Hide No Longer
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"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies."
-Aristotle
xxx
It was a warping of the world, he thought, sitting and playing idle melodies waiting for Christine to glide through the door. Part of him was locked in the role of her Angel of Music and urged him to run, hide, lest she catch a glimpse of him. Another, larger part was vividly aware of the small velvet box in his chest pocket. The ring was his secret talisman, the private residue of his love. He would be content with being her teacher.
He would be anything she wanted him to be.
A faint waft of air brought the scent of violets to his nose and he turned to find Christine standing barely a pace from the piano bench. How had he not sensed her near? Was music's hold so complete that even his angel's presence couldn't break its spell? The faint, plaintive melody ended with a discordant clang. The sparkle in her eyes hypnotized him.
"Oh please don't stop," she begged, reaching out as if to touch his shoulder. Every muscle in his body tensed, waiting, yearning for that casual touch . . .
Her arm fell slack to her side.
"What were you playing? An opera?" she asked eagerly.
Erik honestly didn't know. Lost in thought, he could have played any note under heaven. Maybe even Don Juan. The melodies were carved into his mind, engrained in his fingers. He hoped she hadn't heard it. Don Juan was another private madness, unfit for his angel's ears.
"It was nothing," he dismissed his idle playing with a shrug.
An awkward silence fell between them, during which Erik carefully took in her appearance. She looked well rested and nourished, steady in limb and breath. Assured of her sound health, he noted the stifling dress she wore, similar to the one she'd worn the night before. This one was somber black instead of gray, like she was in mourning. It rested on his tongue to say she could wear whatever she wished, but refrained. He did not want to insinuate that he was looking at her body. Very impolite and ungentlemanly.
Surely Raoul de Chagny would never say such a thing! Erik thought sourly.
Likewise, Christine seemed to be studying him. He wondered what she saw. He had forgone his cape, coat and gloves and now sat in shirtsleeves and sapphire blue waistcoat. As long as his cufflinks were firmly affixed, she would not see the ravages of morphine on his forearms . . .
At last, she mustered up the courage to ask, "M—Maestro . . . before we begin my lesson, I would . . . I would like very much to know more about you."
Erik's jaw clenched and a sharp, wicked thing called panic rose up in his chest. The 'more' she wanted was full of trapdoors, torture chambers and warped mirrors. She would go mad if he told her 'more.'
"What would you like to know?" he strove to keep his voice at an even keel. Slowly, gently, he urged, she is still so much a child. She gifted him with a blazing smile. He could only offer a faint curl of lip in return, a cold sweat breaking on his skin.
"First, what is your name?"
Erik nearly laughed.
"Do I not have names enough? Opera Ghost, Angel, Maestro . . . take your pick." Christine thought for a moment, and then replied, "Those are titles. A name is different. A name means more."
Erik was taken aback. He knew better than anyone of Christine's sharp intelligence, but these moments of maturity brought him up short.
Christine. Christ-follower. A sweet and pious name given to her by her God-fearing Swedish parents. The word was synonymous with beauty and love to him.
Erik. Honorable ruler. An ironic mockery of his life, but appropriate, considering. He was the self-styled emperor of the Opera House, King of Music.
"Erik," he offered shyly, "my name is Erik." Her eyes softened as if he had given her a precious gift. Erik's chest was tight, aching.
"Erik," she repeated, almost reverently.
God help me, he thought, every fiber of his being yearning for her to say his name again. With her hair spilled across his pillow, silken arms reaching out to him . . . He sliced off the end of that thought and threw it into the fire.
She was his student, for God's sake!
"How do you know Madame Giry?" she asked. Erik swallowed. They were skirting ever closer to a trap door—this one with a corpse and a cage behind it.
"I met her when I was a boy. She . . . was of some service to me, and she brought me to the Populaire," he remarked, pleased that he hadn't been forced to lie. He hoped this skeletal picture was enough to satisfy her curiosity.
"Did you learn to sing at the Conservatoire?" Now Erik did utter a sharp bark of mirthless laughter. His sweet innocent love! The Conservatoire in all its wisdom would have shooed him with a broom—as if he was vermin.
"No. Singing as always been an innate talent of mine," he said solemnly, noticing that his amusement had startled her. She nodded in swift agreement.
"Do you live nearby?" Erik grinned. His home was six levels beneath her delicate dancer's feet.
"Yes, as a matter of fact," he replied, almost enjoying this verbal sparring match. His ridiculous preoccupation with deception and illusion. A few carefully couched sentences and she would think of him as a respectable businessman with a flat on Foubourg Saint-Honoré . . .
No! he thought viciously. He had deceived her for years as her Angel. The least he could do now was honor her with truth.
"My home is five levels below the opera house, along the underground lake. I have lived there for roughly ten years," he stated baldly, watching her reaction. The faint smile was uncertain, as if she was deciding whether or not he was teasing her. At his cool silence, a glittering interest lit up her face.
"Will . . . will you take me there sometime? I'd like to see it," she asked and Erik wondered at her newfound boldness. Scarcely a year ago, it took her days to muster up the will to ask to even see him!
"Perhaps. Now, enough questions. We must begin your lesson," Erik said shortly, tripping mentally over the thought of Christine in his home—his walls covered with his attempts to capture her in every medium, cluttered with the accrued curios of ten years abroad and another ten as a recluse.
An angel cast down from Heaven.
A flaw in his fantasy presented itself. He had an engagement ring, but would his lady spend her days languishing in the darkness of a sewer?
Certainly not!
To be authentic, he must have a house, a manor, a palace! Nothing less would do for his angel.
XXX
Christine heard the note of command in his voice and obeyed immediately, standing with perfect posture to his right—his masked side. He—Erik! Such a simple name to encompass such a curiously complex man—transfixed her attention so completely she was scarcely aware of anything else. She studied him in profile: the mask's shape and stern expression, so perfectly starkly white. His sideburns were impeccably groomed, framing large, neat ears. His eye, a shining jewel set in a socket of marble, were a dark, brooding shade today—like the sky before a storm.
"Am I interrupting your daydreaming, child?" irritation was an ugly yellow streak across the kaleidoscopic pallet of his voice. She nearly scowled at the soubriquet. He had had no trouble calling her by her Christian name last night!
"I'm sorry, Maestro," she replied automatically.
Erik's fingers danced over the ivory keys, the cue for a scale. His scrutiny was intense and complete as he listened to her sing, and Christine felt a strange, clutching thrill at being the center of his undivided attention. Her voice soared and as the last note faded Erik's pale, long-fingered, unbearably elegant hands stilled.
"Brava, Christine. Your voice seems to be unscathed." Christine flushed under the simple words of praise, idly twisting her mother's silver ring around her little finger.
"Thank you," she mumbled. He stood and Christine was struck once more by his poetry of movement, the graceful strength ringing from every gesture. The visible half of his face was set in an expression of regret.
"Once again, I seek your forgiveness, Christine. Your illness was my fault." Christine frowned, processing this. Yes, it was his fault, in an obscure fashion. Did he think that she blamed him?
"Nonsense," she said, in response to her thoughts. His brow arched, a bold stroke of ink. Nervous, she plunged on, "I—I don't blame you for getting a cold, Maestro. It was my choice to go to the roof, and stubbornly staying there in the rain. To blame you . . . why, that would be like blaming Madame Giry for stubbing my toe dancing!" A smile flirted with the corners of his mouth, his grey-blue eyes glinting.
"Well in that case, what say we continue with your lesson?" he suggested, laughter adding a trembling edge of delight to his words. Christine's chin lifted very primly, even as her heart did merry somersaults in her chest at the sight of his faint smile.
"Yes, let's."
The initial discomfiture of their meeting slipped away as the lesson progressed. Erik, as she now thought of him in her innermost being, was the same gentle, but exacting tutor as before. It was the same—yet so radically different. So many barriers between them were erased, but new ones replaced them. As her Angel, his mystery was explicable, and awed by the gift of his presence, Christine had striven to abide by his every wish. The aura of mystery was still there, as thick and enveloping as his black cloak.
Christine hungered for the details of his life. Where had he acquired all of his talents? An architect and designer, a composer and magician . . . instead of cowering before his celestial majesty, now Christine was cowed by the magnitude of his genius! More questions trembled on her lips, but she bit them back. She had pestered him enough today.
As the lesson drew to a close, Erik eyed her coolly. Christine's heart leapt to her throat under the weight of his significant silences, each a benediction in their own right. Her tongue darted out to wet her dry lips. What was he thinking?
"Will you carry a message for me, my child, to the most excellent Madame Giry?" he said, each syllable caressed as they flew from his throat.
A man he claimed to be, but Christine was convinced otherwise. Men were plain and rude and crass. None had Erik's quiet, dignified grace, his incredible intellect, his angel's voice.
"Of course," she replied. He didn't appear to move, but when she blinked, an envelope appeared in his hand, emblazoned with the red death's head of the Opera Ghost's seal. Christine accepted it, the paper smooth and heavy in her hands.
"Am I carrying Monsieur Lefavre's new instructions?" her tone held the faintest accusing ring. In addition to realizing he was in fact a man, there was also the jarring realization of his capacity as Opera Ghost. The frightful tales of him were dreadfully exaggerated, she knew, but he was extorting untold sums of money from the managers, as evidenced by the stipend Madame Giry received. The three of them were never in want for anything, and Christine knew for a fact that her income did not cover half of their expenses. If that sum was a paltry fraction of the Opera Ghost's salary, the true amount must be astronomical. Erik's eyes narrowed, his lips thinning in an expression of displeasure that made her palms sweat.
"No, child," he said, his tone unbearably gentle, "I am merely informing the good Madame that I will be taking a short leave."
Christine struggled to master her disappointment. How terribly selfish she was! Of course he had more to do than look after a naive girl like her! Christine stroked the gilt corner of the envelope.
"Where are you going, Maestro?"
"That is my own business."
The tone brooked no argument. Christine wilted. He must have changed his mind. He didn't want to be her tutor anymore. She looked up at him, committing his features to memory. This would be the last time she saw him. Words of devotion flew to her lips, but she swallowed them.
She had her dignity!
"Child." his voice was the warmth of the sun on her face, the tranquil expanse of a cloudless sky. His stride was soundless, and suddenly he towered over her, his eyes burning coals. A long, pale hand rose and her breath caught in her throat, every muscle and sinew of her body frozen. Sweet, terrible fear quivered in her belly. His hand hovered over her cheek for a fraction of a second, so close she could feel the warmth radiate from it. Then he sank into a neat bow.
"Take care."
And he was gone.
A red rose bound by a black ribbon rested on the piano bench.
XXX
God, she could kill a man with those eyes of hers! His gentle rebuke had brought naked pain to those rich brown orbs, framed with such long, graceful lashes. The bruising softness of her heart only made him love her with an even greater tenderness. Erik's heart seemed ready to burst free from his chest, unnerved by that last moment. He had nearly touched her. Had she frozen in fear? Confusion? Revulsion?
He was too much of a coward to risk losing her forever to reveal the depth of his love. No, it was far better to be her tutor, to have her voice that was irrevocably his, even if her heart and body were beyond his reach.
The pain would pass in time.
To numb it, to hide from the ugly truths of the world as he had in a gypsy cage, he began construction on his fictional life.
A ring was only the beginning!
Erik hailed a brougham cab.
"Train station. And be quick about it."
The man grunted his acquiescence and the brougham mingled with dozens of others along Paris' thoroughfares. With Lefavre marching merrily to the Opera Ghost's tune and all the Opera staff busily preparing for the new production, Erik had long planned a holiday of sorts from the Populaire. While unwilling to leave Christine for any reason, he realized that he must give her space, and time to come to terms with his deception and reality. In addition to this precious distance, Erik was shamelessly indulging his fantasy.
Years ago, after returning from his travels on his journey northward from the port of Marseilles, he had bought a stately old manor on a whim. He was charmed by its exemplary architecture and its forgotten dignity in the French countryside, but since he had bought it, Erik had yet to set foot on the property. A deplorable waste, he realized, letting it molder and crumble.
Impatience ate at him as the brougham jostled through the congested streets of Paris. The stink and noise of humanity repelled him. Mired in traffic, Erik's anxiety climbed. The brougham's shabby walls closed in. Sweat broke on his skin. He remembered the tears shed in a dusty attic room, too terrified to emerge without the mask, he remembered the terror and filth of a gypsy cage. It took every molecule of his will not to burst from the brougham and run back to the safety of his home beneath the Opera.
Stop this foolishness! he scolded himself. What a fearsome ghost you are, scared of a cab!
Then the hansom lurched to a stop and interrupted Erik's thoughts. A moment later, Erik stepped out into the noise, pollution and crowd of a Parisian train station. He paid the driver and surveyed the shoving clutter of his surroundings with disdain. His loathing for humanity had not diminished over the years, though he had found exceptions. Minette he respected and held a degree of guarded, grateful affection for. And Christine . . . he shook himself from the thought of her.
As he made his way through the crowds, he noted the careless wallets and purses, sagging with the weight of their bounty, seemed to beg for him to snatch them away. He had always had a talent for theft, though he thought it a commoner's means of accruing wealth. Erik thought himself above that sort of all too simple play. How the Daroga had lectured him in his Persian manner on the sin of stealing, never mind the betraying glint of interest he had shown when Erik offered to teach him.
Poor Nadir, a pious Muslim, playing truant with a true pariah. Yes, he thought to himself, remembering a ship ablaze, the screams of terrified horses echoing across the water. Poor Nadir, left with nothing but an infidel to mourn his loss.
He sat on a bench in the sunlight; an old woman sitting beside him stared at his mask pointedly, whispering to the man—obviously her husband—seated on her other side. Erik reached into his waistcoat pocket and heard a muted gasp. Rolling his eyes at the melodrama, he pulled out his gold pocket watch and checked the time. Ten past three o'clock. Damn. Erik would now have to wait another torturous hour among this rabble.
A gendarme marched by with his hand nonchalantly on his pistol, whistling—quite badly in Erik's opinion—a bawdy tune. As he passed by, he noted Erik and slowed his pace. Erik busied himself with his watch, matching the clock on the station wall precisely, all the while feeling the weight of the gendarme's curious glance. When Erik looked up and lifted an eyebrow in innocuous question, the gendarme lifted his hands in careless supplication, tipped his cap to Erik and moved on. As the man walked away, Erik tucked his Punjab lasso back up his sleeve. The man was lucky he hadn't investigated. Even in the rare event that his Punjab had failed, the dagger inside his suit coat would deter any attack on his person.
Erik rested an ankle on the opposite knee and waited, seething at the stinking humanity surrounding him. Commuters and families on holiday and old couples enjoying a day in the countryside surged in eddying masses into the station like a hive of bees. They twittered and ran and crashed into one another, chattering gaily about the inane nuances of their everyday lives, arguing over pointless things, living. They were all so blissfully ignorant of how blessed they were. Of their normalcy.
Oh, how Erik longed to walk proudly in the sunshine with Christine on his arm as so many young couples did. Could he even dream of such an outcome, when all he received were cold stares and threats?
Before Erik could sink any deeper into the bitter cesspool of depression, a whistle blew. Relief trickled through him. His train was merely late. He shouldered his way through the crowd and handed the conductor his ticket, appropriated several weeks prior. The man's weak eyes peered at Erik's ticket from behind thick half-moon spectacles. He stamped the ticket and glanced up. Upon seeing his masked visage, the conductor paled.
"H—here you are, Monsieur. Have a pleasant day." Erik smiled tightly. He hated their staring eyes, their whispers and snickering, gawking at the freak in the cage! Man was a cruel, stupid race.
"Good day," he said, frigidly polite.
He surged past gawking patrons and mounted the stairs. A piercing whistle screamed over the cacophony of the goodbyes and the crowds, announcing the train's exit. The floorboards shivered under his feet as train lumbered from the station. Once safely immured in his sleeper car, he locked the door and flared the gas lamp. Satisfied with the train's sparse accommodations, Erik looked around his suite. Though first class, the bed was cramped, with a sparse desk, tiny chest of drawers and washbasin and laver with a chamber pot tucked discreetly underneath.
It was also stifling.
Even Erik, who was never overly bothered by extremes in temperature, began to feel tiny rivulets of sweat meander down his neck and chest. He moved unsteadily to the window and muscled it open with a hideous screech. He gingerly pulled the mask from his face. The rough, pitted skin underneath was rubbed raw by the grain of the leather and the film of sweat trapped under it. The fresh air pouring in smelled of rain and washed his bare face, invigorating him.
Erik hunched over the tiny desk and began to write, the strokes of his pen carefully accounting for the lurching of the train. There was much to do: finding suitable, trustworthy staff, overseeing the quality of the repairs and accommodations—most of the masonry he could do himself, but he must find quality stone, limestone or marble would do nicely— and there was the task of shifting some of his wealth from the Populaire to the country. . .
Erik touched the small velvet box in his vest pocket and dreamed.
XXX
Christine could feel the prickle of watching eyes on the back of her neck during choir practice. It was not her Angel's—Erik's!—comforting presence, but Meg, emanating concern. Of course her best friend would see through the façade of cheerfulness she wore.
She had faithfully delivered the letter to Madame Giry. To her chagrin, the Madame simply tossed the missive onto her desk to read later. She contemplated peeling it open, just so she could commit his last words to memory, trace the shapes of his handwriting, touch the parchment he had touched. Christine put effort into her smile, hoping to placate Meg. She hadn't the energy to conjure a plausible explanation for her behavior. The weak grin she received in turn told her that Meg remained unconvinced. Her hazel eyes blazed the message: We need to talk!
Hours meandered by, altered only by the activity Christine performed, lacking inspiration or focus. Monsieur Reyer and Madame Giry scolded her repeatedly. Those harsh words, once enough to send her into nervous apologies and tense overcompensation, now bounced off a curious wall of . . . apathy. The notes she sang flattened under its weight, the steps she danced dragged.
Never had Erik's pervasive influence ever been more apparent. True, when he had rejected her, she had moped for days. But always, those vague embers of hope remained that he would forgive her and return. Now he had returned and gone again, a darting shadow in her dreams. He left her reeling in the vacuum left by his absence. Christine could never bring herself to be irritated at her Angel, but Erik was different. He was a man with all the talents of a true genius, but prone to all the vices of a common man. He was her teacher, her Maestro, and he had left!
Well, I refuse to let him dictate my mood a moment longer! Christine thought defiantly.
In her mind's eye, she imagined him returning from his holiday and her refusing to see him. There! Let him wait upon her whim for once! The thought pleased her, gave her a precious iota of autonomy. Without it, she would be swallowed by his driving force, enslaved by the suggestion of his smile. Her mood lightened after that.
Christine snuck away after dinner. She wanted to light a candle for her father. It seemed like ages since she'd done that—longer still since she'd visited his tomb. Guilt assailed her at the thought of the roses she laid on the grave drying out and the petals fluttering away in the wind. Madame Giry's gaze slid over her with something Christine couldn't identify, but she made no comment. Christine had reached the stairs when Meg's voice called out to her. Christine bit her lip. No doubt her curious, garrulous friend would be brimming with questions as to her odd behavior. Tonight, Christine hadn't the heart to dodge her queries—all made with the best of intentions.
"Christine! Christine, wait!" An edge of hurt embroidered Meg's bubbly voice and Christine stopped, looking appropriately abashed. Meg touched her shoulder, her scrunched brow and frowning mouth evidence of her worry and vexation.
"What's with you today? Why have you been avoiding me?" Meg fisted her hands on her hips in a perfect imitation of her mother. Christine sighed, and grabbed her friend's hand.
"Come here. Let's talk in the chapel."
The temperature plummeted as they descended, until Christine could see faint wisps of her steaming breath in the chapel's dim interior. Meg voiced a faint protest, but the words fell on deaf ears. This sad, neglected chapel would always be a place of magic for her, a mystical grotto where a wizard lived—no, it was more than that, holy. Here she had met her Angel. She found beauty in the chipped, mildewed murals, the stale smell of closed air and wet stone, the play of rippling light reflected from a gas lamp onto the sewage pipe outside the stained glass window.
She released Meg's hand and shielded her wavering taper with her hand, enjoying its faint aura of warmth. Only two others had lit candles—out of a population numbering in the hundreds, it was a fair reason for the chapel's neglect. The candle set above her father's icon had been changed since she was here last, a tall, proud taper whose wick had yet to be lit. Christine carefully lowered the taper and touched the golden flame to the fresh wick. A tiny kernel of flame, spectral blue, flared into life, shriveling the white wick black and undulating into golden maturity. Christine blew out the taper and took a seat in the alcove under the stained glass window. She patted the pitted stone beside her and Meg sat with a petulant flare of skirt. One blond eyebrow rose.
"Well? Aren't you going to tell me why you've been acting so strangely?"
Erik's name quivered on her lips. The same defiant voice bucked under Erik's unspoken injunction for secrecy. He was no Angel, she need not fear being branded a madwoman who heard voices inside her head.
He'll always be there . . .
The thought comforted her.
Christine smiled, taking Meg's hand in her own and squeezing it.
"Meg, I can explain everything."
XXXX
A/N: A note on my Christine: I am trying to stay true to the spirit of the character—a shy, dreamy young woman slightly lacking in spine. She has been coddled all her life, by her father, by Madame Giry and by Erik. But for all that, she is still a young woman—a teenager—and is prone to rebellion, testing her limits and exploring her sensuality. That is what I am trying to capture without seeming too unpredictable. I love delving into the hopes and motivations of these beloved characters. Let me know what you think.
Thank you everyone for your encouragement.
FieryPen37