A/N: This is one of my favourite chapters of this story, so I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
PS: Riene – I'm so glad you're still alive and well in the fandom, and thanks so much for the review. I'm happy someone remembers me, at least!
CHAPTER IV
When Christine saw the carnage left behind by the mob, she knew, as clearly and succinctly in her mind as the most perfect soprano note, that nothing could have survived. Initially, she was taken aback by the sheer level of destruction that greeted her on the threshold to Erik's domain, momentarily stunned into immobility. She recovered quickly when she remembered why she had come; she had to be certain, to see for herself his final resting place, no matter how painful the journey.
She picked her way through the debris in near darkness, her feeble gas-lamp doing little to illuminate a safe path. She felt bitter tears sting her eyes – or was it the remnants of smoke, still? – as she surveyed the damage. All of the beautiful objects and furniture were destroyed; the house was a shell, its wood panelling burnt and blackened and revealing, in places, the cold, stone walls beneath.
She crouched to pick up some sheets of music, buried beneath a pile of dark wood which she presumed had been Erik's piano. The edges were charred, yet she recognised the composition. An early draft of Don Juan Triumphant: that fateful scene between Don Juan and Aminta. Christine's tears grew more difficult to blink back; she let the music flutter to the ground, back to its silent grave.
There was yet more to investigate, and Christine pressed onwards, wiping at her eyes. She stumbled over some obstacle on the floor and cried out, the lamp falling from her hand, arms flailing wildly for something to hold onto. She braced herself for hitting the ground, yet no impact came.
Strong arms caught her, supported her… and for the briefest, most wonderful of moments, her heart leapt at the thought that he might have survived. But the hands were warm and dark-skinned; she was pulled to her feet more roughly than she had expected; when her eyes met those of her rescuer, her last, grasping hope shattered. As everything came crashing down around her, Christine found herself weeping uncontrollably in front of a silent stranger, who held her awkwardly at arms' length and carried about him the soft aroma of incense and tea.
The stranger patted her cautiously on the shoulder, as she tried to calm herself down. Eventually, when she had regained some composure and dignity, she pulled away and found the courage to speak. She examined his face in the dim light, and found it wholly unfamiliar.
"Who are you," she asked in a hushed whisper, "and what are you doing in this house?"
The man looked too well off to be foraging for things to steal, and she could tell he was foreign from his general appearance, but nothing about him struck a chord of reminiscence.
He gave a polite bow and spoke in fluent, accented French. "My name is Nadir Khan," he told her. "I am… I was, I should say, a very dear friend of Erik."
Christine could not recall Erik ever mentioning a 'Nadir Khan', nor indeed anyone whom he considered a friend, and she felt a little betrayed. Putting her own memories to one side, however, she chose to focus on the foreign gentleman before her, and why he was prowling around Erik's darkened shell of a house.
Apparently sensing her desire for proof, Nadir reached into a pocket of his long coat, and brought out a black-edged note. Christine smiled grimly; it was proof, solid and undeniable, of Erik's sombre presence.
"Erik sent me this note," he said. "A farewell, of sorts, and a few final requests. It seems he wrote it a long time ago."
Christine could think of nothing to say to that. Erik would clearly have had the foresight, like any man, to write some form of will, and it seemed that Nadir was the executor. Realising her conduct thus far had been rather abrupt, she attempted to make things more amicable.
"I'm sorry; you must think me awfully rude," she said. "I haven't introduced myself, merely begun to interrogate you." She held out a hand. "I am-"
"Christine Daaé," he interrupted. "I know."
Suspicious again, Christine looked at him slightly askance, retracting her outstretched hand. "How…?"
"Erik spoke often of you," he told her. "I fear he has talked of little else since he met you."
There was a slight sparkle to Nadir's eyes, a light humour to his tone. Christine's heart warmed a little to know that Erik had clearly spoken so highly of her to his friend, even though the sentiment was apparently not reversed.
She eyed the letter in his hand, the desire to examine its mysterious contents near burning her with curiosity. Eventually, she could no longer quell the urge to see Erik's final message.
"May I… read the note?"
Nadir hesitated at first, drawing it slightly closer to himself, but then conceded: "I suppose there's no harm. Here."
Christine took the proffered letter, unfolding it carefully and reading the words with a degree of reverence. Erik's handwriting was scrawling and untidy in places, as though it had been written with a shaking hand, but the language was as typical of him as she could have anticipated.
If Erik had known what was to come, it was not obvious; the words were those of a man merely planning for his inevitable future demise, whether by natural causes or otherwise. There was no indication that he had anticipated the mob, nor was there any suggestion of suicidal intent. After all, that would have been a coward's way out, and Erik was no coward. Besides which, he had always been fond of a stirring finale.
Most of his requests were practical: what to do with his body, his funeral arrangements (or lack thereof, it seemed), and where to send his possessions. He had left Mme. Giry a small amount "for her friendship" and the rest was unspecific. He wanted his music and instruments salvaged by Nadir, the furniture given to appreciative others, the possessions sold or pawned and the subsequent money given to who- or whatsoever Nadir felt it fit for… indeed, he appeared to have left all the important decision-making to his old friend. Perhaps he had not been willing to admit that the world which had so scorned him was not such a bad place after all; or perhaps, equally, he could not bring himself to personally give anything back to a world which had been so cruel.
Christine was surprised to read the requests he had made of her, also. He quite specifically desired that she did not see his corpse, which she was glad about. He had requested one final visit from her, if the situation accommodated it, but he had been very stern to point out that if he were contagious or otherwise dangerous to health, she should not come, but communicate through Nadir anything she wished to say.
The letter was undated, offering no indication of when it might have been written. The only defining characteristic was Christine's own presence therein, which at least placed it within the last eighteen months.
She turned it over in her hands several times, looking, perhaps, for some kind of clue or indication that the note was merely hypothetical: a 'worst case scenario'. The back of the letter bore nothing more than occasional blotches of ink left over from heavy-handed pressure of the pen. Christine felt strangely disappointed.
Handing it back to Nadir, she thanked him politely.
"Were you expecting something more?" he asked.
She frowned a little. He was very intuitive, and it made her feel uncomfortable.
"No," she said, though in truth, she had been expecting more from the letter. "I was merely curious."
As Nadir re-folded the letter carefully and tucked it into his pocket, he said, "At least it explains my presence here, yes?" Christine gave a nod. "Though it certainly does not explain yours."
"I read the news," she explained, "in L'Epoque. I thought it might be safe to come here now. I… I don't know what I was hoping for." Except she knew full well what she had been hoping for, deep within herself; she had been yearning for some sign that the story in the newspaper was false, or mistaken. Nadir's letter had dispelled that hope in one fell swoop, and now she was at a loss.
Nadir placed a kind hand to her shoulder. "Take whatever you like," he said. "I'm sure Erik would prefer it that way, than for me to commandeer his possessions."
She gave a grateful nod. Yes, there was plenty she could salvage. But casting her gaze around the darkened room, she barely knew where to begin.
-w-
Christine's travel case contained those few objects she had managed to retrieve from the shell of Erik's home. There were only a few sheets of music left intact – a disembodied aria entitled Les Fleurs, and some pages from Don Juan Triumphant which appeared to be an early draft; his violin had escaped the carnage, through some miracle; and there were several trinkets redeemable from her bedroom, which the mob had seemingly ignored or overlooked.
Beneath her thick scarf, Erik's ring nestled protected against her heart, threaded onto a simple chain. She had discovered it safely ensconced inside a velvet box, hidden away behind one of the wooden panels on the wall. Uncovering it had been entirely accidental: casting her lamp around the room one final time before leaving, the light had revealed what looked to be a hinged compartment near the floor, slightly ajar from an attack to the wall.
She suppressed a shudder at the memory of that place: the empty tomb which had once been Erik's opulent residence. Above the compartment in the wall there was a vicious-looking dent at the height of his head; and for the first time, it had occurred to her the horrible circumstances of his death.
So many people had referred to him as a monster, something less than human. Christine knew all too well that Erik's murderers would feel no remorse for their actions. They considered they were doing the world a great justice by ridding it of such a creature. She had learnt little of his past, but knew that it had been tainted with violence and rejection. Nobody had stopped to look beyond the horror of his face.
Would I have stopped, she asked herself, if I had not already heard that voice? Even she had recoiled at first from the distorted visage, unable to quantify in her mind how something so hideous could create such a beautiful sound.
If only others had tried to understand; if only she herself could have made them listen. The only time she had spoken of Erik to Raoul was up on the rooftop of the Opera, before she had known any better. Christine was just as responsible for the misconception as those who had persecuted him, and – if she was honest – Erik himself had never sought to dispel the idea that he was a soulless monster; in fact, she pondered grimly, he had quite done the opposite. She considered him an avenging angel of the night, returning the favour to a world which had despised him from birth.
Christine thought – perhaps misguidedly – that she might have been able to tame him, given time. He was as wild as an unplucked rose, protected by the thorns of his self-loathing and yet just as impossible to resist. Christine had always suffered a weakness for roses, with their soft downy petals and beautiful colours; Erik had procured only the finest blooms for her, always blood crimson and perfect. It was only now, in retrospect, that she realised the bitter irony in such a gesture.
There had been no roses since that fateful rainy morning. Raoul had bought her flowers, of course; they adorned her bedroom and the drawing room and were always fresh. He had procured roses for her on one occasion alone: a beautiful arrangement of many different colours, with a single red rose at the centre. The sight of it had brought unprecedented tears to Christine's eyes and she had refused to have them in the house. After that, he dared not risk buying them again.
With a sigh, Christine shook herself both physically and mentally from the memory of Erik's house, shivering as a cold breeze blew in and chilled her. It would not do to dwell so much on things she could not change. Don't think about the things which might have been… The lyrics of the aria came back to her unbidden and she found herself humming the melody, etched for eternity in her memory.
The wind grew stronger, catching her hood and drawing it away from her head in a sudden gust. As she reached to readjust the garment, she froze, spinning to look behind her. The deck was still deserted, and yet… No, she told herself. You're being silly. It's just the wind.
She turned back again, pulling the hood up to cover her head once more, yet she could not shake the eerie feeling which swept over her. She knew it was impossible, but was convinced nonetheless of what she had heard. The wind had spoken; and its voice was so painfully familiar that she found herself struck dumb with shock, tears prickling her eyes, and a whispered name hanging in the air like her breath before her.
"Chrissssstiiiiine…"