I was wrenched from peaceful sleep by the smell of smoke.
"Christine? Christine!" I donned trousers and mask and flew from the bedroom.
Christine was in the kitchen. A pan on the stove spewed flames and black smoke as she fluttered ineffectually about. Automatically, I snatched the flaming pan from the stove, howling as the handle seared my hand. I sped to the lake edge and flung the pan as far as it would go. I settled on my haunches and cooled my blistering hand in the water, mumbling blasphemies as my pulse returned to normal. The stinging subsided quickly and I went in search of Christine. She was sitting in the kitchen, dazed. When I crouched before her, I saw that she was studying her palm, marred by an angry red stripe.
"I never imagined the handle would get hot," she burbled. I wet my handkerchief and laid it gently on her palm to cool it. It seemed she was about to regain control of herself, when something set her off sobbing again.
"I'm a horrible wife! I can't even prepare tea!"
AH. I held and petted her until she settled, and then I tried to reassure her that of course she'd never had occasion to learn to cook, living at the Opera. No matter, she insisted that a wife must be able to prepare the food.
"Darling, you're different than other wives, you're a diva, remember. You've got your music. There's no reason—"
"I'm going to Maman Giry straightaway and learn how to cook!" she cried. As usual since Christine had re-entered my life, the conversation had dashed away from me like so many infant rats. Clearly, my attempts to calm Christine's fears were having precisely the opposite effect. I took refuge in silence as I tried to imagine what a female would consider the correct response to the situation. In a blessed flash of insight, I developed a working theory that there must besomething like"Christine's Rules for Married Women". Obviously, part of the canon involved Preparing Meals for the Husband, no matter if he's fed himself since before the wife was born. I decided to keep a surreptitious notebook of the discoveries I made about this unwritten code.Fired with the spirit of scientific inquiry, I decided to test my theory.
"That's a fine idea, Love. I'll just pitch in and do the best I can with it until you can get on your feet," I offered hopefully.
I was rewarded with a bright smile and exuberant hug, "Oh, Erik, you are the dearest husband ever!"
And that, as they say, was the end of that. The rest of the day passed peacefully. My blistered hand precluded playing, so I had to rehearse Christine unaccompanied. A slight cloud appeared on the horizon around supper when her thoughts returned briefly to the earlier debacle, so I opted for simple fare.
I was about to clear up when Christine leapt to her feet and scowled at no one in particular.
"I'll see to washing up," she intoned imperiously. Ah-hah. Another Rule: Wives do the Washing Up. I sat and sipped my wine as I was no doubt expected to do.
"Erik," Christine opened, "You are going to begin the renovations soon, aren't you?" She permitted no time for a response. "I should think at least another bath and two more bedrooms to start, I can convert your room into my work room."
"Work room?" I was exhausted just thinking about this little project—which had never been mentioned before, I am absolutely certain. How had it become a foregone conclusion?
"Of course, I'll need a room for my sewing. It would be ever so helpful if I didn't have to use the dining table…"
I suspect I looked like a dog with a devilish case of ear mites; I shook my head, hoping it would enable what I'd just heard to sink in and make sense.
"Christine…do you know how to sew?" I ventured.
"No, but I'll have to mend your shirts and darn stockings for a start, and make clothing for the babies someday. Maman will show me." Babies? This all seemed perfectly logical and self-evident to Christine. I resorted to what was becoming my new stand-by:
"Oh."
When Christine sauntered off to the bath, I pondered this sea change. It was as if some switch had been thrown when the marriage was consummated. I was not even certain it was an agreeable change. I liked my life as it was; I simply wanted to slip Christine's delectable form into the existing routine. And not Wife Christine, either: Biddable, Beddable Christine.
In bed, she came happily into my arms.
"You needn't tie me tonight," she purred, "I won't run away."
"The restraints are not there to keep you from running away, dear, but because you're simply delightful when you struggle against them," I confessed. Why?
"Well, I don't want to struggle anymore. I want to hold you."
"Another day, perhaps."
"Erik, today!"
"Don't whine, darling," I reminded her.
"I don't want to, then," she pouted.
"Are you refusing me, Christine? Is that what you mean to say?" I asked, meaningfully.
I watched the thoughts play across her face. Her brow crinkled in irritation, her eyes fluttered when a new idea presented itself. Finally she bit her lip; I knew I had her.
"No," she breathed, barely audible.
"No?" I repeated.
"No, I am not refusing you," she sighed.
"There's my good girl," I smiled. In addition to Christine's devotion to the teachings of the Church, she wanted desperately to please me, for some reason I couldn't understand. If only she realized how utterly I am in her thrall.
I was fairly certain that I would not actually undertake the construction project that Christine had assigned me, but I wandered around the next day taking notes and making several sketches, as best as my blistered palm would allow.
I had a snippet of a new melody playing in my mind that needed to be explored, so I made short work of the sketches and made for the piano. Christine had gone out so I was able to be undisturbed for several hours. Suddenly I understood that this would be the first opera I created for my Christine: a work of love, a wedding gift, albeit belated. It had to be Helen of Troy.
I was so engrossed that I never heard Christine return home.
"Erik. Erik, supper."
"Oh…I'm not hungry, actually, darling, I'm working."
"But I made it myself."
"Hm? I'm sorry, Christine, did you say something?"
"I said I made supper myself."
"Right, excellent, I'll eat later."
Now, the muse is a capricious mistress. When she comes, she expects my undivided attention, and I give it joyfully. I can go for days without food or sleep; I do not suffer, I'm transported. I worked as long as I could on Helen, and then I toddled off to bed.
A couple of hours rest put me to rights. Creative juices bubbling gaily, I had a bath and began to think about food and Christine's thighs. I caught up to her pouring tea. I slipped my arms around her and kissed her tantalizing neck.
"I'll have some supper now."
The creature had looked like Christine, felt and smelled like Christine, but when she whirled on me, it was not my Christine.
"Supper, now! It's gone, Erik! Ruined! That was two days ago! I worked all day cooking for you—all day!—and it was as if I wasn't even here! I could've drowned in the lake and you'd never have known!" Her eyes looked fit to shoot lightning bolts.
I was nonplussed.
"Christine…I was working. I do lose track of the time, sometimes…but I'm back now," I smiled, reaching for her.
"Oh no you don't!" She thumped me on the chest with both her angry little fists.
As I tried to catch my breath, I reflected that clearly I'd misapprehended the situation. Again. It is helpful at these times to proceed from the assumption that my position, however reasonable it may seem to me, is entirely without merit.
"You can't treat me like a little toy you leave in the closet until you're bored and want to play!"
Before I could even begin to admit my error, she rushed past me in a torrent of tears, locking me out of the bedroom.
Something else men must know: Always pursue, even if she says "Go away!"
I knocked on the door.
"Go away, you beast!"
"Christine, I'm sorry. I've got an incredible idea for an opera for you. Did you hear? I'm writing it for you, darling, and I admit I was swept away, but I can only plead my love for you as an explanation. I know that I must find a new way of doing things, darling. I told you, I'm a bit stuck in my old solitary ways."
"Yes, you are!" she sniffled. "You're dreadful!"
"I am. Selfish and inconsiderate."
"Yes."
"Forgive me?"
"…Alright."
"May I come in?"
"No."
"No?"
"I'm not ready to forgive you that much yet. Tomorrow."
"Oh."
Strawberries and cream for breakfast and flowers successfully concluded my penance. After rehearsal, Christine went to visit the Girys again, so I could safely return to Helen. I put the work down immediately upon Christine's return and was suitably effusive over supper. Thereafter we passed a delightful fortnight.
We settled into a routine of rehearsal in the morning, errands or visiting for her and work for me in the afternoons. After supper we would read together, or she would ask me for a story of my life before I came to the Opera House. Sometimes we went above after dark and simply walked arm in arm. Paris is beautiful at night. Whenever we would pass another strolling couple, my eyes would begin to tingle. Christine and I were just like them; we shared what they shared. I had a life! Still, it was a shadow only glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. I remained afraid of examining it directly in case it turned out to be an illusion.
Then we would return to home and bed. Making love with Christine was my benediction. The way she sought out my eyes in the darkness; her breath on my monstrous cheek; my name like a prayer on her lips: I've locked it all away in my heart. No one can ever take those moments from me, no matter what may happen.
I wonder how many men curl up to sleep with their woman in their arms and never truly recognize what a treasure they hold. The comfort of another body against your own; someone warm, childlike and trusting in sleep; her sighs, her breath on your skin; cherish her!
One day, Christine went and fetched the feeble-minded Meg down to our home again. It is a testament to my extraordinary powers of concentration that I was able to continue working with the feminine cacophony those two set up. After a time, it turned eerily quiet; I still heard shrieks and giggles, but they were strangely muted. Something warned me to investigate.
I followed the noise to my room. Ducking my head in the door, I saw them tearing down my bunting and Dies Iriaes and chucking all of it into my coffin. They would team up and scoot the coffin across the floor to keep it close to the area they were currently destroying.
"Christine…" I moved into the room, incredulous, "What is this?"
"Meg's helping me clear all this stuff out. You'll have to dispose of it, I don't think we can carry it."
"'All this stuff' is my stuff," I reminded her.
"Oh, but the new rooms will be ready soon, won't they," she chirped, waving her hand dismissively, "And I've ordered just the handsomest bed—" Meg could not resist giggling inanely at that. Christine blushed slightly and lowered her voice to a whisper.
"The handsomest bed, chest of drawers, wardrobe, dressing table—you'll adore it, Erik, I know you will. Anyway, it's time all this gloomy stuff was gone."
"The new rooms will not be ready soon, Christine."
"Oh?" she was still smiling.
"I have not begun. I don't really think we need any more living space than we currently have."
"Erik…" Christine sighed, baffled. "Why not?" Hands on hips. Shrewishly unattractive.
"I prefer not to discuss it just now, darling." Meg tried to make herself as invisible as possible. To her, I am obviously still the Phantom of the Opera, especially when I'm irritable. Good.
"Erik, we need more room!" Christine insisted.
"Later, dear," I smiled tightly. I crooked a finger, beckoning to her. She came closer, looking hurt.
"And Christine, do you think you should ask before dismantling my private things? I do."
"It looks like an undertaker's, Erik! It's a coffin!" she protested.
Perhaps it was that ridiculous Meg in my bedroom; perhaps it was the constant upheaval in my life since Christine came along; perhaps it was the way Christine defied me in Meg's presence. I don't know what it was, honestly, but I was no longer fuming: I was livid.
"It is my coffin, Christine!" I thundered,"Leave it alone!"
I made my escape then. I was too blind with rage to stay. When I returned, early in the morning, my room was almost perfectly restored. Exhausted, I lay down in my coffin fell asleep quickly.
Christine prepared breakfast in silence. I sipped coffee and watched her shift it around her plate uneaten.
"Christine, I don't want it to be like this…" I opened sadly.
She set her fork down and stared at her plate.
"I don't mind clearing out my room. I don't mind new bedroom furniture. But you don't make your plans with Meg, and let me find out about it as it happens."
She was crying. I crouched before her, took her hand and kissed it. She sniffled and burrowed against me.
"I love you," I sang.
We made it up and spent the morning loving. She dozed peacefully, but I could not…I was troubled. I didn't know how to tell Christine that I was unwilling to construct rooms for children I didn't want and did not intend to have. As terrified as I was of making monsters like me, I was more terrified of being forced to share Christine's love. My mind ran from it. I had been alone too long; I'd only just found someone to love me against all odds.
I'd been resorting to onanism for awhile. It was depressing and unpleasant, but Christine seemed to have taken little notice. In my travels, I'd learned of several reliable abortifacients, but I preferred to spare Christine that, except as a last resort. Finally, I concluded that the safest course of action was to do the building project…let Christine believe what she would. It was lying; I was under no illusions about it. I huddled close and let my tears fall on Christine's silken shoulder.
