V

I was learning very quickly how demanding of a teacher he was, and I wondered how Mother had been able to study with him for more than a day. By the end of our first day of lessons, I was exhausted and irritated, and I was certain that his patience had been tried as well.

On our first day of lessons, he woke me by playing Mozart's "Dies Irae" from the Requiem. It was ironic that he'd chosen to wake me with a work entitled "Day of Wrath," wasn't it? I wasn't sure if he'd intentionally chosen that piece or not, but it was loud enough to wake me and the dead as well. The poor dead, being woken up by something that bespoke the Day of Judgment! As soon as the organ ceased to play my heartbeat returned to normal and I was able to breathe again.

"Good morning, Phillippe," he said brightly, coming into my room shortly afterward. "Are you awake?"

I stared at him, certain he was joking. "How could I not be? My dream of flying turned into Armageddon!"

That made him laugh. "Well, breakfast is in twenty minutes, so you'd best get up and get ready."

I wasn't laughing, but I did as he said. Once my room was in order and I was washed and dressed, I made my way to the kitchen (that was where he said he always took breakfast) and I dropped onto a bench at the trestle table. I was awake, but part of me still felt sleepy. As if he could tell how I felt, he placed a cup of café au lait in front of me and urged me to drink it down, saying it would help me wake up. I sipped at it while he served up oat porridge with cinnamon and sugar, orange slices, and croissants with fruit preserve. While we ate, he asked me what I wanted to start with first.

"You mean which lesson?" I asked, just to make sure. "Well, architecture, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," he said, and as soon as we had cleaned up from our meal, he led me into the drawing room which had also become our study overnight. He placed me at a desk (rather like a small table and chair) and took a seat beside me in another chair. To my surprise, he did not start talking (as most of my professors did), but he simply placed a book on the desk in front of me and opened it to the first chapter. The chapter title, "Neolithic Architecture" surprised me. What on earth was Neolithic? I'd never heard of it. I'd assumed that we would start with Greek and Roman architecture!

"This is the earliest type of architecture," he began, pointing to a woodcut of what looked like a jumble of stones half-buried in the ground. "We'll begin here."

And begin we did. I learned all about the Neolithic peoples and how they lived, and I learned how their lives and environments influenced how they built. According to the book and Erik, Neolithic peoples lived all over the world and had left buildings for us to find. The buildings were characterized by stone, wattle-and-daub, and mud brick. The more memorable buildings were the tombs they made for burying their dead, and the walls of some of those were covered with paintings of people and animals.

Once we had finished the chapter, he asked me to sketch the plan of a tomb that had been included in the book. I did the best I could, but I had to sketch it four times before he was satisfied with it. That was no end of frustrating because I wasn't really a good artist. "We'll have to remedy that," was all he said.

"How?" I asked. "You have to have talent in order to be a good artist, and I have no artistic talent at all! My friend Pierre does, though," I added as an afterthought. "He's always been surprised that I can't draw."

"Everyone draws," he told me. "It's just a matter of training your hands to portray what you see or what you can imagine. You'll see."

I did see. After we had finished our architecture lesson, he pulled out paper and pencils and began my first drawing lesson. It began with simple shapes in just one dimension: I had to produce copies of shapes he'd drawn, so I drew squares, circles, triangles, ovals, rectangles, and simple regular polygons. Those I recognized from geometry, but drawing anything without a ruler was torture.

"Why can't I use a ruler?" I complained. "It will get done much more quickly and be neater than what I'm drawing now."

"The focus of this lesson isn't to produce something neat," he stated. "It's just to get your hand used to drawing shapes. Executing drawings neatly will come with drafting lessons later. Right now, just focus on making the shapes and to deepest Hades with being neat!"

I filled five large sheets of paper front and back with figures of various sizes, none of them neat and not a single straight line to be seen. I couldn't tell if he was pleased, disappointed, or didn't care what my drawings looked like since he set them aside and said that they were fine. Then, he launched right into mathematics, which I loathed. When he realized that I wasn't paying attention he stopped and waited very quietly until I looked at him.

"Is it just me, or do you have the hardest time paying attention?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper. "Am I that bad a teacher?"

"No, I just...don't like mathematics," I admitted. "I never have."

He considered this, and something told me that he was surprised to hear it. "Mathematics is beautiful, Phillippe."

I had suspected that he was mad before, but now I was certain of it. "It's all numbers and equations and arithmetic. How can that be beautiful?" Only a madman would consider the subject beautiful.

"No, really, that's not mathematics at all. Mathematics is the science of patterns, not numbers. The patterns within the science are beautiful. Trust me."

I raised an eyebrow. There was no way he was going to convince me of what he was saying.

"We'll start with the Fibonacci sequence," he said, coming to sit beside me and pulling out a sheet of paper and a pencil.

I hadn't expected to be interested in anything having to do with mathematics, but as he wrote and drew for my benefit, I could understand what he meant when he said that mathematics was beautiful. The Fibonacci sequence was simply the sum of two numbers and that sum added to the numeral before it, such as 0+1 is 1, 1+1 is 2, 1+2 is 3, 2+3 is 5, and so on. The sequence could not end because numbers and counting were infinite. There would always be a bigger number. I saw no point to this sequence until he explained to me that trees' branches grow according to it. If the numerals were paired as fractions, then the higher up in the sequence one went the closer one would be to the Golden Ratio, or 1.618. Plants grew according to it, and architects designed their buildings using rectangles constructed from it. Even spirals were "golden" or perfect spirals when constructed to that ratio. It was called the Golden Ratio or the Divine Ratio or the Perfect Ratio. He covered the paper with Golden Rectangles and Golden Spirals using a ruler and the ratio, explaining that such constructions were thought to be the most aesthetically pleasing. He taught me how to construct the figures myself, and I had to admit that I liked them and that I enjoyed that part of the lesson.

That was the high point of our day. The rest of the lessons were abysmal (I did not wish to work and I was distracted with my own thoughts) and I had to admit that I was not a willing student. I was still somewhat resentful of the way I'd been kidnapped and was now being forced to reside with this man, and those circumstances had me behaving like a petulant teenager rather than as the young man that I wished the world to see. I was furious, and that very fury had me behaving in ways I would never have considered indulging in a few days ago.

My thoughts always returned to my parents never divulging something so important. Why had they not told me? Why?

At last, he called an end to the lessons and told me that he had to go out for a few hours, but he would return and we would have supper. I went to my room, where I indulged in pacing about and throwing the pillows and cushions. I knew I was angry and I knew that what I was doing was childish, but it made me feel better. Why had I suddenly become so angry and recalcitrant during lessons? Perhaps it was because I didn't even have the refuge of school from this man. Perhaps he reminded me of a teacher I disliked? (I couldn't think of any, though.) I paced some more and thought about it, but I failed to come up with any answers.

His return some time later brought me out of my thoughts and to the supper table, where I ate something that I paid no attention to and ignored the majority of his conversation. However, he caught my attention when he said that there was a letter for me.

"A letter? From Mother and Father?" I was so excited, relieved, (anything!) to get a letter that I leapt to my feet.

He nodded, once. "Yes. Would you like it now?"

I held out my hand in answer, and he pulled it from his jacket pocket. Once it was in my hands I rushed to my room, intent on reading it right away in relative privacy. The handwriting on the outside was Mother's, and as I broke the seal and unfolded the letter, I saw that she had written it all.

Dear Phillippe,

Oh, darling, we are both so sorry. There must have been countless times when we wished to tell you, but something always frightened us from saying what we wished to say. We can only beg your forgiveness and hope to help you understand. We've written to Erik and asked him to let you come home, but he has already refused that request, as well as our request to come see you. Erik is determined he shall have you for a month, and when he makes up his mind about something, there is very little that could change it. He has traveled, so ask him to tell you about his travels. He adores telling stories almost as much as making music. As for his being dangerous--no, neither one of us believe he would harm you, but do not ever touch his mask, try to remove it, or ask him to show you his face. He becomes enraged when these things happen, so for your own sake, do not! You cannot know when that rage of his shall become too much for even him to control! We know where you are, but Erik has said that if we arrive at the Opera, he shall take you somewhere else and he shall keep you with him always. We do not dare risk it, Phillippe. One month, and then you shall be home. Obey Erik and do nothing to anger him, and we shall see you in a month. Take care of yourself, Phillippe. We shall write every day, and you write to us every day, and soon we shall be in one another's arms again.

All our love,

Mother and Father

I refolded the letter, shivering and certain that I was lost. Now I knew why I had been so agitated: I had been counting on them to come and save me and was impatient at the time it was taking. Now, I knew that they did not dare to come. I was trapped in this strange little palace underground with this man who said he was my father, and I did not know if I could be safe with him or not.