September 18th 1892: the Opera Ghost
Actually I hardly knew what I was doing here, at this house, in the bushes. Everything had happened so very quickly in the last hours. It was no wonder that I needed a few moments to think about it in order to comprehend it.
Not even an hour ago, I had still been in the middle of considering what to do with those insolent chorus girls when a man had approached me in the corridor where I had been standing. He had beamed at me as if I were an old and dear friend he had been longing to meet.
"I was afraid I'd have to look for you in the whole building, M.Erik!" he had exclaimed. "But instead, I walk around the corner, and there you are!"
"Do I know you?" I had asked, thinking that maybe he had thought me to be someone else. But then, with my appearance that was hardly imaginable. Besides, he wasn't the first person to address me as Erik today.
"Of course you do, Monsieur," he had replied. "I'm Gabriel, the coachman of the de Chagnys. Is Madame here as well, or hasn't she found you yet?"
I had simply shaken my head. The man had gone on and on talking, telling me that he had been sent to look for me and that I had been supposed to come with him. I had listened and listened, trying to take in all he had said. It had been very strange. Did people really talk to me like that these days? The man had spoken with respect, just like Mme.Giry or one of the managers would have done it, but he had also been… friendly. There was no other term to describe it. He had talked to me like to a friend. Very strange indeed.
We had stood there for a while, talking and listening respectively, and I had half made up my mind to accompany him, when a woman had come running down the corridor. The man and she had seemed to know each other, for they had launched into a heated conversation right away. I had given up trying to understand it almost instantly. It had been simply too complicated with two people talking instead of one, making comments on things I had no idea of.
The conversation had not been long. After just a few minutes, the woman had addressed me.
"You've got to come with us now, M.Erik," she had said urgently.
I had been too surprised by being talked to like that to react at first, so she had simply grabbed my hand and tried to drag me along with her. Such a behaviour had puzzled me even more. People who wished to remain alive did not treat me like a stubborn child.
My other hand had flown to the Punjab Lasso at once, yet a look into the woman's eyes had held me back. She had looked utterly terrified, but also determined. I had sensed that she'd have done whatever she could have to make me come with her, so I had given in. Moreover, I had planned to go to the de Chagny house anyway, and if there had been one thing I had understood from the conversation, it had been that they had wanted me to accompany them to exactly that house. And the chorus girls would still be there tomorrow, just as insolent as today.
So we had left the opera together. A coach had been waiting for us at the entrance. It had been a very old coach, and I had hesitated for a moment, since I was used to more elegant forms of travelling. Yet the woman had pulled me along by the hand she had still been holding, and I hadn't even made an attempt to kill her. The Opera Ghost – or rather, the M.Erik – they knew didn't seem to do such things, and although it was a drastic change, I didn't mind at all.
During the journey, both the man and the woman had tried to make me remember things which they had claimed had happened in the last few days, but the success had been very limited. Every now and then, their words had made pictures of beggars or a bag of bloody intestines flash up in my mind, but I hadn't been able to hold onto them. It had been a rather frustrating experience for all of us.
When we had arrived at the gates of a huge house, we had found them blocked by another coach, from which a man had just emerged.
"Thank you very much for bringing me here!" he had called cheerfully at the driver. "You have no idea how much you've helped me!"
Watching the man walk to the gate and pull it open, I had suddenly felt a powerful wave of antipathy. I hadn't been sure who that man had been, but it had been clear that I did not like him.
"M. le Comte!" the woman had addressed him, and the man had turned around to face us.
"Larisse, Gabriel…" he had said slowly, a frown appearing on his face. "What are you doing here? And you!" He had looked at me, and I had seen the same feeling I had had in his eyes. This had been the Vicomte, there had been no doubt about it. "Why aren't you inside, protec- Oh my God!"
He and I had looked over to the house in the same moment. There was smoke coming from it in thick clouds, and flames were licking at the roof.
"What's going on?" the Vicomte had wanted to know, his face almost as white as the shirt he had been wearing. "Where are Christine and the children?"
"They're inside, together with Jacqueline and Jacques," the woman called Larisse had replied. "Terrible things have happened since you left, Monsieur." She had repeated everything she had already told me in the coach, and the Vicomte had grown even paler. "And now those… people have set the house on fire," she had finished. "Madame and everyone else are in the living room, but they can't get out through the windows because there is a man standing in front of them, a man with a pistol! He let me go, and I went to the opera to fetch M.Erik right away. It's so good that you're here as well. Together, you'll be able to – "
Nothing could have prepared me for what had happened next. In one moment, the Vicomte and I had still been listening to Larisse, and in the next, his fist had collided with my face. Fortunately he had hit the masked side, which was why he had been howling in pain as his knuckles came into contact with the smooth porcellain.
"I told you to protect them!" he had yelled, preparing himself to strike again. "I even allowed you to live in the house. If I had known you'd leave them alone…"
This time, I had seen his fist coming and seized him by the wrist quickly, while my free hand had fumbled for my Punjab Lasso. Perhaps I had indeed become a little more friendly towards other people in the time I couldn't recall, but I'd never let this man hit me.
"Messieurs!" the man called Gabriel had said sharply, stepping between us. "Stop it this instant."
"Yes, stop it," Larisse had agreed. "M.Erik didn't leave your family alone for such a long time because he wanted it. He… there's something wrong with him… with his mind, I mean. He doesn't seem to remember anything that had happened recently."
"Really?" the Vicomte had asked, massaging the wrist I had just let go of. "He seems just the same to me. How – ?"
"Can we discuss that later, please?" Larisse had interrupted him. "We've got to save the others. You can still talk or hit each other later."
I had nodded absent-mindedly, secretly thinking that next time, I'd be the one to have the first punch. I did have my pride, after all. Still I had followed the Vicomte around the house without further comment, although I wasn't sure why I had been doing so.
So that was how I had come to crouch in this bush. Even as I thought about it now, it sounded absurd. But then, the truth often did.
One thing was certain: There were indeed people here who needed help. I had seen them as I had crept into the bush. They were standing at the window of what I assumed was the living room, looking frightened. I had seen the reason as well. The whole house around them was on fire. Thick grey smoke was billowing out of windows on the first floor, and there also were flames dancing on the windowpanes on the ground floor. The living room seemed to be the only one that wasn't on fire yet.
Involuntarily, I was seized by a wave of something I rarely felt: pity. I didn't know any of those people I could hardly see from my position close to the ground, but I wasn't indifferent towards them. There seemed to be something like a bond between them and me, a bond that was pulling me towards them. I didn't want them to die. One of them was just a boy, and there was a girl as well, held outside by a huge man. And one of the women inside was… I pushed a few leaves aside to get a better look. Yes, it was Christine. At least her I'd recognise anywhere.
"You're too late!" a man in the middle of the group called as the Vicomte and I leapt out of the bushes with a shout. It was the man who had spoken before, the one that had shouted so loudly that approaching the people without being spotted hadn't been a problem for us. "I won't let you come here and spoil my plan, after all that I've done! I won't allow it!"
I was about to reply that it was hardly his place to decide whether I saved Christine, when I saw the pistol in his hand and grew more cautious. The Vicomte approached him from the other side, yet the man pointed his pistol at him.
"You won't get them!" he yelled, his voice breaking. "I'll rather shoot them all!" With these words he turned and aimed his pistol right at the boy. He was so small that only half of his head was visible, but I didn't fail to notice the fear in his eyes. He looked at me, and his pleading glance shot directly into my heart.
It was as if a switch was being turned inside my head. A blur of images and sounds rushed past me, and then I saw clearly again. I didn't know why I had left the present behind or how I had done so, but it was a fact that I was needed here and now. Philippe needed me. My godson needed me. Without pausing to think, I threw myself against the man, knocking him to the ground. In that moment, I was back to being…
…Erik.