September 18th 1892: Christine
"Get rid of her?" the young man echoed, sounding surprised. His words drowned my cry. "But surely you don't mean – "
"You know perfectly well what I mean," the man whom the others had referred to as Master before interrupted him impatiently. "And don't act as if you hadn't done it before. Now hurry up a little! It's nearly evening, and you all know what will happen tonight."
The men murmured something in agreement, but I couldn't make out the words. I didn't care either. What did it matter if I heard their plan if they'd murder me anyway? I wouldn't be able to help anyone. Panic spread through my body, turning my breath into gasps. What could I do to save myself? As I had already noticed before, there was no place to hide in the room. And even if there had been… What would have been the point in hiding if they knew I was there? They'd surely find me.
Perhaps I could pull open the door and run away. But then, I had no idea how many people were standing outside. For all I knew, there could be a dozen men armed with pistols and knives. They'd never let me pass without a fight, and fighting was a topic I didn't know the first thing about. I had been brought up to believe that women didn't fight. They had men to do it for them, men who protected them.
But where were those men for me now? Raoul was somewhere in Oslo, a city miles and miles away from here. Maybe he was just talking to his business partners or having dinner in a nice restaurant. Did he think of me at all? Of course he did. He thought of me all the time. But he had no idea what was happening to me. He was probably imagining me at home with the children, not locked up somewhere with criminals.
Or perhaps he imagined me with Erik. I realised with a start how much I must have hurt him. I had been so selfish, putting my own happiness above everyone else's. Was this the way a woman of twenty-eight years should behave? No! My father would have been deeply ashamed if he had known that his daughter was carelessly playing with the hearts of two men.
I had hurt Erik, too. I had kissed him, made love to him, even agreed to be his wife for a few days. I had raised his hopes again and again, while in truth I wasn't sure about my own feelings. And those were just a few of my mistakes. At the moment I felt as if I hadn't done anything right in my life. And now it was too late for it.
I didn't get up from the floor when the door was opened a few moments later. I couldn't have managed to run away, so what was the point in trying it? I felt as if I were a hundred years old and very, very tired. Even lifting my head seemed too exhausting. I only did it when a pair of legs came to a halt directly in front of me. I looked up into the face of the man I had met in the corridor below the opera. So I had been right about that. Yet it didn't matter anymore.
"Oh… you're awake," the man said. He sounded as though he didn't like that fact too much. "Well then…"
"I won't fight," I told him calmly.
"I… I… erm, didn't expect you to," he gave back. I noticed that he hadn't been stammering when he had been talking to the other men. Could it be possible that I was making him nervous? What a strange irony! A victim making her murderer nervous…
"Just do it then," I encouraged him. I was no longer afraid. My state was beyond fear, beyond panic and beyond the pointless hope that someone would rescue me. There was nothing I could do, and I accepted it.
"Well then…" the man said again. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol. It was shiny and new and didn't seem to fit to the man or the room at all. Thinking about the pistol was completely inappropriate, but it was better than thinking about what was to come.
The man lifted his hand with the pistol in it, and a moment later I felt pain spread through my head like liquid fire. The images of my children swam before my eyes. Then the world went black.
RaoulI glanced at my pocket watch for the third time in the last fifteen minutes, giving a sigh. I couldn't make up my mind whether time was moving too quickly or too slowly. On the one hand it was too slow, for the hands on my watch had hardly moved since the last time I had had a look at them. Yet on the other hand it was too fast, for it was nearly getting dark, and the coach still hadn't reached Paris.
I was about to stuff the watch back into my pocket when I thought better of it and placed it on my thigh instead. At least I'd save myself the effort of pulling it out yet again in a few minutes' time. I held the watch to my ear, thinking that perhaps I had forgotten to wind it, but I could hear a soft, constant ticking sound. So it was working. It was just time which wasn't moving properly.
Sighing again, I put the watch on my leg again and leaned forward in my seat to talk to the coachman.
"Can't we go faster?" I asked.
"We could, but if we did, the horses would grow exhausted very quickly," the coachman replied. "We'd either need new ones or let these ones have a good long break. Yet since you insisted on having the breaks as short as possible, we have to make do with the energy we have."
Of course I understood the hidden accusation. I knew that the coachman would have preferred finding a place to stay for the night and go on in the morning. I didn't blame him. If I had been him, I'd have probably wanted the same. But then, he didn't care in which city he was, as long as somebody paid him for being there. I, on the other hand, was desperate to get home as soon as possible.
"All right, all right," I said. "Do what you can. How long will it be till we'll reach Paris?"
The coachman shrugged.
"It's hard to guess, Monsieur," he answered. "I haven't taken this road very often. An hour, two, maybe more… I'm not sure."
"Thank you," I muttered, leaning back in my seat again. Since there was nothing I could do to speed up the journey, I could as well try to get a little rest.
My day had been more exhausting than I'd have believed possible. I had needed several hours of discussion till the Norwegians had agreed to let me go without thinking badly of me or my business. They simply hadn't understood why I had been so keen on leaving. But then, how could they have understood it? Their wives were surely not sitting at home with a potentially dangerous man who was in love with them, while being threathened and possibly attacked.
I hadn't been able to stand the uncertainty any longer. I just had to know what was going on. At day-time I had always tried to get a French newspaper in order to find out whether something extraordinary had been going on in Paris. There had never been anything in it, but that had only made me more anxious. What if an attack simply hadn't made it into the paper? The nights had been even worse. I had imagined the most terrible scenes, which had kept me awake for hours at a time. It was no wonder that I was tired now.
Tonight I'd sleep in my own bed again, and there'd be my wife lying next to me. At least I hoped so. This was something no newspaper had been able to tell me about, of course. I had to admit that those worries had been just as bad for my sleep as the ones about an attack, perhaps even worse. I hadn't received a letter from Jacqueline, but this probably only meant that she was more loyal to Christine than to me… or else the Phantom had intimidated her. That was possible as well.
I turned my head to the other side and closed my eyes. I didn't want to think about those things now, or I'd never be able to rest. I told myself firmly that I'd find out everything soon enough. Worrying would only make me more anxious. I'd sleep now, and by the time I'd wake up, we'd have already reached the city. Christine would welcome me with open arms and tell me that nothing bad had happened. We'd be happy again. I fell asleep with a smile on my face.