Chapter 31
Here no one can recognize us.
-Romeo et Juliette, Act I
"What shall we do for costumes?" Christine asked again. "I have no head for this sort of thing."
His eyes brightened. "Does this mean you shall go, then?"
"I fear I shall regret this," she said, and then, her face softening, "But yes, I shall go."
There followed a happy and busy few weeks, filled with flurried planning.
Their costumes could not match, of course, but it occurred to Christine that they could both dress as characters from the same œuvre, so at least there would be some connection. People read so little literature these days, she observed wryly, that no-one would ever notice.
He wanted to go as Poe's 'Red Death', but she flatly refused the idea, despite his petulant complaints. It would stand out too much, she insisted.
For her, on the other hand, there was no need to be so inconspicuous. He was struck with the thought of having a gown embroidered for her with the words from 'The Raven'. She was taken with the idea at once, and so it was settled. She also ordered a mask of her own, festooned with black plumes in keeping with the theme. It saddened him to see her hiding her lovely face, but he had to agree it was safer under the circumstances.
When it arrived and she tried it on in the mirror, she had a further burst of inspiration.
It took Erik several days to agree to the idea she had proposed.
The two of them gallivanting about the city together, both of them in masks and outlandish ensembles - it was almost too daring to imagine.
But she eventually brought him round - indeed, it was not difficult; he found it impossible to refuse these requests of hers. And once they'd wandered through Paris' gay and bustling streets for a few minutes one evening thus attired (with Erik clutching at a pistol under his coat the whole time and casting anxious glances at everyone they passed), he quickly changed his mind.
He was astonished by what the experiment revealed to him. Nobody stopped them to ask what they were doing. In fact, no-one gave them a second thought. Christine's presence lent him an air of legitimacy and respectability. Everyone assumed they were simply coming home from a costume party.
When they returned to her appartement later that night, flushed and laughing, Christine said she wouldn't ask him to try it again - but he insisted he wanted to go out again the next night, and the night after that.
It quickly became their routine.
Anonymous, unrecognizable, they took strolls past the Louvre, the Tuileries, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe - places he had never dared to go before, for fear of being seen. Gradually his anxieties began to desert him.
He felt as though his whole life were opening up, as though a world that had been closed to him always now was almost within his reach. Surely he had died and gone to Heaven. How else could any of this have come to pass?
This newfound freedom benefitted her, too, as she was quick to assure him.
Before, it hadn't been safe for her to explore the city by herself at night. She had done it anyway, of course, for she would rather take the risk than fester at home by herself, but always her ramblings had been interrupted by some drunk demanding money or worse. Most of the time, it was less trouble to simply go about with her friends, but they were always rushing from place to place, party to party - none of them the sort who had any patience for gazing at cathedrals in the moonlight.
This was different. Now, there was no need for a troupe of ballet girls as bodyguards. Whenever miscreants saw Erik's tall, masked figure with its swirling cloak, they gave up whatever designs they might have had on Christine and wandered off in search of easier prey.
She could at long last contemplate in peace.
And he could as well.
They became each other's freedom, each better off together than apart.
Erik marveled at how his life had changed. The world seemed to be softening around him, reshaping itself just enough that perhaps it might be able to accommodate his few simple wishes in life. Might there be room it in enough for him to love someone - just one person was perfectly sufficient; he had no need for a horde of adoring friends - and spend his life devoted to her happiness? He began to hope as he had never dared hope before.
In the meantime, Christine's life too might, it seemed, finally take off from the dust where it had lingered for so long.
In an astonishing coup, the artistic director awarded her the lead in the Opéra's new production of Roméo et Juliette. This was no fleeting success, no mere moment in the sun. This time she was not an understudy thrown on at the last minute, or the lead forced to carry a small, undervalued production, and its likely failure, on her shoulders. It was a real principal role. Even her mind, given to self-doubts and reservations, could not find a way to reshape it as anything other than the awesome privilege and opportunity it was.
It seemed Firmin's wrath over Raoul's departure had worn down, for the managers said nothing.
La Carlotta stormed and fumed over her rival's success, but since she had previously insisted that she was sick of playing Juliette and would rather it be anyone else than her, there was little she could do.
Christine ran to tell Erik as soon as it was safe. He was almost beside himself, even happier than she was.
"Why, to hear you, mon rêve, sing 'Je Veux Vivre Dans Ce Rêve'..."
"Yes," she laughed, dizzy with happiness. "That is what my mind returns to again and again. It is a tremendous honor, of course..."
"An honor you abundantly deserve."
"Thank you. And... I confess I cannot help but feel a sense of pride. But... the music."
"Yes. The music is the essential thing. I must hear your opening night. I shall be up in the gods." The gods were the highest levels of scaffolding over the stage.
"You can hear from floors below," Christine protested. "You can hear from your lair." She knew this for a fact.
Erik regretted now having shown her the telephone-like contraption he had devised to communicate with the auditorium. "Yes," he admitted, seeing no way out. "But I must watch. I must be there as you make your début. How could I not? What sort of fiancé would I be?"
"You must not think I hold you to the same expectations as other women's fiancés. Someone would catch you."
"No-one will even think to look away from the stage," he said.
"You give too much credit to my powers. I don't like to think of your fate hanging on whether or not I successfully cast a spell over the audience."
He smiled. He knew reassuring her of her beauty and talent, though she possessed both in abundance, would not convince her. But reminding her of his own abilities might, for to his chagrin she still believed in his powers infinitely more than she believed in her own. "Why do you think I was so careful in teaching you to sing? It is my insurance." He winked.
"There is something to that - it is the splendor of your genius they are really marveling at," she said, slowly coming round.
His heart leapt at her words. For a moment, he stood frozen, stunned by her praise. "Well, then... What do you say, my dear?" he said when he trusted himself to speak. "One last haunting? And then, I give you my word, the Phantom will hang up his mantle forever."
At last she smiled. "Yes."
Music: "Je Veux Vivre" sung by Natalie Dessay, available on iTunes, spotify, etc. (Or, if you want to hear a Christine, by Celinde Schoenmaker, on YouTube. But personally, though I love Celinde, Natalie Dessay's voice is closer to how I imagine Christine sounding. Operatic voices tended to be lighter in the 1800's then they are today).
The rehearsal period began. At times the hours and hours of practice seemed to drag by. The romantic scenes with Piangi, her Romeo, were particularly painful (the only silver lining she could think of to playing his lover was that even Erik could not bring himself to really feel jealous of the corpulent tenor).
And yet somehow at the same time the rehearsal month waned swiftly.
Soon opening night was before her. The final run-through was completed; the audience assembled, murmuring, in the seats and boxes. Reyer raised his baton, the curtain opened, and the opera began to whirl by in a torrent of music and romance, peril and tragedy.
Though she was playing a mere girl, a vulnerable, fragile, slip of a thing, that night as Christine stood there on Juliette's famous balcony, she began to feel for the first time like a woman and a true artist, fully awake and alive.
She could practically feel Erik beside her.
The music washed over her, engulfed her. It seemed to contain her whole being, to convey the very essence of her life.
She launched into 'Je Veux Vivre Dans Ce Rêve', feeling that her own self and Shakespeare's immortal heroine were merged in the words:
Ah, I want to live within this dream
that intoxicates me still
Sweet flame, I keep you safe in my heart
Like a precious treasure!
This intoxication of youth only lasts, alas, for a day...
Then comes the hour of weeping.
Sweet flame, remain in my heart
For ages yet to come!
She sang it again; the melody turned in on itself, she sang it higher and finished on a blazing high la - an ornamentation she'd added, for it normally ended an octave lover. And then Juliette's most famous aria (and, what was more important to her, Erik's favorite) was complete, and she could relax a little and let herself be carried away by the music, at least until the difficult fourth act. The rest passed smoothly enough; Christine even managed Juliette's fiendishly difficult Poison Aria with enough of her voice left to finish out the performance. There was no booing (which had been a very real threat; La Carlotta often paid hecklers to sit in the cheap seats and shout their disapproval of her rivals).
At the end, the audience stamped so loud the whole theatre seemed to shake. The cast took six curtain calls and roses were flung at Christine by the hundreds. The evening papers, even the most staid and condescending, deigned to voice their approval of Christine's performance, and ticket sales were the highest the Opéra had seen since before the war. Piangi was endearingly delighted and even ventured to say he thought Christine had done reasonably well (out of earshot of his wife). The orchestra sent her a handsome bouquet, an effort organized by Monsieur Reyer.
When she returned to her dressing-room, she found a sight which delighted her most of all. There, on her dressing-table, a single red rose, with a black velvet ribbon tied round the stem.
No one besides Christine knew who had put it there, and she pretended to be as bewildered as everyone else. The speculation would buzz around the corridors of the opera house for several days. Meg teased Christine til she almost couldn't stand it anymore. But Christine's lips were firmly sealed, and in the end no-one at the Opéra came close to guessing who was really responsible.
End of Chapter 31. Thank you so much for reading!