Author's note—You have been patient with me while my muse has been elsewhere…my apologies. There are times I wonder if I can write at all anymore.
This and the previous four chapters have been revised somewhat, to better meld with this update. The reader might want to review them…as it has been some time.
The Usual Disclaimer—these characters are not mine, belonging as they do to the heirs of M. Leroux, to Sir A. L. Webber and the RUG, and to Susan Kay. I thank them for the privilege of their use. All errors concerning the Paris Opera, music, religion, military history, and the French and Farsi languages are mine, and for that, I apologize.
Please read and review.
A Second Chance
Chapter 5
Copyright 2003, 2004, 2016 by Riene
Admonition
No, I am through and you can call in vain.
There is too great a fee for your caress;
Too great a share of heartbreak and of pain
And all the kindred hurts of loneliness.
What does it mean at best? A fevered hour
When I forget that you are not for me;
Your charm aglow like some exotic flower
To rouse again the waves of memory.
No, I am through-the trumpet call of youth
Must sound in vain-for I have need of rest;
You have no peace to give-no certain truth-
And I am sick and weary of my quest.
Leave me to books and wine and memories-
Nothing you have to give can equal these!
-Philip Stack
Finally unable to bear the accursed silence of these rooms that now felt a living tomb, Erik roused himself and dressed with painful care one late evening. Tonight was the final performance of the winter chamber music concert series, and the lure of distraction proved too much for him to not seek. By chance, his Box Five remained unsold, as did several other private boxes, and numerous seats below in the stalls. At one time the desire to find the cause of this unlikely abandonment would have given him purpose, but for tonight, he was merely grateful.
Erik huddled into the shadows, feeling drawn, hollowed, old as he had never felt himself to be old before, listening as the music flowed around him. His aching fingers clasped themselves together, then rose and clung desperately to a fold of his cloak, as though to anchor himself down. He was weightless, falling into the aching beauty of the liquid notes, the glorious harmony of the strings as they began the final descant of the opera.
And then it was over. The swelling applause and cheers jarred unpleasantly with the last lingering notes. Erik opened his eyes and glared venomously at the crowd below, then rose, drawing the warm folds of the cloak about his shoulders, and slipped into the shadows behind the column to make his solitary retreat down the damp tunnels, back to his underground lair.
A week, perhaps, or more had passed since he had spoken to the Persian, assuring him that he would not take his own life. Erik clenched his hands in anger. Like many things in his wretched existence, even the cold comfort of death's waiting arms was denied him. There was no more point to his existence—and there had not been so, he realized, in a very long time.
Irritably, Erik pushed away these thoughts and walked to the organ, touching it, stroking its polished wooden sides. For so long it had been his outlet, his oppressed soul finding expression in music. But like his voice, his flair for composition, the organ too was unresponsive, shrouded and silent in the vast, empty underground room. He turned once more and cast himself down into the throne-like seat in front of the fire and stiffly removed the mask. The injuries had finally healed to the point he could bear its pressure against his face. He stared grimly into the dull red coals, reflecting not for the first time how much easier it would have been if the crowd had simply been allowed to complete its job. The flames assumed shape, gained substance to his tired eyes, and once again, he seemed to see her, bent over him, through the haze of pain, an angel in the blurred red-black darkness. It seemed he could feel the softness of her white gown against the back of his aching skull, her gentle fingers touching his hideous, beaten and damaged face, her soft voice singing, a look of love, of concern in her dark blue eyes.
Furiously, Erik shook his head. He had been near death, hallucinating. Christine was gone, beyond his reach, far away with her lover; she would not return to him now. As always, his mind turned inexorably to their last minutes together, and the feather-light pressure of her lips on his, as his existence reeled from the sudden sensory overload. She had pulled back in confusion then, staring wordlessly into his dilated black eyes, before he reached out and drew her to him, crushing her body against his, plundering her mouth. He had known then, in a blinding flash of realization, of intuition, that she was his as she kissed him back eagerly, her hands tightening around the lapels of his jacket, as she pulled his body down against hers.
And so, Erik had made the only choice possible, to spare her a lifetime of horror. He had not truly known, until that moment, what it was to love someone. He had wanted her, yes, wanted her for himself—to sing for him, to protect and nurture, to purchase lovely baubles for, to be his wife. But until that painful, blinding moment of clarity, he had not really known what it meant to love someone, to want their happiness beyond your own…
Tired of the endless downward spiral of these thoughts, he rose again, drifting aimlessly through the underground house like a wraith, which was, he sneered inwardly, appropriate.
Her days stretched out into an undifferentiated pattern of practice, broken only by the occasional dinner with friends. There was no word from Raoul; his ship was still too far from port for any letters, any correspondence.
Their final parting had been brief and poignant. They had met for dinner the night before, and had walked about the old city for hours after, talking and clinging to each other. The next morning the ironclad had lain at anchor, the decks crowded with seamen and officers standing at attention as the ship's great steam engines slowly came to power and the immense coils of rope slid away from the dockside cleats. Around her, wives and girlfriends, parents and children wept or cheered as the sleek ship began to move slowly out to sea. Raoul stood with the other men, until they abruptly began to move about, busy with the tasks at hand.
She had watched as the ship left the port of Rochefort, disappearing slowly from sight. The train ride back to Paris had passed in a blur of misery and longing. Once again, she was alone.
From Erik there was only silence, a waiting silence that lingering on and on. She had no idea what to expect from him, but surely there would have been some word from Nadir Khan had his injuries taken a turn for the worse. Standing alone in her dressing room, she thought of the endless patient hours he had put into training her voice, the careful lessons, the comfort and encouragement when her fears and frustrations had overwhelmed her precarious control.
Christine sighed, facing the silent, still mirror, and reached out to touch it with her small white hand. She was forbidden admission to the underground world, and in the perverse way of human nature, now desired it more than she had once thought possible.
He paced the floors of the lair, consumed by burning thoughts of the music, the first he had experienced now in three weeks. Looking back, Erik could simply not remember a time when he had gone for so long without music surrounding him, permeating his life. But now, it was as if a core of liquid heat had been ignited within him, and the desire to compose, to play again became an obsession, despite the almost insurmountable obstacle, due to his hands.
From the time he was a small child, music had been of supreme importance in his miserable existence. He could remember listening as his mother played, creeping down to stand unnoticed in the shadows by the parlor doors, listening avidly. His beautiful, graceful mother, making such lovely sounds on the old instrument. It became his passion to make those sounds as well, for surely then he could win her long-denied love, and her oft-denied attention.
The room was empty, the house silent; with prudence borne of his few years' experience, Erik stood timidly, cautiously by the pianoforte, with a careful finger testing each note one at a time, listening intently to the sounds they made. These two, these three sounded pleasurable to his small ears, the sounds resonating through his thin body. These sounds, these notes clashed, causing him to turn aside abruptly, shaking his head. This set of notes belonged somehow together in a family, and repeated again above, and below. These keys together sounded sad. These notes, this grouping somehow sounded incomplete, as though they needed just one more final set of tones to end a story. And now these, yes, they ended the story properly. Absorbed in the wonder of this most magical of instruments, he did not see his mother, standing silently in the doorway, watching.
At first, her inclination had been to banish him upstairs again, to punish him for defiling the piano with his touch, but as she stood, thoughts slowly coalesced in her mind...her freakish son was sounding out scales, arpeggios, chords. A dominant seventh here, a major triad there. Madeleine clasped her hands together tightly, enough of a musician herself to realize what was happening. Her son, her horribly disfigured child, whose manic moods and tempers knew no boundaries, was standing silent and absorbed in this instrument.
She made a sudden, unintentional gesture, and Erik whirled, his eyes growing wide with fear. He snatched his hands away from the gleaming ivory keys as though scalded and backed away, a whimper growing, escaping his throat. "I'm sorry, Mamma, I'm sorry…I'll not do it again, please, please don't hit me…" Frantically the little boy edged away from the pianoforte, hunching his back, his hands coming up to cover his face, to shield himself as best he could from the angry blows which were sure to follow. But…nothing happened, and after a moment, Erik did dare to peer from between his fingers.
Madeleine stood in the doorway, her dress of shimmering sea-green silk seeming to glow softly in a shaft of morning sunlight. Glittering, dancing sunbeams surrounded her, lighting her dark auburn hair, seeming to caress her ivory-gold skin. His black eyes grew round, as once again he forgot his place, and stammered out, "Mamma…you look so beautiful…"
She smiled involuntarily at the wonder in his voice, and whether it was the heartfelt, genuine love and belief in his hesitant words, or her amazement in his newfound ability, Madeleine smiled down at her son and said softly, "If you will take care not to harm the pianoforte, Erik, you may learn to play it."
Astonishment at this unexpected permission caused him to grow white, then flush red, stunned. "I may, Mamma? I may play it?" he stammered. At her nod of acquiescence, Erik felt the world had suddenly given him a most miraculous gift. His mother approved. She had smiled at him. He was to be allowed to make the lovely sounds. He would make lovely sounds—he would learn to play, to please her, to earn her love.
Reveling in this unaccustomed freedom, Erik threw himself into music with all the fervor of one possessed, and indeed there were nights when he neither ate nor slept, days when he never moved from the piano until his thin exhausted abused small body simply dropped from weariness, and he slept, curled up beside the piano, one hand touching it possessively, even in his sleep. He demanded of his mother how to read the small black markings on the pages of music, the limp folios of songs whose worn covers soon fell to tatters. Within a year he had far bypassed her skills, but needed no teacher, for Erik seemed to have some intuitive understanding of music, of harmony, of meter. He demanded new music, popular airs, works from the great composers, and Madeleine agreed, for once again, compliance was more simple, to give in and do as he asked, rather than to face the terrible tantrums that her strange son was capable of causing. But the temper flare-ups grew fewer and fewer as the years passed, as his skill grew, and soon Erik no longer cried himself to sleep in fury over the inadequacy of his abilities.
One summer, Madeleine happened upon an old violin at the county market, offered for only a few francs by an itinerant peddler, and thinking to ease his obsession with the piano, she bought it. Fortune had it that the strings and bow were adequate, and soon Erik played this instrument too as if he had been born to it.
But now, now his injured arm could not hold a bow, and his crippled aching hands could neither curve to touch the slender metal strings of the precious violin, nor bear the painful pressure of pressing down upon the worn ivory keys of his piano. He tried to force them around the stump of a pen, to write the glorious notes in his head on whatever scraps of paper he could salvage, but the joints swelled, and agonies of pain throbbed down past his wrists. Despairing, Erik plunged his aching, swollen fingers into bowls of icy water, trying to numb the pain, and the ferocity of his desire to compose.
Exhausted from the overwhelming need to find expression in music and the inability to do so, Erik turned his hatred and fury inward, driving himself relentlessly, cleaning the underground house for the first time since the mob, slipping out of the cellars to purchase fresh paper and ink, a new pen, walking the darkened back streets of Paris for miles in an attempt at exhaustion, only to return to the cellars for a few hours of tormented, restless sleep.
Meg Giry brought her news one lonely afternoon that a new tenor had been hired, and that arrangements were being made to soon begin rehearsals.
"They wanted a younger man to replace Piangi," she said, "to play opposite of you. His name is Luigi Bartoldi, and he's Italian. I haven't seen him yet but the girls say he is terribly good-looking." Her blue eyes sparkled. "Rumor has it they are looking for a comedy for the Grand Reopening. All new costumes; Mamman is thrilled. We've new dancers in the corps, too."
"But none as good as you, I'm sure!" smiled Christine.
"Of course not!" laughed Meg. "Here, I have a note for you, from M. Firmin."
Christine quickly perused the contents, requesting her presence the next afternoon at a meeting with the managers and staff to discuss the next production and updates to the building.
"It will be good to be back at the Opera," she said, softly. Meg gently squeezed her hand, saying nothing about the sadness in her friend's eyes.
Luigi Bartoldi proved to be a compact, muscular man with flashing dark eyes, curling hair, and a short beard, perhaps in his early 30's. He rose to his feet as Christine entered and seized her hand, bringing it to his lips.
"This charming lady cannot be the famous Mme Daae?" he chuckled. "I 'ave heard about you and the famous opera ghost! It is good publicity, no?" His lips lingered just too long over the kiss and Christine firmly removed her hand from his grasp. Luigi stared at her appraisingly.
"But can you sing?" He turned to the managers. "I must know if she can sing with me. Have her sing and I will see for myself if we can work together!" He sat and waved his hand with a flourish.
Christine stared at him. "I am not properly warmed up."
"Can you sing or no?" he demanded.
She turned to the managers, outraged, but M Andre shrugged apologetically. "We will have to hear you together eventually."
"Come, come, we sing." Luigi ordered, and strode out the door, shouting for M Reyer, the managers trailing after him.
"You are rehearsing what?" he was demanding, as they approached.
Flustered, M Reyer looked up from where the woodwinds were discussing a section.
"Le Tribut de Zamora," he sputtered. "And who are you?"
"I? Who am I?"
"Luigi Bartoldi. Our new tenor," M Firmin said shortly. "M Reyer, can you cease practice a moment, that we may hear Mme Daae and M Bartoldi together? It won't take long."
M Reyer folded his arms, affronted. "I have limited time, M Firmin, if you wish to have music when you decide our opening night, but yes."
Luigi Bartoldi made him an elaborate bow. "A thousand pardons," he said.
M Reyer threw up his arms, rolled his eyes heavenward, and leaned impatiently against the orchestra pit wall.
"Now," Luigi mused, "What to sing. It must be something simple for Mme Daae, as she has not 'warmed up'."
Aware of the orchestra and stagehands watching avidly, Christine stepped forward. "Can you sing the duet from Don Giovanni?" she said sweetly.
The smile did not reach his eyes. "But of course."
What an odious man! Christine slammed the door of the dressing room, three hours later, giving temporary vent to her feelings. She could not shake the feeling that entire scene had felt staged somehow. Why the man held such animosity toward her, she could not begin to guess. Unfortunately, he had a superb voice. It would be a difficult season.
Christine lifted the crimson folio containing the music for Le Tribut de Zamora, seeking the proper pages. If rehearsals for the new opera were to begin soon, she must be ready. Standing before the great mirrored wall, she settled her shoulders into the proper posture taught by her dark maestro, and lifted her chin. Softly, knowing no one else was likely to be lingering on this end of the hallway in the late afternoon, she took a calming breath and lifted her voice in a series of scales and exercises, aware of the anger tightening her tone.
Far below in the cellars, Erik stood abruptly, every fiber of his body wire-tense, striding rapidly to the other side of the room. From the sideboard, he poured himself a second, stiffer brandy, aware of Nadir's disapproving gaze.
"You are drinking too much, Erik," the Persian said quietly.
"Does it affect your Muslim sensibilities, Nadir?" sneered Erik. "I know my limits, and unfortunately, I am nowhere near them."
The Persian's green eyes narrowed, flashing, his lips thinned. "You are not the only one near your limits, Erik. I am out of patience with you." A long moment passed as the two men glowered at each other.
"Bebakhshid, Nadir…" he sighed irritably. "You ought not come down here. I'm not fit for company, not that I ever was. This…" he gestured at the ceiling, concealed in shadow, "this constant reminder has set my nerves on edge."
Warily, the Persian settled back into his seat, watching the man's agitated pacing. "Erik, you ought to move from here."
"And go where? Do you think I like to return down here, like a wounded animal retreats down to its lair?" He spun around and threw the cut-glass snifter violently into the fireplace.
The dregs of brandy ignited, sending greenish flames licking upward, illuminating the dim room in a temporary hellish intensity. Behind the mask, Erik's dilated eyes caught the red-orange incandescence of the flames. For not the first time, Nadir was reminded of the old images from the sacred texts. He rose gracefully but swiftly to his feet, inclining his head toward his host. "As you wish, Erik. I think perhaps I will leave you now, before you are tempted to do me a mischief as well."
"Go, then," Erik snarled, not looking at him. "Go back to your flat and your servants and your life. I have no need of you!"
The Persian gave him one last disdainful nod, and was gone. For a long minute Erik glared venomously down into the flames, until the crackling of the fire was interrupted by a distant soprano voice. Fists clenched, he stood, staring up at the ceiling, then without pausing to examine the repercussions for his next action, snatched his hat from the hook in the foyer, and cloak swirling, swiftly ascended to the upper floors of the Opera.
Thank you for reading, and please review.
Notes—
Yes, that is a reference to Susan Kay's Phantom.
Le tribut de Zamora is an opera in four acts by Charles Gounod, his last work for the stage. The opera premiered at the Palais Garnier on 1 April 1881.
Does Christine choose Don Giovanni, because it was based off of the Don Juan legend? Or because of the unpleasant fate of the lead character? We may never know.
Bebakhshid—Farsi-"I'm sorry"
