Chapter 10 - In Altissimo
My eyes have been opened!
I know, I know that it is he!
- Eugene Onegin, Act I
It will pass, Christine had assured herself. I will make it pass.
She pushed the thought away and went about her business as before.
Later that week, a few hours before dawn, she was lying in bed in her little attic appartement, deep in a dreamless sleep, when it struck back. Her eyes snapped open as though she had never been asleep, and she found that she was shaking, with tears in her eyes.
A sole thought flew around and around in her head. I love Erik. I have known it all this time. It cannot be denied any longer.
She felt so awake she thought she would never be able to sleep again. Her heart was pounding. She threw off the bedclothes, which were clammy with sweat and snaked around her, and plunged out onto her little balcony. There she stood, barefoot and shivering in her thin cotton nightdress, hoping the cold night air would bring her back to herself.
As she gazed out over the moonlit rooftops she realized something both simple and impossible. I must be with him. If I am not by his side I shall never be at peace again.
And I cannot!
I cannot love a shadow, even one as beautiful as he.
A snatch of music from her most longed-for role, Violetta in La Traviata (she knew every line by heart already, though her voice was not quite ready for the role and Erik had warned her that to learn it early might compromise her artistry - and indeed, he knew perfectly well she had gone ahead and sung through it anyway), suddenly burst into her head. She had never understood Violetta's soul-searching before, but now all at once it made sense to her, snapping sharply into focus.
The fever of love, she sang softly to herself,
Of love which is the very breath
of the universe itself...
Mysterious and noble,
both cross and ecstasy of the heart...
Would such a love be a curse for me?
Make your choice, oh troubled soul of mine!
No man has set you on fire before...
I didn't know...
I didn't know...
Verdi's madly beautiful music did nothing to soothe her frantic soul.
She was caught in an impossible bind, she fretted as stepped back inside, shivering and heartsick, and wrapped herself in her worn flannel dressing-gown.
This yearning for him was closer to her, more a part of her, than her own flesh. She could no more have disentangled from it than she could have torn out her own heart. It was bound up inside her.
But she could not tell him! Love with him was impossible. She would have to stand before him every day knowing what she knew and pretend everything was just as before. How could such a thing be done? It was impracticable.
Still, stopping lessons with him was even more out of the question; that would mean she might never see him again.
Things could not go on this way indefinitely.
Something had to happen.
A few days later, it all came to a head.
Over the past few weeks, she had often found herself looking at Erik's painting. It gave her strength to know someone could see her in that way - at once joyful and regal, just the way she had always wished to be, just the way she imagined herself when she was at her best.
However, there was another, less happy reason why it drew her eye. There was something about the painting, she had realized slowly, that troubled her. Something about it simply wasn't right, some detail she couldn't put her finger on.
She had gone over it again and again without discovering anything.
It wasn't anything to do with how he had depicted her; she'd known that from the beginning. That aspect of it was blameless. He'd shown her modestly attired, and her expression showed nothing but innocent happiness - nothing lascivious or provocative. In short, it was in every way respectful. That was just what she had come to expect from him.
The only irregularity she had been able to find was that her costume and the scenery did not match. The backdrop was from Il Muto, while the dress was the one from her gala debut. However, that too was understandable. In fact, she was glad he had not painted her in the towering powdered wig she'd had to wear as the Countess. It would have been absurd. This was better.
But still, something about it was wrong. The suspicion drove her wild - she even dreamed of it - and yet she was afraid to know the answer. She had a curious feeling that once she knew - for she would find out one day; she knew herself well enough to know that she would not be able to stop until she had discovered it - everything would be changed.
Shortly before the end of 'Il Muto', fate dropped Christine a plum.
Or rather, as she preferred to think of it, she had snatched one from its branches. That singularly French expression had always felt off-key to her. Fate never dropped unexpected sweets to people like her. Nothing had ever been given to her - nothing, that was, save the awe-inspiring gift of Erik's inexplicable devotion to her artistic development, the sole moment of brightness in the history of her life. She had had to fight for everything she had.
But it seemed things were beginning to look up for her at last. She had won the lead soprano role in a new production the theatre was putting on - that of the priestess Leïla in Bizet's The Pearl Fishers.
Christine was elated. It was one of her favorite roles in the coloratura repertoire. She had dreamt of playing it ever since the opera premiered years before. As an actress, she was delighted by the character - Leïla was clever and brave, noble and generous, the opposite of the flighty and deceitful Countess in 'Il Muto' - and the singer in her was enraptured by Bizet's bewitching melodies. In addition, she soon learned the artistic director wanted her to make her first entrance suspended from a wire - a thrill for her adventurous nature. (The libretto called for Leila to enter by boat, but the artistic director was not concerned with such minor details.) Far from being afraid of heights, Christine found them exhilarating, and ever since she was a child she had dreamed of soaring high above the stage, looking as weightless as a fairy.
She arrived even earlier than usual the day she was scheduled to practice it for the first time.
Shadowing her was Meg, who was considerably less thrilled by the whole thing. Convinced a catastrophe was going to happen, she was afraid to even watch the proceedings, but nonetheless had accompanied Christine on the off-chance that she might be able to do something to shield her from disaster.
They reached the stage long before any of the other cast members. Only the scene-shifters had arrived. Notable among them were Buquet- who had kept a careful several yards away from both Christine and Meg ever since the incident with the fireball- and his second-in-command Hubert, who Christine and Meg both liked much more.
"What are you trying to make Christine do?" Meg said, speaking to Hubert and pointedly ignoring Buquet.
"Afternoon," Hubert said, one hand buried in his impressive Père Nöel beard. "She doesn't have to do a thing except sing. We buckle her into a harness and hoist her up. Simple as can be."
"I don't know," Meg said, as though she had the final say in the matter. Christine hid a smile.
"You can have a look at the harness if you like," Hubert said, understanding. He turned to Buquet. "Where is it?"
Buquet held out a sturdy-looking contraption composed of thick leather straps buckled together.
Christine watched Meg's face as she inspected it warily. At last the dancer gave a reluctant nod. "Well, I suppose that's all right, then."
"Marvelous. Should we put it on her now?" Hubert asked.
"Er - I thought you had better do it," Buquet said, backing further away.
Christine smirked.
Hubert looked at Buquet in surprise and then shrugged. "Very well, suit yourself." In his hands, the harness quickly transformed itself from an incomprehensible jumble of straps into a logical and useful-looking apparatus. He deftly buckled Christine into it, being careful not to touch her. Under his breath he muttered, "Lazy devil. I mean him, of course, not you, Mam'zelle."
Christine smiled.
"You can ask anyone; I'm the one who really runs things around this place," Hubert continued to grumble.
"I'm not sure all this is a good idea," Buquet called. "Aren't you worried about the Phantom sabotaging... something?"
"I am more concerned about La Carlotta," Christine blurted out before she could stop herself.
Fortunately, she was in safe company. The crew all laughed - they shared her opinion of the prima donna.
"I examined every bit of this machinery not five minutes ago," Hubert said. "And there have been men watching it every moment since. Whoever the fool is, he'd have to be a sorcerer to find a way to sabotage it."
"But maybe he is," Buquet said.
"You don't really believe there's anything to that story?" Hubert laughed.
Buquet was silent.
"Chrissake," Hubert muttered. "If you're scared, go on. I can manage." Under his breath he added, "Your gin is probably wondering where you are. Drunken fool."
Buquet, only too happy to available himself of this offer, turned and clomped away. Hubert clipped a thick cable to the back of the harness. When it was sure it was secure, he nodded to the flyman supervising the sandbags that anchored the other end.
"Don't be afraid," he said, giving the wire one last hard tug to make sure it was secure. "We won't let you fall. You're too expensive to replace."
Christine smiled.
"The Vicomte de Chagny would have my head, not to mention what this Phantom fellow might do." Hubert made a gesture to the flymen in charge of the sandbags attached to the other end of the line.
"I am not in the least afraid, I assure you," Christine said. And up she went.
The straps dug uncomfortably into her torso, but held firm. She rose swiftly, feeling like a firework sailing up into the sky. In no time at all she found herself among the gods, the highest level of scaffolding, and everyone on it looked like no more than dabs in one of the Impressionist paintings that she so adored.
"That's where you'll start! Sing something!" Hubert called, presumably through a megaphone, though she could not see well enough to tell. "As loud as you can." Christine decided on 'O Dieu Brahma!', Leïla's aria in 'The Pearl Fishers'. Since she had not warmed up, she skipped the more technical passages.
Even with this precaution, however, the task was all but impossible. Erik had been right. The harness pressed against her ribcage, making it impossible to fully expand her lungs, and she couldn't breathe deeply when her weight was being held by her shoulders. She managed to warble out the first few notes, but Erik would have been appalled by her technique.
She was relieved when Hubert's voice interrupted, "All right, all right, that's enough! It's no good. We can barely hear you up there. You'll have to wait until you're lower before you start."
Slowly, Christine began to descend. She passed an interminable forest of ropes and pulleys, jumbled as a ship's rigging - for ever since the incident the day before the gala, no one had dared come up here to maintain it. A few moments ticked by. Eventually the faces of the crew below became discernible again. If she were to fall now, she would survive. She reached the first of the lowest levels of scaffolding, which had been deserted ever since the Phantom dropped a backdrop on La Carlotta.
"There is good!" Hubert's voice boomed out, no longer needing a megaphone for him to hear her. "Sing something!"
Her descent halted. The wire shivered with momentum.
Again, she subjected the crowd below to the same terrible rendition of O Dieu Brahma!, wincing and hoping improbably that Georges Bizet wouldn't show up to any of the performances and hear her butchering his music like this.
"Good!" Hubert cried, and she stopped with the same feeling of relief as before.
Dangling there like a Christmas ornament, Christine had time to wave to Meg (she thought about blowing a kiss, but didn't want any of the stagehands thinking it was meant for them) and then thoughtfully take in the interesting view laid out below her. She was glad for the chance to study to this perspective of the stage - it seemed familiar somehow. But why, she wondered…
And then, like a flash of lightning, it came to her.
All at once she understood something that escaped her for weeks.
When she began to move again, she hardly noticed. She was scarcely conscious of the rest of her descent to the stage, she was so preoccupied with the horrible discovery she'd just made. When her feet touched the ground, it almost surprised her, and she only dimly registered Meg coming up to throw her arms around her in relief.
"That was good. We're going to have you hang right there," Hubert's gruff voice cut into her thoughts, as he waved Meg away and freed Christine from the harness. "Not too high up."
He paused. "You did well, Mam'zelle. But you're shaking, you know."
"Am I?" Christine was surprised to find her voice was, indeed, quivering. But then, what she had just realized would have shocked anyone.
"Christ almighty," Hubert grumbled good-naturedly. "This is just what I need. A soprano who's afraid of heights."
Normally Christine's pride would have been hurt by this assumption, but at this moment she welcomed it, as it conveniently masked the real reason for her distress.
The painting. She had finally realized what was wrong about it.
Hanging up there in the heights, she'd seen at last that the perspective it showed of the stage it showed could only have come from the scaffolding. But ever since the 'accidents' had begun, no one had been allowed up there, and no one had dared to break this rule.
No one, that was, except the Phantom.
After this horrible discovery, Christine was in an agony of anxiety until next she saw Erik.
Oh, God, she prayed despairingly, let me have misunderstood. I could not bear to find out that he is a criminal.
And yet, every recollection of him, all his strange behavior, all seemed to point to it being true. Every cryptic remark he'd made suddenly made sense.
She arrived forty minutes early for their next lesson, as though that would somehow make it him materialize faster. He was the Phantom, after all, she thought bitterly - wasn't he supposed to see everything that went on in the opera house? Whether or not this was true, however, the wait was interminable. When she finally heard his hand on the doorknob, she thought she would leap out of her skin. She was so nervous she could barely remember her own name, let alone the time or place.
"I must speak with you," she said as soon as he'd shut the door behind him, before he had even taken his seat at the piano.
He looked at her in mild confusion, surprised by her tone. "Good afternoon. Certainly."
Even in the midst of her panic, his voice still sent a thrill through her. How she wanted to believe in him. He was almost her only ally. And he was certainly the only person who understood her wild heart. Couldn't she just pretend none of this had ever happened, go on as things were before?
But no. That was not her nature. She could not deceive herself.
"I must ask you something," she said.
"Yes?" Erik felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. What was she going to ask?
"As you are perhaps aware, for some time this opera house has been plagued by... suspicious incidents."
"Yes," he said carefully.
She looked at him almost in frustration, as though imploring him to produce a more helpful reply. "A personage called 'the Phantom' has claimed responsibility for them. I do not believe all the acts attributed to the Phantom were committed by the same person - he has become a convenient excuse - but I do believe that many of them are traceable back to one individual."
Erik nodded, a lump in his throat. "May I inquire as to the purpose of this discussion?" he said. It was not so much a challenge as a plea for her to speak of something else, to draw back from the terrible line she was about to cross.
However, that was not Christine's way. "Though I do not want to believe it," she said at last, "I cannot help but think that these acts... forgive me... that they could all have been committed by you." She sat down heavily, their positions in the room for once reversed. He could not know, she thought, he would never know, what this had cost her.
Erik stared at her, torn between terror and admiration. He had never expected she would ask him directly. Or rather, he had not wanted to believe it.
Some indeterminate sound came out of his mouth.
"You have heard of the Phantom?" she said, when he did not answer the question.
He stifled a laugh. "Yes, I have heard of him."
"And... are you responsible for the... incidents?"
"Are all our lessons going to begin with you accusing me of something?"
"Do me the courtesy of answering me," she said in a thin, nervous voice. It was a plea - almost a question - not a command. He eyed her warily.
"You know I pulled that stunt on Buquet," he said cautiously.
"Yes, but I am inquiring about the other things that have happened," Christine said.
"The other things...?"
"The truly criminal activity - the threats, the accidents," she said. "The twenty thousand francs a month that the old managers felt forced to pay just to live in peace!" Oh, God... say it isn't you.
There was a painfully long silence.
"It was for you," he said at last.
Christine took a step backward. "Then you are he?"
Erik stared at her in silence, feeling as though his limbs had turned to lead. "I suppose now you're going to turn me in?" he said wearily. He didn't ask how she'd realized it - he didn't care. He should have known she would eventually - she was clever. And he cared even less whether she denounced him to the police. If he'd lost her regard, which he could see already he had, nothing else mattered.
"I don't know," Christine said. "I cannot promise you I will not. The Phantom is... you are... dangerous."
"No! I did not... I am not..." He couldn't finish.
She stood up. "Do what you will with me. Kill me." She stared him in the eye.
"Never," he said.
Her eyes blazed defiance. "Do it, you scoundrel!"
"I cannot!"
Oh God! Was she then to be faced with the choice of letting him go and putting everyone in danger or sending him to his doom? God in Heaven, help me! Do not give me this choice to make! What have I done to deserve this? Why have you not smothered this lawless passion? It is devouring me! "But... what if I decide to denounce you later?"
He shrugged heavily. "I don't care."
"But... how would you stop me?" she said, pleading.
"I couldn't," he said.
"You would stop coming to the Opéra?"
"No."
"But why?" she cried. Angel of Music, why this torment? "I gave you a chance; you ought to make use of it. I have been too kind to you already; I should have lied and told you I would keep silent, and then gone to the police once you let me go."
"Yes, you should have," he said. "Thank you."
"Do not thank me; you still have me to answer to!" she cried, eyes blazing. "And I will not deal with you lightly! How dare you say you committed those acts for my sake?"
"I don't see that it was so very bad."
"Not so bad?" she cried, stepping backwards. It seemed her prayer had been answered; the pull that drew her to him was weakening fast. She looked at him now and felt only disgust. "What of the backdrop that fell on poor La Carlotta-"
"-I wonder you can speak of her so sympathetically," he said with a snarl of distaste.
"-Let me speak!" she roared, her voice suddenly gaining all the power it had onstage. The sheer force of the sound nearly knocked him backwards. "The counterweight nearly fell on me! It could have killed me! How can you say you want me to advance as an artist, and then nearly cut my life short?"
Her words cut him to the quick. He'd been wrong - she could hurt him more. "How can you imagine that I am capable of such a thing? I would sooner destroy a Vermeer than let any harm come to you! I know this opera house like the back of my hand. I have lived here half my life. I know the machinery better than any of the stagehands. I knew exactly where the backdrop would fall! I arranged for it to be in that spot so people would know you are not collaborating with me!"
"If you had not sent all those notes about me then I would not have been under suspicion in the first place!" Christine shouted. A chill ran through her as this sank in - why had he written all those notes about her? Why was he willing to resort to blackmail to further her career? "What makes you imagine that it is acceptable to steal - and threaten - and extort others? It is in every way horrible!"
"I had no choice!" he shouted.
"What do you mean?"
"I had to run away from home when I was a child," Erik admitted, wincing at the memory of his early years. "It wasn't safe for me to remain. I had no-one to turn to. I am afraid all that nonsense I told you about going to the cathedral and buying gingerbread was just a pretty fiction."
Christine nodded. "I thought it might be. I often do the same thing," she admitted.
He nodded slowly, taking this in.
"What happened afterwards?" she asked.
"Ever since, I have had to fend for myself."
"Did you not ever seek honest employment?" she said.
"That would be impossible for me. No-one would ever accept me."
"That is a feeble excuse," she said.
"What do you know of it?" he cried.
"What do I know of it? I was an orphan, and foreign besides - and a woman, which is a disadvantage the magnitude of which you shall never be able to comprehend - and yet I never turned to crime!"
He tried to swallow his anger. "I did not deny that fate has been unkind to you. But our circumstances were in some ways very different." The understatement was so massive it enraged him. How he yearned to tell her. But he could not. It was impossible.
"In what way different?" she asked. "What excuse do you have that I do not?"
"I cannot tell you," he said.
She turned away with a cry of rage.
"There is a reason," he blurted out in spite of himself.
She slowly turned round. "Tell me, then," she said eagerly, a slight measure of trust stealing back into her expression. "You know you can trust me with your secrets - fool that I am."
"You are no fool," he said. "And yes, I would trust you even with my music - and I entrust that to no-one else. But I cannot tell you this. I would tell you anything else, truly."
"Is the secret another person's? Perhaps you... are protecting someone?" she suggested hopefully.
"No," he admitted. "I am the guardian of no-one's secrets save my own."
Christine's heart seemed to twist up inside her. She was giving him every chance. She wanted to believe in him, and he was systemically eliminating every reason she had to do so.
"If the secret is yours, and you cannot tell me, then it is not an honest reason."
"Yes, it is!" he cried, enraged by his helplessness.
"No. No!" Christine cried. Tears, hot with fury, rose to her eyes. "You do not think enough of me even to favor me with an explanation!"
"It isn't that," he said pleadingly. "There is no-one I hold in higher esteem than you-"
"Yes, it is!" she cried. "Do not torment me with false declarations of your... esteem!" She buried her face in her hand as though in pain. "Oh, God... This is a horrible betrayal!"
"A betrayal! In what way a betrayal?" he cried. "I never promised you anything. You never asked me to!" He was frightened by how obvious the bitterness in his voice was.
Christine looked up sharply. "That is untrue! You made an implicit promise to help me when you became my instructor. I trusted you with what is most precious to me in all the world - with my voice, with my aspirations. With my..." Her voice broke off in a sob. She turned away for a moment, her frame bent over with sadness, trying to hide her tears. All at once, however, her demeanor changed. She straightened and fixed him with an icy stare. "That is all over. I will not hold you to those obligations anymore. I cannot afford to be associated with the Phantom."
"You could before, it seems!"
"Had I only known!" she cried. "I have been too kind to you. That stops now. I will not risk anyone learning of our connection and thinking that I condone your despicable actions!"
"What are you saying?"
"How can I speak any more plainly?" she shouted. "Do not ever come near me again!"
"But Christine-! Christine!"
For a moment, her face crumpled in a sob. But the moment was soon over. Her face, save for her eyes, resumed its usual collected expression; she was master of herself once more. "Good night," she said coldly.
Only her voice betrayed that they had shared anything but polite conversation that evening.
And she sailed out of the room.
That evening, Christine wrote a check to Monsieur Alphonse Masson for seven hundred fifty-three francs for voice lessons. It was every sou she had.
She also sent a telegram to the Vicomte de Chagny, informing him that Monsieur Masson would be unable to teach her anymore, and if he was still willing to provide her with an instructor, she would be very grateful to accept.
The young man responded with almost miraculous speed. By the next afternoon, Christine found herself at the Conservatoire de Musique in a lesson with no less than Pauline Viardot-García, the most renowned vocal instructor in Europe.
Splendid, Christine thought. She had finally gotten the chance to meet one of her idols, one of the greatest living singers in the world, and all she could think of was Erik.
Things went well enough, though her new teacher remarked that she seemed distracted.
When she emerged from the lesson two hours later into the Conservatoire's vast, columned entrance hall, she was surprised to find a worried-looking Madame Giry awaiting her.
"Good afternoon!" Christine said, smiling, though she looked slightly confused as well. "What brings you here?"
"Christine, my dear," Madame Giry said, putting a hand on her arm. "You don't look like yourself. Are you well? Your new instructor - she is satisfactory?"
"She is an exceptionally capable instructor," Christine said automatically. "I am very fortunate to be her pupil."
"I was worried something might have happened," Madame Giry said.
Christine stiffened almost imperceptibly. "What makes you think that?"
"I shall explain later. There isn't time now."
"Is something the matter?" Christine asked.
"Yes, something serious, I am afraid," Madame Giry replied. "I am sorry to take you away from your practice, but I need your help. You know I would not ask this in anything less than the direst of emergencies."
"Good Heavens- what is it?"
Madame Giry lowered her voice. "Your instructor needs our help. I cannot trust anyone else."
"My instructor seems quite well," Christine said, confused.
"I was referring to Erik," Madame Giry said, almost whispering.
Christine jumped. "How do you know of that?"
"Here, I shall explain everything to you on the way," Madame Giry said. "But do please come with me, quickly."
"Monsieur le Vicomte is expecting me. He will be here any minute."
"I shall help you make some explanation to him later. You know I would never wish to do anything to hurt your chances with Monsieur le Vicomte-"
Christine thought about contradicting her, saying that she was not courting the Vicomte, but did not. What was the point? What did anything matter? She ought to be courting him. It was the sensible thing to do.
Still, the thought made her feel like she was falling into an endless, deep hole.
"-but this is urgent enough that I fear I have no choice to take you away for the time being," Madame Giry said.
"I don't see what E- my old instructor has done to deserve my help," Christine protested. "I don't know what you know of him-"
Oh, Madame Giry recalled, Of course - she does not know of my connection to Erik. He wouldn't have told her about the fair - about any of it. Well, she was going to find out soon enough...
"-but he is deceitful and cowardly," Christine was saying. "He gained my trust through false pretenses and refused to offer any explanation."
"Yes, it is true," Madame Giry said with a sigh.
Christine peered at her intently. "Then you know-"
"-I have some idea what you are speaking of. But Christine, his life may be in peril!" she cried, managing to get the words in at last.
"What?" Christine blanched. "Truly?"
Madame Giry nodded sadly.
Christine's stomach clenched with fear. "What has happened? What can I do?"
Madame Giry did not reply; she was already hurrying out toward the street.
"This is all too much," Christine cried, plunging after her. "You must explain to me what in Heaven's name is going on!"
Madame Giry held up a hand for silence, scanning the street for a cab.
The moment they were safely shut away from the noise of the road, questions came tumbling out of Christine's mouth. "Where is he? What has happened to him? Why have you come to me?"
"He is at home," Madame Giry said wearily. "And now, if you will let me begin at the beginning. Last night he came to see me... "
"...How does he know where you live? Has he been spying on you?"
"Not that I know of," Madame Giry said wryly.
"How did you come to be acquainted?"
Madame Giry gave her an odd look. "Then he has not told you... about himself?"
"He has told me almost nothing," Christine said. "I know he was born near Rouen and his father was a stonemason. That is assuming even that much of what he told me was true," she added bitterly.
"I see," Madame Giry said. "Well, I certainly understand why you have so many questions, then. Which would you like me to answer first?"
"Tell me what happened to him," Christine said at once. "Will he survive?"
"Very well. Putting aside for a moment the question of how we are acquainted, then... He came to see me last night. He seemed almost hysterical."
"Yes, but will he survive?"
"I hope so... I do not know.. I had never seen him in such a state- I could hardly make him talk sense. Eventually he left, but I was concerned, so later I went to look for him. I did not find him until this morning, under the opera house..."
"...Under it?" Christine interjected.
"Yes," Madame Giry said. "By the shore of the lake."
"The lake? I thought it was a myth."
"No, I am afraid not," Madame Giry sighed. "It is immense down there. Like an underground city, almost. How do you think it is that no one has been able to track down the Phantom after all these years?"
Christine's fingers gripped at her handbag in alarm. "You know he is the Phantom, too, then?"
"Yes."
"How long have you known? Did you know he was-"
"-That will have to wait, my dear," Madame Giry said quickly.
"You won't tell anyone?"
Madame Giry laughed darkly. "Certainly not."
"But then - this is why you always receive the Ghost's letters?"
"Yes."
"This makes you complicit in blackmail!" Christine stared at her in horror.
"He has protected you and Meg, all these years," Madame Giry said. "I could not afford to do without him."
"Oh. I see." Christine felt silent for a moment. Then, "But then you knew-"
"-Christine, there isn't time for this, I am afraid. As I was saying - I found him by the lake. It turns out the fool drank nearly a whole bottle of absinthe." Madame Giry paused, her voice unsteady. "The horrible cheap kind that they put God-knows-what in."
Horror shot through Christine. "Where is he now?"
"He is at home-" Madame Giry repeated.
"-At home? Surely he needs to go to a hospital. Is he ill?"
Madame Giry winced. "Yes. I couldn't wake him. He was breathing, but I couldn't wake him."
Christine's blood ran cold.
It was a short drive from the Conservatoire. Within minutes, the cab had deposited them on the Rue Scribe, one of the two bustling, prosperous avenues that ran on either side of the Opéra Populaire. Madame Giry looked around to make sure no one was watching, then stealthily made her way to an alcove set well back in the foundations of the opera house. On the back wall of this alcove was a large iron gate.
To Christine's astonishment, within seconds her foster-mother had deftly picked the heavy lock that held it shut. She hurriedly ushered Christine - who was too curious not to follow - through, slipped in after her, and slammed it shut, locking it again after them. The whole thing happened in a matter of moments. The transition was jarring. A moment before, Christine had been standing on one of the most fashionable boulevards in the capital, and now she was in a dank stone passage with no source of illumination in evidence.
Madame Giry pushed her gently along the tunnel until they were out of sight of the gate and all traces of daylight had disappeared.
Christine stopped. "I really won't go any further until you tell me what in Heaven's name is going on."
Madame Giry did not reply. As Christine's eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw that she was taking a hurricane lamp out of the folds of her coat.
"I fail to see how our coming here can be of use to him," Christine said. "Shouldn't we be going to his home?"
Madame Giry lit the lamp. Its beams illuminated a tunnel so ominous-looking that Christine almost felt she had been more comfortable when the light was off.
"This is his home," Madame Giry said.
Christine's mind raced. At first, she was inclined to scoff in disbelief. But then certain memories started to come back to her, seemingly insignificant pieces of information suddenly taking on a new shade.
My apartment - if you can call it that - isn't a very desirable property, Erik had said. It is underground...
It appeared what Madame Giry had told her was true. This day grew stranger and stranger.
Taking a spool of red thread from her pocket, Madame Giry stopped to tie one end to a small piece of metal protruding from the wall. "Be sure to keep hold of this," she said, handing the spool to Christine.
"Like Ariadne in the labyrinth," Christine said.
"Precisely. I think this precaution is unnecessary - I ought to know the way by now - but Erik insists on it. He couldn't bear for anything to happen to me on his account. Come, my dear."
"But Mère, why does he live here?" Christine asked as they journeyed through the gloom. "And please, tell me how you came to know him."
Madame Giry sighed. "To answer your question, I must tell you something about myself." And slowly, in a halting voice, she began to tell Christine about the horrible night twenty-five years before when she had gone to the gypsy fair.
Christine interrupted only once, when she heard how the little boy in the last tent had tried to hide his face. "Erik?" she whispered.
"Yes," Madame Giry said quietly.
"Then he is... disfigured?"
"Deformed, yes. From birth, it seems. He does not talk much of the past. As far as I can gather, his family were so cruel to him that he ran away. He probably would have died if the fair had not picked him up."
"It does not sound like that place was much better than death," Christine said.
"No. I imagine not."
"Oh, poor, unhappy Erik!"
"My dear, are you well?" Mère said. "I would prefer to stop if this is giving you great distress; indeed, it is not easy for to speak of, even now-"
For as soon as Christine had learned the identity of the little boy trapped in that cage, tears had begun to spill from her eyes. "-No, I am well," she said, belying her tears. "Forgive me. Please do go on."
Reluctantly now, Madame Giry did. "You can guess the rest," she finished at last. "He has lived under the opera house ever since."
"So this is why he lives as the Phantom," Christine said in a strangled voice. "The blackmail... He has no other way to survive."
Madame Giry nodded. "He would like to become a composer - you know how much he is capable of - but who would listen?"
Christine stopped and stood as though rooted to the spot, one hand over her mouth, tears coursing down her face, her whole body wracked with sobs. "He was right," she whispered. "There was a good reason."
"My dear, are you well?" Madame Giry asked with a look of concern. "I am sorry. I did not mean to burden you. It is shocking, I agree. But I did not think..."
"It would be too difficult to explain," Christine said in a strangled voice. And, finding her footing again, she suddenly hurried forward.
"Did you never suspect?" Mère said.
"Certainly I knew there must be some reason for the mask. But I thought he was injured in the war. There are pensions for that, so I didn't understand why he would be so desperate... But this is entirely different! A child, Mère! A little boy! Locked in a cage... and they... and they... it is unimaginable! No wonder he is afraid of the world!"
"Yes."
"Mère," she ventured eventually, "In your life, has there ever come a moment when you thought you were in the right but then realized you had been... a miserable, selfish fool?"
"Almost constantly," Madame Giry said wryly. "But you, my dear, have been nothing of the kind."
Christine blinked back tears. "Oh, Mère, I only wish I could believe it."
"Here, my dear," Madame Giry said, holding out her hand.
Christine turned and took it gratefully.
Together, the two women continued down into the darkness. They walked for what could have been minutes or hours - Christine could not judge the passage of time down here in this endless night.
Eventually, they came upon a still form.
End of Chapter 10.
Thank you so much MissGalindaa, TangoSalsa and TopHatSnoo for your help and input! And thank you to all my wonderful readers for the reviews, views and support! You guys are amazing!
* At some point in the past two hundred years, Rue Bergère was renamed Rue du Conservatoire, but the internet is mum as to when exactly this occurred, so I'm just calling it by its original name.