I can't begin to tell you how happy it makes me to see all the discussion in the reviews, and responses to other readers' thoughts as well as the story. Thank you for being here and please keep it up, it's fascinating!
Apologies for the unavoidable delays with this chapter, I'm in the midst of a stressful time and writing is a precious gift to myself that I can't always afford. I've started a Twitter account (tangofiction) which you are welcome to follow; I'll try to use it to warn of any future delays.
Trivia: This episode in the history of the siege took place on 31 October 1870.
Chapter 53 — Paris Governs Herself
The street was eerily silent. Christine and Meg advanced slowly along, their footfalls echoing along the façades to the heavy grey sky. On a Monday morning there ought to have been people around: women returning from the butchers' queues, schoolchildren with their boxes, nuns, beggars, the odd National Guard or mobile stationed at one of the apartments opposite. Today there was not a soul in sight, and half the windows were shuttered closed. It was as though a great plague had swept through in the night.
"Something has happened." Christine felt a peculiar need to keep her voice hushed. "There were all the guns yesterday. I don't like this; perhaps we should go back."
Meg clutched her sketchbook tighter. "Let's at least go as far as the boulevard and see what's going on. I would like a sketch of the Opéra if it can be managed."
"Erik ought to have come. He said he would meet me this morning; it is not like him to not even send a note."
Meg glanced over at her with a spark of mischief dancing in her eyes. "That does seem unlike him. He used to be so fond of sending notes."
"I wish you wouldn't joke about that." Christine heard the strain in her own voice and knew Meg must have heard it too, because she at once grew serious again. Was it so surprising, really, that Erik did not come today, when they were to visit the house where Raoul now stayed? He had made no secret of his reluctance to make what he deemed a social call; only, she had hoped he might do it for her sake… She had been looking forward to doing this walk with his arm in hers. And they might have returned to the theatre afterward. The piece she was working on kept going awry; she wanted very much to test it out with Erik. He had a way of making her see the inner workings of her own creation, the hidden skeleton upon which it was built.
"Christine, maman is getting worried about you."
"About me? Why?"
Meg arched her eyebrows, "Because you are acting suspiciously newlywed these days, Madame Andersson."
"Newlywed?" Christine stopped in astonishment.
Madame Andersson.
That sounded like… someone else. Like someone who knew what she was about, a woman with a husband and family and all that went with them — not a foolish girl infatuated with her music, who let her soul and her body become so tangled with another's that she grew restless at a single morning alone. I don't know what you mean, she wanted to say, but that would have been a lie. She did know, felt it happening. With each day spent in Erik's company, with each shared word and touch, she admitted him a little deeper within her. In every chord she played, she heard not the music itself but Erik hearing it. And day by day, chord by chord, Christine Daaé was becoming a little more Madame Andersson.
"Really, you are not supposed to make all your engagements secret." Meg's gentle teasing should not have bothered her, but Christine found she had no heart for it now. She struggled to keep her tone low:
"We are not engaged."
"Oh? You're just making music together?"
Christine resumed walking. "He did ask to marry me," she admitted, cringing inwardly at the anxious echo of it in the deserted street. "But he has wanted to marry me for a year now. That is not yet an engagement." A new unsettling thought struck her. "Meg, did your mother say anything… Could Erik have asked for her consent?" Surely he would have talked to her first, Christine hoped, and yet it was not impossible.
"I have no idea," Meg said, and Christine was shocked by the hurt in her words. "You should talk to her yourself. And to me, occasionally. I worry too."
"I know. Meg, I know." Christine felt a terrible friend, and yet she wanted nothing more than to drop the matter. "Please, just be patient with me."
Meg bunched her skirts to step over a puddle, then released them with a sigh. "It's none of my business, really. I just wish you would be careful. Courtship is one thing but… Just be careful."
Christine gave her a tense nod, more acknowledgment than assent.
They reached the corner where the street opened out onto the boulevard and saw living people at last: a gathering of twenty or more women and men knotted around the first of the news kiosks, conversing in tones of the deepest disbelief. The occasional shrill note of anger rose above the buzz. Something had clearly happened, and Christine felt the now-familiar apprehension gathering in the pit of her stomach, the dread of bad news.
"Not a sortie then," Meg surmised quietly. "It looks serious. Let's go closer, I think I can see a notice."
Christine managed a weak grin. "Weren't you the one a moment ago telling me to be careful?"
"Come on." Meg tugged at the sleeve of her coat, and they shouldered their way to the front of the group.
"It isn't possible," mumbled an elderly woman in a thick woolen scarf. Her bony hand rose to the poster glued to the kiosk wall as if to wave aside a printer's mistake, "it's treason. Treason! Mademoiselle, you, young lady…" She grasped Meg's shoulder to catch her attention. "What does that say? My eyes are not what they used to be."
"Armistice," Meg read obediently, and then did a double take, "Monsieur Thiers has been negotiating with Bismarck for our surrender? But he can't!" She looked to Christine for support. "He hasn't even been in Paris since all this started!"
"He's in their pay," the old lady said darkly, "must have made some deal with them to sell us out. You mind my word. My grandson was on the ramparts, such a good boy, big lovely eyes, never mind he was a bit jug-eared. Cannon explosion did for him, they wouldn't even open the coffin for us. For what, tell me? For what! Surrender. Treasonous old goat, we ought to tie him to a gun and fire him back to that Prussian devil!" The woman was shaking with rage, tears leaking from her wrinkled eyes. Christine shrank back, trying not to picture that unopened coffin.
"This can't be real," a nervous-looking fellow nearby cried, hefting a cane for emphasis, and a host of voices immediately latched onto this idea. "It's fake. The notice is fake!"
Having raised the suggestion, the man seemed to altogether convince himself, and within minutes Christine and Meg found themselves part of the stream of people heading onward, determined to reach the Hôtel de Ville and learn the truth.
"Meg, what about your sketches?" Christine reminded her. "And Raoul; you said you'd come with me."
Meg only hugged her sketchbook to her chest. "I need to see this."
All along the boulevards and even the Saint-Lazare station, similar notices plastered the walls: Metz had fallen, Le Bourget was no more, and Paris had no choice, it was time to lay down arms and beg terms from the Prussians. Christine felt more numb than indignant. It seemed impossible that the war could end so suddenly and without them having seen anything more than the misery of the siege. True, she had grown tired of the drudgery and the ever-present feeling of hunger, and things were worse still in the poorer districts; but a surrender of the whole city, of all France?
From every side street and alley, more people were emerging, until Christine had to grasp Meg's elbow to keep together in the crowd. Even if they wanted to return home now, there could be no question of attempting it: there were hundreds of agitated people around, with many men of the National Guard among them, and pushing through such a crowd would be a quick means of being trampled in the surge.
"Christine!" Meg cried as they passed rue Peletier, and Christine caught the briefest glimpse of what remained of the ruined Opéra: a windowless burnt hulk, with its boarded-up façade wallpapered by copies of the same official notices, about Metz and their imminent surrender.
Christine craned her neck uselessly, trying to see it again, but they had already moved on. She was surprised by the upsurge of pity she felt, by the lump in her throat. Was it truly necessary to deface the ruin with these official pronouncements? Her childhood lay buried beneath those stones.
By the time they neared the vast square before the Hôtel de Ville, the mass of people around them had swelled to what seemed like thousands. Christine found herself clutching Meg's elbow in a fierce grip, terrified of losing sight of her in this sea of angry, confused, frightened faces, and misliking the profusion of National Guard rifles all around. The crowd was stopped by the guards outside the perimeter of the Hôtel de Ville but more and more newcomers were joining in and Christine began to fear in earnest that they might be crushed in the jostling. Meg's eyes reflected the same panicky thought but it was much too late to escape; they were wedged tight between a woman with a bundle of books over her arm, and an elderly man with a young boy riding triumphantly on his shoulders. Christine envied the child the freedom to breathe. Meg held her book out flat before her, creating at least something of a space.
"Citizens!" came a sudden call, and Christine whipped her head up to look for where the cry originated. She could see nothing of that, but the windows in the upper storeys of the great building ahead were opening one by one, and in each, she saw the heads of men in the kepis of the National Guard. A young man, almost a boy, climbed out from one of the windows on the second floor, and sat on the stone windowsill, legs dangling in the air. Soon others were imitating him.
People below must have tried to ask the insurgents for information, because the boy stood upon the windowsill, clinging with one arm to the stonework, and sang out, "Commune! We are become a Commune! Down with traitors, Paris governs herself!" His words whipped through the crowd. There was more, but the wind snatched the rest away.
"Not another revolution," groaned the woman with the books, straining to see over the people in front. Her elbow caught Christine in the chest. "They're all mad!" The boy on the man's shoulders tooted a horn, thrilled by the spectacle.
"The Hôtel de Ville is taken," came a shout, and others joined in with names of men Christine understood must be within the building: Tibaldi, Flourens… She did not recognise them but at least some of those around her did. Nobody seemed to know what to make of the sudden change, and some women next to her were fearfully describing the battalions of freeshooters and National Guard they had seen enter earlier. Opinions were divided on whether they were revolutionaries, brigands, or only citizens angered by the government's appalling betrayal, and the tension in the air grew with each passing minute, threatening to turn ugly. A single shot, Christine thought with trepidation, or even the rumour of one, and there would be a riot.
"Meg!" She raised her voice, struggling to make herself heard above the rumble around them, "We need to go. Please, we must get out of here!"
"How?" Meg shouted back, looking around. The nearest façades overlooking the square seemed as distant as the gallery at the Opéra.
Christine felt ill with the crush of bodies around them, and fought the fear that in a moment or two she may be unable to catch her breath. The broad backs of men much larger than she were closing in, confining her view to black coats and a patch of grey sky. She had the absurd thought that it was just as well Erik left her alone this morning, for he would certainly have hated this even more than she did — but then, had he come, he might have been able to find a way to get them out of here.
Something large and solid pressed against her back; Christine looked over her shoulder and saw it was the steel tree-trunk of a streetlight. Compelled by panic more than thought, she grabbed hold of it, stepped up on the base and managed to lever herself up a little on the ironwork, pulling Meg closer by the arm, nearly tearing her own mended coat-sleeve clean off in the effort. Her face was now level with the rifles in the crowd, just above the surface, and Christine instinctively gasped in a breath, and then another and another. Cold air filled her like gulps of unwatered wine, making her head spin.
Meg's sleeve slipped out of her grasp as Christine raised her free arm, clinging to the streetlight as the boy at the window had clung to the stones of the Hôtel de Ville.
"What are you doing?" Meg called.
Christine cried out, and the cry was music.
She could not have said what prompted it, only that the notes exploded from her with a violence she had not expected, wordless and rapid and staggeringly high, as though it was not her own voice at all but some arcane awesome power using her to trumpet its displeasure. The song, if song it was, cut through the angry hum and burst into a myriad fragments, a fireworks of music that ricocheted from every stone.
Movement rippled out around her as people turned her way: a growing mosaic of white faces, shocked and incomprehending, their eyes widening at the inhuman sound.
Meg was gesturing frantically for her to get down. Christine felt more than heard the music pause, and at last managed to scramble ungracefully back to Meg's side. They pushed through the unresisting, stunned crowd, Christine in front and barely aware of the people that a moment ago had threatened to overwhelm her, Meg following close.
They were in the rue Jean-Lantier before Christine began to recover her own self again. Her throat felt like it had been shredded with a blade from within. She did not dare try speaking. Meg next to her was breathing hard, her hand at her ribs and her hair come loose from its pins. The street was narrow, neat and mercifully quiet. This was the address she had been given for Raoul, but it had been a mistake to come here now, Christine thought; she needed time to regroup, to compose herself.
"You… are… certifiable!" Meg gasped, making it at once a rebuke and a compliment. "What in God's name was that song? I've never heard even Carlotta let loose like that."
"I don't know..." Christine was relieved her voice still worked, even if it sounded hoarse and uncertain. It was her own music, she recognised with a jolt, a fragment from the second movement. She had not known it could be sung. "Meg, I want to find Erik."
"Erik? Where would you start looking? I'm not going back through there!"
"Mademoiselle Daaé!" cried a young man in a nearby doorway. Christine whipped around and recognised the speaker as Henri Guyon, Raoul's friend. He was immaculately dressed as ever, in a sharply tailored black coat and hat instead of his uniform. He cast an amused look over Meg's hair and Christine's coat and Christine realised with some chagrin that her own state of disarray was at least as dire as Meg's. Her sleeve was torn, one of her gloves was missing, and she could feel her hat beginning to slide down the side of her head.
"We came through the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville," she said with ill-concealed annoyance. "Do you know what is going on today, Monsieur Guyon? There is a crowd of thousands!"
"They're saying it's a revolution," Meg added. "Again."
Guyon's smile faded and he looked in the direction of the square, his face turning grim and more than a little anxious. "I am on my way out, mesdemoiselles, but I shall be back shortly. Chagny is expecting you, I believe. Do come through."
Upstairs they found an apartment the likes of which Christine had not seen since the Opéra. It was all stucco scrollwork and tall windows, crystal and velvet, the rooms not overlarge but more than spacious enough for the needs of a wealthy young man. Christine could see at once that Henri Guyon had not put himself to any great trouble in taking in Raoul; indeed, he probably appreciated the company. The servant who had led them to the sitting room took their coats and melted away unobtrusively, and it was only then Christine saw Raoul.
He was standing at a window, leaning on his wrists, with his crutches resting nearby beside the heavy drape. Beyond the windowpane was a view of the street, and above, the bleached-bone sky. Raoul turned when he heard Christine and Meg enter, and Christine saw he had held his face pressed to the glass; there was the shadow of a reddish patch on his forehead. It had been a long time since she had seen him out of uniform; the civilian dress made him seem healthier somehow, less vulnerable. Or perhaps it was this room, these surroundings, that made him appear at once closer to his former self. Christine felt suddenly self-conscious in her untidy clothing, and was not sure what to say. She had meant to thank Raoul for what he did at the hearing, but standing here now she could not retrieve the right words: the room was too much a reminder of their past, of salons and soirées and society. In that moment of awkward silence she suddenly understood Erik's reluctance to come here, and yet a small, abandoned part of her resented his absence all the more.
Then Raoul beamed at her, warm and just the same as ever, and all the awkwardness vanished. "Christine!" he grabbed a crutch and half-strode, half-stumbled towards her, "and Mademoiselle Giry. I didn't think to see you today with all this going on," he nodded at a newspaper lying on a lamp-table by the window. "Please, sit down. Tell me you didn't go near the crowds."
"We went through them," Meg said behind her. "Christine was unstoppable." Raoul looked so startled that Christine had to laugh, despite herself.
"Meg is exaggerating. But we were outside the Hôtel de Ville just now." She sobered. "There was a commotion right in the building, with armed men upstairs and windows open. They were saying Paris governs itself."
Raoul accepted this with a grim nod, as though he had expected as much. "Please, do sit. I'm sorry I left the ambulance so abruptly, Christine. I should have warned you."
Christine lowered herself to sit on the edge of one upholstered armchair, and Meg took the other, setting her book safely by her side. Raoul remained standing, leaning heavily against the mantlepiece. Christine suspected he was in pain again and did not like to have them see him struggle to sit. She dragged her gaze away from his bad hip and looked up at him.
"I'm sorry about… Erik. I keep wishing there had been some other way out at the hearing, without endangering you. Is Guyon's father really a doctor?"
"Possibly. I have only seen him from a distance. He lives downstairs, I believe, in the first apartment."
"I thought he was looking after you!" Christine said, aghast.
"I am well enough." Raoul turned to the door, and for a moment Christine thought in confusion that he meant to walk out, but it was only the serving man returned with a tray of tea. There were strange little cakes on the side, white and brittle, and a pot of jam.
"Rice flour," the man sighed mournfully when he noticed Christine looking at the cakes. "Terrible stuff, mademoiselle."
Christine thanked him sincerely; the sight of the cakes made her aware of the urgency of her hunger, and for several minutes all conversation was forgotten in favour of food. The terrible stuff proved far more than palatable, and the jam was clear as rubies and delicious.
"You don't wear his ring," Raoul said, startling her. Christine set her cup down with a soft porcelain chime, her pulse racing. Raoul was looking at her bare fingers.
"No," she admitted. "Not yet."
Meg gave a small cough and excused herself, murmuring something transparent about Rembrandt, and headed to the other end of the room where several small, dark paintings decorated the wall. Christine saw Raoul wince, and knew he had not meant to raise such a topic in company. She understood, but it had had to be said; they both knew it.
"He had best not be toying with you." The banked anger in Raoul's words seared her. "If he thinks he need not marry you after all this, everything he's put you through, I swear to God, Christine—"
"It's me."
Raoul broke off. "You?"
"Me. I'm… My father's name is enough, Raoul. I cannot wear another. Not yet."
He looked back at her, and his eyes were very young, a boy's eyes full of hurt on her behalf.
Christine rose and went over to join him at the fireplace. Raoul let her move in beside him, and for a long time they stood there, side by side, silent and thoughtful, closer than they had been since childhood. On the other side of the room, Meg had opened her book and was sketching something, looking back and forth to the painting.
There was a rhythmic noise outside, under the window. Raoul made to move that way, his leg momentarily forgotten, and Christine only just managed to catch at him before he could fall. He leaned on her shoulder, embarrassed, and Christine tactfully moved back as soon as he had his crutch again safely.
A command was shouted, and the noise grew louder. Meg dropped her book and ran to the window, and Christine and Raoul came up a moment later. Raoul shoved the pane open and they looked down. An entire battalion of mobiles was marching through, in the direction of the Hôtel de Ville. They had their bayonets fixed, and daylight glinted white along the blades.
"We should go home," Meg said, chewing her lip anxiously as another row came past. "Maman is expecting us back. I hope they haven't closed off the streets."
"Of course," Raoul said at once, "I'll have Guyon's man get the carriage." Christine felt him squeeze her fingers gently, exacting a promise. "Be safe." More properly, he added, "My regards to your mother, Mademoiselle Giry. It would be a pleasure to see all of you again."
The bayonets below disappeared, leaving the street clear. Raoul called for the servant, and Meg went to retrieve her sketchbook and pencils. Christine was just about to follow her when a movement in the corner of her eye made her linger at the window. There, she saw it again: a shadow where there could have been nothing to cast it. She leaned a little further out of the window, and saw she was right.
Erik looked up at her from the stone alcove of a doorway on the other side of the street. He was unmasked.