So, now, it is finally over. I hold my wife in my arms as the train clickety-clacks along the tracks. The night is rushing by as I brush my fingers against the cold glass of the window. Us, husband and wife, in our traveling clothes. I am holding her close as I stare at the landscape rushing past; she is asleep in my arms. It seems that we are standing still as the world passes us by. But it is us running, us leaving chaos behind and with every breath, every heartbeat, and every mile coming closer to a new life that awaits us.
I can feel that anticipation, deep in my stomach, almost anxiety. I can feel myself expressing that anticipation, as I finger my moustache, bite my lip, or pull Christine a bit closer to me. I can feel that anticipation within myself, as I will Mama Valerius to awaken from her gently snoring slumber and ask me in her quivery voice how far we are from Paris. I almost want to lay Christine down on the seat and pace, but I cannot let go of her, not yet, not when she has so recently paid a price which I cannot begin to imagine.
Abandoning the ravaging of my lip, I instead shake my foot, watching the reflection of the lights dance on the shiny black toe. Christine is shifting in her sleep, and so I stop. I want to kiss her on the cheek, or smooth away her frown with a finger. But I daren't disturb her. I let out a sigh, my restless mind moving faster than the dark landscape going past the train. I gnaw my lip, until my lips sting and my tongue catches the faint metallic taste of blood.
Mama Valerius grunts and her gentle snoring ceases. I glance over at her, and see that her eyes, blurry with sleep, are open. She stares out the window with me, and then we both look at Christine.
"Still asleep," I murmur. She nods and smiles her motherly smile, and closes her eyes. In a trice, she is asleep, the rhythmic cadence of her breaths breaking the stillness. My own eyes itch with tiredness, but I am restless, and hate the monotony of travel.
I can feel the familiar stinging in my eyes as I think of Philippe and the life that was quickly leaving us behind – a life that was dead dead dead, just like my brother. Seeing Mama Valerius asleep, I let my tears fall, though I could not have stopped them even if she had been awake. Rubbing my eyes roughly, I quickly wipe away a tear that falls on Christine's flushed cheek, hoping it will not wake her. I hold my breath, but she does nothing, only stirs in her sleep and clenches her little white hand, which rests on my knee.
She goes still in my lap, her body curling into a comma shape, her stomach muscles tensing – and she lets out a hacking cough. Unable to resist, I brush her flaxen hair away from her damp brow, and her eyes flutter open. She tenses again, coughs a deep horrible phlegm-ridden cough, takes a deep breath and lets it out. Her blue eyes fix on mine, hazily, her brown eyebrows drawing together in some secret emotion. "Raoul," she whispers softly, almost inaudibly.
I pretend to rub my forehead, not wanting to deal with any questions about my reddened eyes and the drying tears on my cheeks. But she does not say anything; she simply turns her head away and looks out the window, her blue eyes filled with shadows. Her unconcern brings back the ache in my throat, and I feel the familiar bitter tide of childish jealousy rise in my stomach against whatever occupied her thoughts in place of me.
Lord, but I am being childish! Brushing fresh tears from my cheek – not admitting they were there – and then pulling at the skin on my lip, I resume my silent vigil of looking out the window, now accompanied by my silent wife. I think these thoughts bitterly, reproachfully, and am not regretful of them. I know what she is thinking about. Who she is thinking about.
Erik. That inexplicable man and Christine's equally incomprehensible pity for him. The damned man is dead, Christine, I want to say, but I instantly regret my childishness. I cannot afford to pity him, I want to say. He would have killed me. He would have stolen you.
I let out an audible sigh. I wonder if Christine notices my irritation. She gives no sign of it, staring out the window like a figure carved of wood, staring back the way we came, back to Paris. I kick myself mentally for being so unfair to my wife. Raoul, I curse myself. You stupid fool. Erik was dead. Christine buried him herself, he can't come between us anymore, let Christine have her time alone to grieve for whatever part of her died in the trauma of the past months. He can't come between us, I know.
But can't he? Protests a part of my mind. That's why your wife is staring out the window, because she buried the madman down in the cellars, because she wore his ring, because she pitied him.
I can let her have her grief. I must, for my sanity. I remember the day as if it was yesterday: Christine stumbling red-eyed into my arms, her finger ringless, her tears dry, a little square from the Époque with an obituary on it clenched in her white-knuckled fist. She had buried the monster, her 'good genius,' with the little gold ring he gave her. And soon after that we packed our small bags and departed from the great abyss full of memories that was Paris. I am jerked back to the present as Christine coughs, low and rough. I clutch her in the semicircle of my arms, holding her like a wild creature I have captured.
Mama Valerius awakens again, her kindly eyes with their web of wrinkles smiling sadly at Christine. I worry my lip again, as she moves in her slow painful way to stroke Christine's fevered brow and I go to fetch my wife a cup of tea.
I watch her little white hands grip the cup, sipping the steaming liquid with her blue eyes staring vacantly over the rim. Her traveling-dress is wrinkled and dark circles frame her eyes. One flushed cheek is imprinted with the rough pattern of my coat, and I touch her face with a trembling hand and she jumps, gasps, the tea spilling, coughing and sobbing as she bends over in pain.
"Christine!" I cry, pulling out my kerchief to soothe the red skin on her round arm. She looks at me for a moment, and then her eyes spill over with tears. She chokes and coughs, stiffening in my arms as she hacks and draws in a breath. Mama Valerius is hovering over us, a vague warm presence, clucking that Christine must be ill.
As I hold my frail wife to me, as she coughs and gasps on the train that is taking us to our future in the North, I cannot help but wonder grimly: what was the price she had to pay deep in the catacombs of the Opera, and what price would we both pay for our flight from Paris?