Chapter 7: A Southbound Train
When the Persian returned to his apartments that night, his servant informed him of an unexpected guest waiting in the drawing room. The Persian had few companions and suspected his visitor was an opera ghost. He therefore quickly removed his coat and gloves, threw them into Darius's arms, then attended to his guest.
To make himself at home while awaiting the Persian, Erik had transformed the charming drawing room into a chamber of darkness. Although the hour grew late, he neglected the lamps completely. A dying fire threw long shadows across the floor. The Opera Ghost's own glass decanter of cognac stood open on a table and refracted the firelight, fanning it onto the tabletop like a broken mirror reflecting the red flames of Hades. He knew the Persian would have no hard drink to offer, being somewhat a man of principles. Resting on the settee, with his back to the Persian, the Phantom drained his drink.
"The weather tonight is… irresistible," he said smoothly while reaching for the decanter. Neither man spoke as the cognac gurgled into his small glass. "Did you enjoy your promenade?"
Overcoming the surprise at finding Erik in his drawing room after hearing nothing for so many days, the Persian cleared his throat and answered affirmatively.
"You did not walk in the Tuileries this evening, though." He replaced the decanter's stopper without looking at his host, and his threatening pause caused the Persian's fear to incubate. "You have come from the Rue Scribe."
He sipped from his glass while his words sunk in. The Persian was astounded. Erik knew what he had not even told his own servant. How could one not attribute such omniscience to a practice of the dark arts? It was as if the corpse could read his mind!
"You came from the Rue Scribe," he repeated, reveling in the Persian's apprehension as it radiated through the room like electricity. "… where you conversed with the excitable daughter of one commissioner of the Sûreté—"
The Persian found his voice. "How could you know that?" he demanded as he wheeled around the settee to see what crystal ball the magician wielded that had betrayed the Persian's actions. But he could barely see in the dim light. The Phantom's black mask reflected the copper light of the fire's stifled flames. In the shadows beneath his brow, his golden stare burned like two smoldering coals. He had uncharacteristically removed his swallowtail jacket, which now lay folded over one arm of the settee along with his top hat, and he had turned up his shirtsleeves. His cravat hung loosely from his opened collar, and his waistcoat was unfastened.
"Aha!" he replied sardonically, "Not only am I everywhere in the Opera, but I'm also all over Paris!" To this epithet he added his hysterical laughter before tasting more cognac.
The Persian said nothing, but sank into the chair facing the sofa.
"You are betraying Erik's secrets!"
"You're wrong! She asked me to give your description and location to the police! I refused. In fact, I've been trying to discourage her hunt from the moment she sought my help."
"But she found the torture chamber! Opened every secret as if it were her own house."
The Persian watched as his guest refilled his glass. "You can hardly blame me for her success. I could never solve the torture chamber, let alone your other puzzles."
"Ah," Erik sighed, leaning back in the settee. "Then she has more brains than you do."
He tilted the glass from side to side and watched the jeweled liquid roll in tormented waves. His terrible lips twisted into something like a smile before they curled around the edge of the glass and slowly dragged the suffering drink into his dead mouth.
"Alice Mifroid may have been lucky to have escaped the torture chamber, but she will meet my vengeance before she succeeds in catching the Opera Ghost. She'll never dare enter my house again! Rest assured, when Christine comes, Erik will have his privacy."
The announcement in L'Epoque proclaiming Erik's death was part of the Persian's promise to send word to Christine Daaé of Erik's fate. Mlle. Daaé, the famous opera singer, had been Erik's captive under the Opera, and he had released her upon her word that she would return to bury him when he died. The Persian had almost forgotten.
"Erik," he began cautiously, removing the decanter from his guest's hands and placing it on the mantel (resisting the urge to throw it into the fire), "This madness for Mademoiselle Daaé is destroying you. How long have you been drinking? You need to distract your mind—work on your compositions. Drinking yourself senseless will only bring more misery."
Divested of his drink, the monster rubbed his hands over his face. His musician's fingertips felt only the hard, unfeeling façade of his mask. He was enduring his emotions like a weary captain navigating through foul weather, and he could only keep to the helm and ride out the storm, or abandon ship—and feed the hungry waves. Hadn't the latter option already been denied him? Then let him drink, to quell the maddening effects of the ship's precarious sway!
"No," he whispered. "The only relief from my sadness is her company. She's returning even now, as we converse. She expects to find me dead, but I will stay alive, for her. And when she comes, we'll continue where you interrupted us, that day you were in my torture chamber."
Although the poor man had resisted with all his willpower, he again believed that Christine loved him. His inebriated mind would not be persuaded otherwise, the Persian knew. When one has clung to hope for so long, it's too painful to finally admit the futility of that endeavor, and so the heart still believes—although the mind already found folly in that faith. A change of subject, the Persian hoped, would distract his friend from his melancholy thoughts.
"The police found a man killed by your damnable lasso in the catacombs."
"What's your point?" the corpse growled, leaning back on the sofa and massaging his forehead where it peeked above his mask.
"What are your plans for Mademoiselle Mifroid? You said that you'll have vengeance. Murder is wrong, Erik! I didn't save your life for you to terminate the lives of others."
"I will not kill the commissioner's daughter. Nevertheless, I will make her suffer. Not from physical pain." He fisted his hands and stared at the dying fire. How he wished it were the only pain he himself had to endure! "I will give her just a taste of mental anguish. She now believes she has bested the Opera Ghost? Ha! Even Erik suffers for his mistakes. This girl has committed an error of her own and is about to discover the consequences! And she will know that it was all her fault, and it cannot be undone!"
The Persian was unsure what to do. He wanted to try to stop his friend from this uncertain scheme, but the monster was even more resolute than usual, due to his intoxication. And he shook with such ferocity as he spoke, from the bitter wisdom that revenge will not be sweet enough, for the intended victim is only one of many who have denied him his privacy.
Erik took a moment to compose himself. The fire released a hiss of air. "Daroga, allow me to repay you for hauling my miserable body from the river." Before the Persian could demure, his friend pulled a pistol from under the swallowtail jacket.
Stuttering, the Persian leapt to his feet as fast as lightening.
The Phantom laughed as he slowly unfolded himself from the settee to tower before his frightened host. He pointed the barrel of the gun at the Persian's chest.
"Do you recognize the weapon?" he taunted. He opened his hand and allowed the pistol to swing free on his trigger finger. The ivory handle glowed red in the firelight. Certainly, the Persian recognized it—it was his own.
"I lost it when I came to your house with the Vicomte deChagny."
Erik dropped the weapon into the Persian's outstretched hand. "The barrel fits a .22 round. It's not loaded."
The Persian let out the breath he had been holding. "Nor was it when we came to your house. We did not intend to shoot." He sank into his chair and admired the gun, tracing the intricate trellis of vines carved on the ivory handle. Artfully sculpted, each tiny leaf curled this way or that, or rolled into itself, until the vines met the long and slender steel barrel. As Erik had said, the caps were empty. The Persian sighed with relief. Erik had only been toying with him, playing a cruel joke by feigning his intent to send a bullet to his heart.
The Persian looked up at his visitor, who had not moved from where he stood, watching. "There was a pair of revolvers. Where's the other one?"
He could not see the dark smile that spread across the Phantom's silhouetted profile. "Perhaps it will turn up later." He returned to the sofa to don his jacket and top hat.
The Persian again sprung from his seat. "You're leaving, then? You haven't told me exactly what you've planned for Mademoiselle Mifroid! I'm warning you, Erik, don't hurt her."
At this, the monster turned, and the depths of his burning eyes contained a fiery tempest ignited by the Persian's assumptions. His frightened host stopped short.
"Rest assured then, gentle Daroga," the Phantom snarled, his voice laced with the sticky-sweet smell of alcohol. "As I told you, Mademoiselle Mifroid will not be physically injured. You don't believe me, that one human being could hurt another without contact? Come to my Opera tomorrow and see for yourself, so that your curiosity might be sated!"
He pulled opened the door with such force it might have been ripped off its hinges, and tore it shut behind him with a resounding slam.
The Persian was left staring at his own front door. At least Erik hadn't threatened mankind with diabolical destruction! But there was still the matter of Christine Daaé. What the Persian now feared more than the destruction of Paris was this woman's return.
Erik's love for the soprano had him descending into madness. What would he do when she came to bury him and found him alive? Or worse—if she has already married her lover, the Vicomte, Erik would not be able to control his jealousy. And when would she arrive? The Persian didn't know where she lived. He only knew that she and the Vicomte left Paris for the North, but he never discovered if they traveled to her former home in Perros-Guirec, or to Scandinavia, the land of her birth. Or had they gone as far as the North Pole, to where the Vicomte had been appointed to lead an expedition? How long before they reached Paris?
The Persian stood there, his mind spinning, until his faithful servant shook him out of his reverie and pushed a heavy envelope into his hands. Darius explained that, while the Persian was out, he had gone to the Saint-Lazare station after receiving notice that there was a package addressed to the Persian. It had arrived by special post on a train heading for Provence, an unusual way of receiving mail.
The envelope offered no return address.
The color drained from the Persian's face. He dismissed his servant and dropped onto the settee, his legs giving way beneath him. Silently praying to awaken from his nightmare, he at last he tore open the paper with trembling fingers and read the letter he found inside:
"Our dear friend,
We read your unfortunate news in L'Epoque and offer our condolences. Our recent nuptials, however, and the expectancy of a birth in the coming year prevent us from fulfilling our promise to the departed. We have enclosed the articles that will allow you to find his body and perform the burial. May he rest in eternal peace.
We remain forever in your debt,
Christine and Raoul deChagny"
Christine wouldn't come! It was a most ironic twist of fate.
Unable to sit still, the Persian paced to his window. The note had been wholly unexpected. Although his friend had behaved imprudently with Christine, the Persian had honestly believed that she would honor her promise. He could have prepared himself for what would happen when she found her Phantom alive, and could have protected his friend against the unbridled emotions that would have boiled upon seeing her again. But nothing could have prepared him to receive this letter. And Erik had drowned his love in cognac not ten minutes before! It was as if Fate was determined to dash the poor man's hopes across the breakers.
Now, to distract his disappointed thoughts, the Persian watched through his window as couples idled in the Tulieries, their arms around each other. They lounged on benches and gazed into each other's eyes as the glorious moonlight warmed their smiling faces. The Persian sighed, and the moisture of his breath upon the window panes veiled the lovers from sight like a curtain closing at the end of a scene.
He turned his gaze to the letter and the envelope, which he still held. The envelope was not yet empty, and he tipped it upside-down to dump the contents into his free hand.
From the package fell a wedding band and an iron key.
The Persian stared at the two items as his mind flooded with memories. He had seen Christine wearing the ring, which assured her Erik's protection. She had promised to return after his death and slip the wedding band onto his finger before the burial, and the iron key would have allowed her entry into the Phantom's domain to find his body. But she would not fulfill her vow! Christine's pity for Erik had waned as her distance from his Opera grew, and now not even news of his death would move her to show kindness to the unfortunate man. The world offered no love, no compassion, and no sincerity!
His anger raging, the Persian left his window and in three large strides reached his fireplace, where he flung the envelope and all of its contents into the flames. With his hands balled into fists so tight that his nails dug crescents into his palms, he watched the letter and envelope ignite with a bright blue flash of light. His friend would never know what became of Christine's promise. He would wait faithfully, never knowing that she would not return.
And it was no wonder that Erik was the monster he had become, for he had never received humane treatment from anyone! Suddenly losing his strength to stand, the Persian collapsed against the mantel, choking back his grief. He could not control his angry tears, despite biting his fist against his heartache. In a sudden fury he hurled Erik's forgotten glass decanter into the fireplace, where it shattered with a satisfactory crash and fed the flames with its infernal contents. Darius rushed to the room in alarm as the Persian fell to the floor, weeping. Finding his gentle master in such a passionate state, he could only lend his own tears as well, and the two men mourned the unhappy life and uncontrollable destiny of the Opera Ghost.