September 18th 1892: Meg
By the time we were looking around in the twenty-sixth room, I started feeling desperate. It always was the same routine: My mother and I entered the room, and she called for Erik, saying there was an urgent matter she had to discuss with him. She figured that approach had the biggest chances of getting a response. I had agreed when she had explained it to me, but now I wasn't so sure anymore. What if the Opera Ghost simply wasn't in the mood for discussing business matters at the moment? Yet since I didn't have a better idea, I didn't say anything.
While my mother called for him, I did a quick search of the room, just in case Erik was hiding somewhere. That part was even more pointless than what my mother was doing. After all, he was a master of hiding. Unless he had fallen asleep in a corner, which was not very likely, my chances of finding him were virtually non-existent. Yet again, I kept my doubts to myself. I wanted to have at least a tiny part in the search, even if it was a pointless one.
Leaving the room and heading for the next one, I asked:
"Do you think we'll ever find him?".
"I told you," my mother replied. "We'll find him when he wants to be found."
"But when will that be?" I persisted.
She merely shook her head.
"If I knew that, I'd suggest that we go for a cup of tea and wait till that moment. Then we could just sit there without having to worry, and at the right time, Erik would show up. It would be nice, wouldn't it?" She gave me a lopsided smile.
"Very nice," I agreed. "But I doubt it's going to happen like that in reality. So we'll just have to go on searching." Her words had shown me that I just had to accept the situation the way it was, no matter how impatient I felt.
"We don't have a lot of time anymore, though," my mother said pensively after a moment.
"Why?" I wanted to know in surprise. I had assumed we'd simply continue till we had found him. "Do you think Erik's condition will become worse?"
"I have no idea," she answered. "For all we know, it can't become much worse than it already is. No, I was referring to something else. Haven't you paid attention to the time?"
"It's half past one," I answered automatically. We had just passed a grandfather clock in the corridor.
"Exactly," she said. "And what does that tell you?"
"Jean is waiting for Erik and me for over an hour now," I replied, feeling slightly guilty. "But I'm sure he'll understand it once I've explained everything to him."
"Yes, yes," she muttered, apparently growing a little impatient because I couldn't comprehend what she wanted to tell me. I knew that voice only too well. She used it a lot when she was talking to the chorus girls. "He's a wonderful man. But I was thinking of the people at the opera. At the moment, hardly anyone is here. Yet at two o'clock, when the lunch break will be over, that'll change quickly. We won't be able to continue coming into rooms, calling for the Opera Ghost, without being overheard. People are bound to grow suspicious, and you know how fast rumours spread here."
I nodded gloomily. There were few people who knew it as well as I did.
"What do you suggest then?" I asked. "Do you want us to stop searching altogether?"
"We can't do that," she replied. "You promised Christine we'd look for him, so we'll do it. I was just implying that we'll have to have a break, till…"
"Till when?" I argued, coming to a halt in front of the door to the room we had planned to search next. It was a small miracle that we hadn't walked past it without noticing it. "Once everyone is back, we won't have the chance to look around at all. And we won't have the time to do so either. There'll be the final rehearsal, and then we'll have the performance in the evening. In between I'll have to change into my costume and do my make-up, and you'll have all the little chorus girls at your side. Do you really want to wait until after the performance? Think of all the damage the Opera Ghost could have done by then."
I took a deep breath, hoping it would make me help calm down and feel less desperate. I couldn't see a way in which we'd be able to fulfill our normal tasks at the same time as looking for the Opera Ghost. It just wasn't possible.
My mother seemed to agree with my point of view, for she was looking doubtful now, too.
"We'll just have to make the best of the little time we have left," she decided, unlocking the door.
"Little time indeed," a voice behind us remarked all of a sudden. "Which business can be so important that it's worth keeping your daughter away from my table, dearest Antoinette?"
Turning around I found none other than my husband standing in front of us, looking at my mother expectantly.
"Jean!" I exclaimed, pulling him into a brief embrace. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, when neither you nor our guest showed up at our house, I thought it best to come here, in case something had happened," he explained. "So here I am."
"Here you are," I repeated, inwardly shaking my head. There couldn't be many men in Paris who came from the other end of the city, just to make sure everything was all right with their wives. A warm rush of affection spread through my body as I realised how lucky I was. "Something has indeed happened," I went on, forcing myself to remain matter-of-fact. Quickly I told him what he needed to know.
"So you've been looking through all the dressing rooms, one after the other?" he asked when I was finished. My mother and I nodded. "Well, then it's no wonder that I found you this quickly. You're not even on the first floor yet. It's good that I'm here now. You clearly need help."
"That's nice of you, Jean, but I doubt that you can help us much," my mother said, obviously trying to stay friendly despite the criticism. "I think I know what you're about to suggest, but we can't form two groups because the Opera Ghost will neither come to you nor to Meg."
"Groups were not what I had in mind," Jean corrected her. "I'd never let one of you wander around alone anyway. But I think that so far you've had the wrong approach to the subject. Searching all rooms would take far too long, even if the other people wouldn't return that soon. You've got to focus on the rooms where he's likely to appear, the rooms which are important to him, such as… the dressing room in which he used to teach Christine."
I smiled up at him. It was not as if I didn't appreciate his help, but he had obviously forgotten something.
"Jean… I've already been to the room with Christine, and he wasn't there," I informed him softly. "I told you about it just a few minutes ago. Don't you remember?" I tried not to sound too accusing. With all the things that had happened, I couldn't expect him to recall every little detail.
"Of course I remember it," he replied, giving my shoulder a playful little squeeze. "I might be slightly older than you, but I'm not that old yet. I mean the other dressing room in which Erik taught Christine. You once told me that he used to fetch her from her dormitory at night and brought her to a room in which he gave her lessons, before she sang the role of Elissa in ´Hannibal´ and moved to the room with the big mirror. Maybe he's in there." He smiled triumphantly.
My mother and I exchanged startled glances. It was clear that she was thinking the same as I did: How was it possible that Jean had thought of something like that, whereas we, who knew Erik for years, had never considered that possibility? Having a husband who loved the stories about the Opera Ghost had its advantages.
"You're an angel, love," I whispered, kissing his cheek.
Naturally my mother was a little more reserved, but she smiled and said:
"That is a very good idea, Jean. Thank you very much for supporting us.".
"Well, perhaps we should better wait with the praise till we've seen whether I'm right," he suggested, his cheeks redder than usual. He looked slightly uncomfortable. I sensed that he tried not to enjoy the role of the hero too much, lest his idea should turn out to be wrong.
"In that case, we should not waste any more time," my mother declared with her usual resolute manner. She locked the door again and turned on her heel. "I know where the room is. We could just make it there in time."
So we hurried down the corridor, my mother leading the way and Jean and I walking behind her. I seized his hand, wanting him to know that I was glad he was here, even if he was not right.
It took us more than ten minutes to get to the room, which was in a remote corner of the opera. We approached it as quietly as possible. My mother pushed down the door handle gently, and to our surprise the door opened without problems. Jean and I almost tripped over each other's feet in our silent struggle to peer inside.