Chapter 5
"Do you know why there's even rooms like this down here? I mean, Erik couldn't have built this whole damn tunnel along with every trap in it," Gerry said with exasperated curiosity. Passing by yet another drawing of a person hanging, Christine explained.
"This opera was used for prisoners during the Paris Commune after the Prussian war. I suppose they built these cells down below for what they saw as the most dangerous or likely to escape criminals."
"This many?"
"I honestly cannot say for certain."
Gerry frowned. "But wait…the Prussian war would be going on now, in 1871. But it's not."
"No…the Prussian war happened about fifteen years ago."
"So even basic history is different in our worlds….or Joel just set the movie in the wrong time period," he sighed. "Idiot."
"Oh, here's something that looks like it doesn't mean agonizing death," Gerry said after a few minutes more of searching. Christine rushed over, her skirts swishing around her legs.
"What is that?" he asked her. There were small circles lined up in rows with some sort of structure drawn above the circles. Christine pondered for a few seconds before her face showed realization.
"It's the chandelier!"
Without waiting for her to give him the say-so, Gerry flung open the door. All he saw was a narrow, dank stone staircase, spiraling up into darkness.
"That must be five floors or more," Christine said, her voice echoing off the slimy walls.
"Then we'd better get started."
After they climbed what had been obviously a lot more than five floors, Gerry had to stop, panting and leaning against the wall, despite all of the greenish mold clinging to the stone.
"This….has to be a trap itself…making you climb yourself to death…"
"What? I am only slightly out of breath and I am much smaller than you!"
"Yeah, well I come from a time period where everyone is fat and lazy," Gerry snorted, mocking himself by patting his belly. Christine looked at him strangely.
"You look very strong though."
"That's because I have to work out—exercise, I mean—for a lot of roles. The more attractive you are, the more likely you are to get the part."
"That holds true here at the opera. Except Carlotta is no great beauty in my opinion."
"Ha…Minnie Driver is a lot prettier when she's not in costume...like her real singing voice," Gerry said, yet again attempting to brave the rest of the stairs. Christine slowed herself to his pace patiently.
"Minnie Driver plays Carlotta, I assume?"
"Yeah. You get to hear her real voice at the end of the movie, and she's actually pretty good. During the rest of it, they have an actual belle canto opera singer to sing her parts and be all obnoxious," he explained, stopping again to look overhead. "I don't see the end anywhere."
"It has to end, the stairs can't go on forever into the sky," Christine assured him. Just then, she noticed the door. "There it is! Come on, Gerry."
He whined in protest as she grabbed his hand and ran up the rest of the steps, dragging him along with her. He was just about to slip on one when they reached what Christine found—not just any door, but a trap door. Cautiously, she climbed up to the door, pushed it open and looked around. It appeared to be a large closet, filled with decorations, tools, and dusty costumes and sets that appeared to have never been used, with two doors on opposite walls. She looked down to wave Gerry to come up with her, but smacked him instead when she saw that he was looking up her skirt with a grin that reached ear to ear.
"You'd better be grateful that you only saw pantaloons or else you would be falling all the way back down those stairs," she snapped, but had a hint of a smile. He raised his hands up in defense and followed her into the closet. Once they stood up in the room, Christine put the rug back over the trap door and Gerry headed to the closest door. Once opened, a cool blast shocked them both.
"It's the rooftop," he said, squinting in the sunlight as he stepped out into it. It was strange to see it in the daytime with no snow. "Would have been cool to see how Erik got up here during 'All I Ask of You'."
"During what?"
"The song you and Raoul sing in the movie when you're up here. All lovey-dovey and stuff."
"Oh…well, um…this door is probably the one we're looking for."
Gerry took one last look at the sunny Parisian view, sighed, and went back into the closet, closing the door behind him. Christine had left the other door open, already inside the other room, which was only slightly bigger. The walls were made of cheap looking boards, with many cracks of light showing through. One wall slanted from the floor at a gradual angle to the low ceiling, as if on the other side was a dome, and in the corner there was a dark, barely noticeable but good sized gap, big enough for a man to fit through. More obvious was the octagonal glass in the middle of the slanted wall.
"So if he's not watching from Box Five he can watch from here…" Christine said quietly, looking through the glass to the stage, where people scurried around, trying to repair the damage from the fallen chandelier. "Not an excellent view though."
"I remember this place. I was only in here for a couple of shots," Gerry mused, looking at the undone chains and ropes wrapped around two cranks. "Once to watch 'Il Muto' and again I came through that gap and undid these chains before 'Don Juan' to weaken the chandelier. Though I still don't understand how I could just cut one rope and make it fall, or even why a rope holding up a two ton chandelier was on the stage anyway."
"I suppose Erik connected that rope to some sort of trigger that released whatever was actually holding it."
"Or that."
As they explored, they found that there was yet another door that lead down a dark corridor to the catwalks and flies above the stage. As quietly as possible, Gerry lead Christine to a secluded spot where they could hear what the stagehands were saying without being seen by them as they wandered across the bridge where Buquet was killed.
"Let's listen to see what exactly they suspect or what they're planning to do," he suggested. "I want to know ahead of time when and where I'm going to be murdered by an angry mob."
/
Emmy shook her head in defeat after Erik yet again failed to act like friendly, outgoing Gerry. This time, Patrick had asked him about the nicotine patch on his arm and he gave the man a silent death glare until Emmy elbowed him, at which point he gave a forced reply.
"I'm trying to quit."
"Oh…well good for you…" the other man said hesitantly, obviously freaked out by Erik's reaction to him. Emmy thought quickly.
"He's getting into character for the final lair scene. You know, hating you and everything."
"Ah…you're very good at it, I'll give you that," he said with an awkward laugh. "If you'll excuse me, I have to get into costume."
Once Patrick had walked away, Emmy turned to Erik, who was still shooting imagined daggers at Patrick's back with his eyes.
"For once, I'm glad Gerry smoked and had withdrawals, or else you'd never get away with your horrible attitude."
"It's not even the craving that's bothering me. It's this damn thing," Erik snapped, pointing violently at his face, which had been fitted with the prosthetic after hours of sitting in a chair with strangers poking at him. "I already had to endure years of it and now I have the chance to be normal but I have to put it back on and pretend to be my old, hideous self again? I swear, Emmy, God hates me."
"On set, now!" Joel barked, passing through the people wandering around and waving them on, especially at Erik and Emmy. "Come on!"
The young actress pushed Erik towards the set and directed him towards his place in the middle of the artificial lake, struggling to keep him from tripping off the raised underwater walkway and falling into the deep part (where the candelabras raised up in 'Music of the Night').
Quietly, she said, "I'm pretty sure we're starting from the kiss…"
"We're starting from Raoul's entrance," Joel announced. "It was a little weak yesterday—day before yesterday, I mean." He looked at Erik weirdly. "Gerry, Emmy, the hell are you doing? Get out of the water! Now your costumes are wet already!"
"Sorry, I thought we were starting from somewhere else," Emmy apologized, intimidated.
"Well maybe you should wait until the director tells you where to start!" Joel huffed. "Know what, it doesn't matter. We already made a wardrobe mistake with Emmy's stockings, we didn't notice it until much later, I'm sure no one else will notice this. Just zoom in on their face and torso instead."
"But we already planned them out—" protested a cameraman, but was quickly cut off by Joel.
"Just zoom in and follow him until he's already in the water, then proceed as normal! Ok, everyone on the same page? Let's get started."
Erik's nervousness level went sky high after a guy walked in front of the camera with a square, painted board and snapped an attached rectangular board on top of it. After the loud click, the prerecording of the lines Erik was supposed to lip sync to started to blare through speakers, starting with 'Monsieur I bid you welcome'. Why was that playing? Everyone was silent and staring at him strangely. Emmy told him that he was supposed to begin with his lines once someone said "action", but no one said anything. Why were they staring at him then?
"Gerry. Please tell me you remember your lines," Joel groaned, running a hand through his grey hair tiredly. Quickly, Erik nodded, trying to channel the personality of the body he was in.
"Yes, I memorized them, I just…forgot momentarily," he said. He turned back to his starting place, facing Emmy. Now he could assume that he was supposed to begin whenever someone clacked that board.
"Ok, take two."
Clack.
Erik took a breath and turned to face Patrick, and began his lipsyncing as instructed.
"Monsieur, I bid you welcome…"
It took a few seconds of feeling completely and totally stupid before he could begin to feel hatred surge through him as if he was back in the bitter, stressed moment with Raoul and Christine, even as no sound was coming from his mouth. He remembered every detail of emotion from that night, and it came naturally to him.
Clack.
He snapped back to reality. The cameramen relocated to right in front of him.
Here...I throw the Punjab at Raoul, he reminded himself. They clacked the board again and he jumped into action. Once he threw the famous lasso, they clacked the board again, signaling the stop in shooting.
"Wow….good throw," Patrick said, picking up the loose rope around his neck.
I assume Gerry isn't skilled in the art of the Punjab, Erik thought, feeling accomplished with himself as he glanced around to see onlookers appearing impressed.
"Well, you're supposed to throw it at the camera, but yes, good throw Gerry," Joel said. "Let's do that again. You can rope the camera too if you want to."
There was a collective chuckle among the crew and Erik did as he was told, just reliving what he did naturally only stopping and starting at clacks, and lip syncing to the recording of his—Gerry's voice. Patrick and Emmy joined in soon enough, intensifying the memory and his emotion from it, and therefore improving his acting even more. Finally, it was the time he had been waiting for, as the recording started playing that lovely voice of Christine, with Emmy mouthing the words and slowly approaching him. It had already happened to him once—no, twice, there were two kisses—but it didn't make it any less terrifying. In fact, it made it worse because he knew what was going to happen this time.
She was getting closer, closer, and it was impossible to still believe she wasn't Christine. Her face was barely an inch away from his. And at that point, he fell over into the water.