte half-turned, Erik bowed slowly to him, then raised his head:
"I am honoured. Monsieur."
Chagny's mouth hitched up in a bitter smile, despite himself. "The honour is mine." Then he looked down at Christine's fist still closed hard on Erik's lapel, refusing to let go. He said nothing more, but only touched the nun's hand lightly, and they moved away.
"Water!" A callused hand held out a flask, and Erik looked up to see Louise. She bustled in through the crowd, with the water flask and a half-loaf of dense brown bread, and manoevered her way past Madame Giry and Meg. "Have a drink, man, here." She unstoppered it for him and Erik realised he was parched. He grabbed at the flask and drank greedily, inelegantly, each gulp knifing its way down his throat.
"You poor man," Louise clucked, pushing the bread into his hands, then snarled at a group of men approaching the top of the stage. "Get back, you lot! Jean, what's going on up there?"
"Listen!" Christine tugged at him urgently, "Erik, what is that?"
The doors to the foyer stood wide open after the Vicomte's departure, and through that bright square of daylight now came the unmistakeable sound of bugles.
Again the call sounded, and again. And far, far in the distance rumbled the dull thunder of a cannonade.
Erik looked around him; the whirlwind of the last few hours now seemed a mad, wine-fuelled dream. The people who had sung of liberty listened, and stood taller with each call of the bugle.
"They're taking Le Bourget!" A young man in spectacles burst through the doors, sending a shockwave with his arrival. "It's a sortie, a real sortie! They've broken through the lines!"
"To arms!" came the answering call. "To arms!"
The hall dissolved into a new furore the likes of which Erik had never imagined here. The theatre, never large, became positively claustrophobic with the rush of people seeking to get out; the side doors were thrown open and the hearing and its dubious hero were left forgotten. A man was handing out rifles; the National Guard were already forming clumps that would soon swell to battalions streaming towards the ramparts.
"Christine!" called a girl's voice, and Erik saw Meg thrust the music book into Christine's hands. She had somehow managed to climb to the stage in the chaos, and her dress was hanging limp on one side where a panel of underskirt had been torn. Madame Giry put one hand over her daughter's shoulder to steady her, and reached the other to Christine, as though she could hold them all.
"Come at once," she said. "And you, monsieur. There is no telling where this is going to end."
Christine tucked the book under her arm safely, but did not move. "It is only more fighting…"
Madame Giry gave an impatient headshake, but Erik had to agree. He saw the pain in Christine's eyes and knew she had seen too many wounded men in the Vicomte's sickroom to believe in anything anymore. Christine smiled, sending a piercing sadness through his chest.
"Monsieur Andersson!" the clerk cried from the stage in agitation, waving a sheath of papers. "Over here, please! I need a signature. If you please, sir."
"Go ahead," Erik assured Madame Giry. He tested his legs and found he could walk almost steadily. "I will join you before the day is out; as soon as these people," he gestured at the stage, "have their satisfaction in writing. Le Bourget lies well north of here. If there is indeed a battle, it will be hours yet before we know the outcome."
"Then I will stay with you," Christine said firmly. Erik drew breath to protest, but he saw the iron certainty in Christine's face, and exhaled slowly, saying nothing at all.
Madame Giry watched this unfold, and at last her exasperation softened into something older, and far darker.
"Very well," she said. "But do not be long."
She turned and led Meg away to the doors, following the crowd. Erik saw Meg twist around anxiously to catch Christine's eye, and then the daylight swallowed them both. The last of the stragglers were following behind.
"The papers, please!" The clerk had managed to scramble down from the stage and now stood red-faced and puffing at Erik's side, rubbing his elbow. "This is the transcript, here," he explained, "And here, your testimony. I need a signature on every page, if you please." He gestured at the trestle table, where nothing and nobody remained except yet more papers and a pot of ink.
"Go on," Christine said softly, and Erik followed the clerk, meek as a reprimanded student, and signed every accursed page of his accursed transcript, and probably half a dozen other papers besides. He barely glanced at what was being thrust under his pen, his heart was beating frantically to the rhythm he felt from Christine below the stage. He knew she was watching him.
When the last page was signed, and he had slammed the doors behind the relieved clerk, Christine reached out and took his hand in hers, fingers closing on his wrist. Her cuff fell open; she must have lost the button in following him down from the stage. Erik shuddered, half-wanting to break away before he did something foolish. Christine brushed her thumb over the pulse in his skin, the fine network of veins there that was the same as his own. Against the door's dark panel she seemed a living masterpiece, sombre in her dark dress, and so lovely it hurt. It was he who had put her through all this, he alone.
He searched for the words he needed, but Christine released his wrist.
"I don't want your signature. But I want your word. If this siege ends at last, if we survive… Promise me — promise me! — there will be no more shame. No deaths." She paused. "Erik, I will never, ever be the Phantom's lover."
The Phantom's… He blinked at her, almost certain his brain was still addled. "Repeat that."
"Your word—"
"Not that." The bread Louise had given him was still in his hand, and it slid from his grasp and thumped to the floor. They both watched it. Erik picked it up and put it in his coat pocket. "The last part," he managed.
Christine said nothing, waiting. Above her, a gas-jet flared and hissed on the thinning fuel, swaying red-gold shadows over her shoulders and face.
"I am done with the Phantom," Erik said. He wanted to kneel, but he could not tear himself from her gaze, from the clarity and the demand in her eyes. "No more shame. No deaths. No blood. Never, never again. It is done, Christine."
"Swear it."
Erik finally, slowly, understood her meaning, and a roaring noise filled his hearing as the blood rushed to his head. Shaking, he leaned over and sealed the promise to her mouth:
"I swear it."
"Again." Christine's lips felt hot against his own, and her kiss was a burning brand.
"I swear it."
"Again." She raised her hand and Erik felt her fingers work under the back of his bandage, above the knot; a small movement, and it was loosened. She combed her fingers through his hair, then around to the back of his scars, the gentlest of intrusions. A frisson of tension rippled over Erik's skin, but he fought it, and moved his cheek closer to hers, his lips almost touching her ear:
"I swear it. No ghosts. Only life, I swear it. I swear it. I swear it."
"That's enough," Christine told him, pulling back, drawing behind her an agony of longing. She stopped his mouth with a finger. "I believe you."
"Christine…" He kissed her finger.
Her chest rose and fell quickly, just once. She glanced past him, into the black unlit doorway leading to corridor where the dressing-rooms were. "Did they… Were you here last night, in the theatre?"
He flushed at the unwelcome reminder. "Yes. A room at the back."
"I want to see it." Christine saw his confusion, and her smile flickered like a candle, hardly touching her lips, and yet sending new tendrils of hope through him. "I would… Change the memories of it."
Erik felt a vertiginous thrill at what she was suggesting. His throat was dry. He took a step towards the corridor, then another. "It is — this way."
She pushed away from the door, and followed him unhesitatingly, as sure-footed in the dark as she had been in the light. In the dressing-room, a jet burnt low, bathing in its dim light the old upholstered couch and the huge, unforgiving mirror. Erik glanced into it despite himself, and there, behind him, was Christine, holding something in her hand: the key.
He looked back in time to see her put it in the keyhole. Then she turned it, locking the door from inside.