(A/N: This is a translation of the German story Gefangene der Angst by E.M.K.81, which I am uploading with the author's permission in the hopes that other English-speaking readers will enjoy it as much as I did. Further chapters will appear as and when I finish translating them. For a link to the original, see my profile.)

A cleansing storm

Spring came, and with it the flowers and fresh green on the trees. Christine began playing with Marie in the garden, not least because in the meantime Marie had learnt to walk (in so far as one can speak of 'walking' where a one-year-old is concerned...) During the day she felt safe.

Raoul rode to the stud with Pierre in order to discuss on the spot with the manager which mares should be covered by which stallions. As Pierre had a good eye for horse-breeding, Raoul often asked him for his opinion.

Gradually the Vicomte began to trust him again, especially as he noticed that Pierre was making a real effort to show himself worthy of being trusted. Pierre went to a great deal of trouble and it soon became apparent that the Vicomte could rely on his advice. He was seldom wrong, and where he had not a clue about a given subject — for example which vines would do well in which location — then he admitted that he understood nothing about it.

But in the midst of all this rural idyll Christine could not truly relax and enjoy herself. She was still afraid that Erik might attack at any time. "He is the Phantom of the Opera — and he has always struck when he was least expected. The more we remain on our guard, the safer we shall be."

"Darling," objected Raoul, "must we talk about this while we're having a picnic in the garden?"

Pierre, who was keeping Marie away from the flowers full of bustling bees, asked: "Don't you think, Madame, that after two years he has given up?"

Christine shook her head. "Never. Erik never gives up. Erik will never admit defeat."

"You're making up a spectre to terrify yourself. No-one has the powers you claim for Erik."

"And you're not taking the matter seriously, " Christine accused him.

"On the contrary, I'm taking it very much in earnest. But he is keeping so quiet that I'm seriously wondering whether he doesn't believe that he has already achieved his aim."

"I've asked myself that too," struck in Raoul. "We're prisoners in our own home, far from the opera, far from Paris. Don't forget, my darling, Erik doesn't know you love the life here. He is so self-centred that the idea would never occur to him that you might have wishes of your own, and that becoming prima donna of the Paris Opera was no dream of yours. If he thinks he has shattered your dreams by keeping you away from the Opera, perhaps for him that's enough?"

Marie grabbed a flower and tried to put it in her mouth, and Christine took it away from her. "That's not for eating. Here — eat a cake instead."

Marie took the cake and crumbled it. She threw the crumbs to the dogs, who ate them with enthusiasm. Her mother gave her another one, which she again tossed gleefully to the dogs.

"Oh Marie, don't feed the animals," Christine reproved her gently. Then she asked Pierre straight out: "And what about your pursuer? Would he give up?"

Pierre sighed. "No, but I've come to terms with the fact that he writes me letters, I send polite replies, and will probably have to do so for the rest of my life. Compared to your pursuer, mine is harmless — for he is an honest man."

At that moment Marie began to sing. At first Christine was delighted — then she grew ashen pale and sank senseless to the ground.

"Christine!" cried Raoul, horrified. He caught her up in his arms and carried her into the house while Pierre handed Marie over to the nursemaid and ran to summon Dr Martin.

When the doctor arrived, Christine had already recovered consciousness. "What's wrong?" asked Raoul anxiously. "Is it the baby?"

"No, the baby's all right." Christine was trembling. "It's that tune Marie was singing. She can't have learnt it from me, for I've never sung that song — but it's one I know. Erik used to sing it."

"Are you quite certain? Certain that it was that song, and not just a similar tune? Marie is only one year old: everything she sings sounds the same to me."

Christine shook her head. "No, I'm certain she has heard that tune. And it's not a song that's generally known and that she could have heard somewhere else — it's a song Erik composed for me."

"Madame should avoid any agitation," warned Dr Martin. "There is a danger of her losing the child."

"How am I to avoid agitation?" sobbed Christine. "Erik is here, and he's going to take a terrible revenge on me!"

Raoul went into the garden and stared around in desperation. What was to become of them? Would there forever be new fears, real or imagined? How were they to go on living like this?

"Shall we take a ride?" came Pierre's voice from behind him.

"Now? You want to go riding now? Now — now, of all times?"

Pierre nodded. "It will calm you down."

He rode in front and the Vicomte followed him. Neither spoke. Pierre led Raoul into a remote part of the woods, to a little clearing that had been created when an ancient tree had come down. There he dismounted and tied his horse to a branch of the fallen tree.

"What are we here for?" asked Raoul, puzzled.

"Please get down, sir, and I'll tie your horse."

Raoul dismounted.

Pierre took off his hat and laid his gun, his pistol and his leather bag down on the trunk. Then he took off his jacket and laid this, too, carefully down.

"What's all this?" asked Raoul, to whom this behaviour seemed, even for Pierre, more than a little peculiar.

"I need to show you something," said Pierre. "I'd hoped to be able to put it off for a little longer, but unfortunately today's... incident... has forced my hand. Take a look on the other side of the tree-trunk."

"There's a hole in the ground," said Raoul.

Pierre nodded. "And that's why you have nothing more to fear. That is Erik's grave."

Raoul took a closer look. "No," he objected, "it's empty."

"Yes," confirmed the old man, "it's empty — for now."

"You're frightening me," said Raoul numbly.

"Now then, that's the wrong attitude altogether," Pierre reproved him. "Never show weakness; it only encourages your opponent." Then he fell silent.

Raoul was becoming more and more disturbed. What was going on?

"Please try — whatever happens next — to stay calm," began Pierre. "There is no danger to you from Erik. There has been none for a long time. The Erik whom your wife fears never existed, as it were... and the Erik whom she knew has been dead for a year or more."

"That makes no sense," said the Vicomte, refusing adamantly to understand.

"I never told you my full name. My name — and for once this is the whole truth — is Pierre François Erik Bertrand."

"E... Erik?" stammered Raoul, and staggered back.

"My first name was always Pierre, but Erik is my actual name of use, according to the parish register."

"This... this can't be true," Raoul stammered. Erik made no reply, but took hold of his eyepatch and pulled it down. His hooked nose came off with the eyepatch, but not the grey beard, which was apparently real. As the beard reached from his Adam's apple up to his cheekbones, not much of his face could be seen, but the lack of nose gave it a most macabre appearance, made worse by the appalling scar and the half-remaining ear.

Then Erik opened both eyes. Where the eyepatch had formerly been, there was an completely healthy eye. Raoul stared at it. The left eye was golden brown, the colour of dark honey, but the right eye that had until now been hidden by the eyepatch had a hideous mottled grey-red iris. Christine had never mentioned that...

Raoul screamed and struck out. At that moment he was himself horribly afraid, and fear lent him strength. He smashed his fist into Erik's face. Erik reeled back and fell to his knees.

"You monster!" howled Raoul, and struck out with his riding crop. "You sick monster. How could you play such a trick on us? How could you worm your way into our lives? You lying bastard — you fiend!"

Only after several blows did he notice that Erik had curled up into a ball, shielding his head with his hands, but was making no attempt to put up a fight. His white shirt was torn, and there was blood on it where Raoul had struck him particularly hard. Raoul stared at his crop, appalled.

"What have you made of me?" he whispered in horror, and shrank back.

Erik rose slowly and looked calmly at Raoul.

"What next?" he asked almost cheerfully. "If you want to beat me to death, I'd suggest using one of these branches — it will take less time. Or you could shoot me, or cut my throat.."

Raoul heard the words, but they were without sense. "What do you mean?"

Erik smiled; the Vicomte had inadvertently addressed him as an equal. "Don't you want to kill me?"

"Yes... no... perhaps... but yes... I don't know!" stammered Raoul, hopelessly overwhelmed by the situation.

"Do you mind if I smoke while you consider the matter, sir?" Erik took the little cigarette case out of his shirt pocket with a gesture that was all too familiar to Raoul from Pierre.

"Not at all," answered the Vicomte absent-mindedly

"Have one?" Erik offered.

A minute or so later the two men were sitting side by side on the fallen trunk, smoking cigarettes. Anyone who had seen them would have taken them for old friends spending a fine spring day in the woods.

"My thanks for the brief respite," said Erik. "Now let's get this over with." He spoke as if it were a question of some job of work that between them they had to take care of.

"You owe me some answers," said Raoul. "And this time no lies and no half-truths!"

Erik grinned, which on him at that moment merely looked grotesque. "Why should I lie? I have nothing at all left to lose now. It's lucky you reminded me: if you strip my body, it will decay faster. In my jacket you'll find a notebook with detailed instructions on how to get rid of the corpse, a receipt for the sale of the dogs, and a letter giving in my notice. That should be enough to convince the police that I have simply gone away. Of course you could always oblige me to take off my clothes before you kill me, but I'd be grateful to you not to have to die lying naked in the mud."

The Vicomte stared at him, mouth ajar. "You're... you're assisting with your own murder?"

Erik laughed. A wholly wild, hysterical laugh. "I'm insane — didn't you know?"

He couldn't stop laughing. Nauseated, Raoul struck out again with the riding crop, which he was still clutching in his hand out of the simple need to cling onto something. It met Erik's shoulder, and he fell suddenly quiet.

"Forgive me." Erik's voice was strangely soft. "You wanted answers; I think I owe you some. Please — ask away."

When he put another cigarette in his mouth, Raoul saw a trickle of blood there. "Are you injured?"

"Only a tooth — and it's been loose a long time. That's what happens, at my age." Erik spat out a half-rotten tooth which had been knocked loose, and Raoul gulped and tried to hold back a sick feeling.

Erik took the hip-flask from his pocket and took a swallow, wiped the neck of the bottle on his shirt sleeve and offered it to Raoul. "Here, have some."

"Thanks," Raoul said automatically, and Erik's response held a wry note.

"The liquor's yours."

Raoul stared at him, then had to laugh. "You're impossible!"

Erik grinned likewise. "I know. You've told me often enough. Cigarette?"

"Also one of mine, I take it?"

"Naturally."

"You've got a twisted sense of humour — you know that?" Raoul sighed, trying to set his thoughts in order.

"If you'll forgive me, given that we're dealing here with the matter of my murder it's amazing that I still have a sense of humour at all."

"How did you track us down?" demanded Raoul, and Erik looked at him in surprise.

"I didn't. I can't track anyone. Oh, I may well threaten to hunt someone to the four corners of the earth and to be able to track them down wherever they go, but... sadly that's not actually one of my talents."

"You never followed us at all?" said Raoul, dumbfounded.

"No. Do you want to know what I actually did?"

"Of course."

"All right." Erik sent out a smoke-ring and dispersed it with one finger.

"As the Phantom of the Opera I played the role of a ghost. To make it credible I had to dig deep into my store of tricks and give the impression of being well-nigh omnipotent. And hence it never occurred to you or your wife to question my powers. I threatened her that I could track her down anywhere and she believed me. But in fact..." he admitted, shamefaced, "I drank myself unconscious. For around a month. I can't remember anything about that month. When I returned to my senses, I was lying in one of my own traps... foul from head to foot."

He raised a hand and indicated the scar across his scalp and the missing portion of his left ear. "I can only assume that I ran out of drink and went out to replenish my supplies. I was probably crawling on all fours, or else the falling blade would have killed me when I accidentally triggered the trap. Somehow I crawled back into my home and suffered the agonies of withdrawal."

"So Christine and I had a month's start?"

"I think so. Then I spent a month sunk deep in self-pity and did nothing whatsoever save bewail my own fate. Undignified, humiliating, shameful — but that's how it was."

"But then you tracked us down?"

Erik shrugged. "Yes and no. I wanted to, but I had no idea even how to begin such a hunt. What I did know was that the two of you would need some kind of support, since neither of you was in a position to survive alone on the street. From that I assumed that your brother was providing you with money, and thus you must have some form of contact with him. He was the key to finding you, and so... I made an approach to him."

"The attack was a set-up." Raoul drew the obvious conclusion.

Erik nodded. "I hired those two fools. I hoped the Comte would offer me some kind of position out of gratitude when I served him up my sob-story about the old soldier out of work. It didn't matter what — I'd have cleaned out the cesspit if only it got me into the house so that I could get at his correspondence."

Raoul shook himself and looked up. "How did you get the idea of passing yourself off as a soldier?"

Erik took a gulp from his hip-flask. "The old soldier is a mask I've been using for a long time. I got the idea from a labourer on one of my building sites — he was called Rene. He was disfigured and had scars from bullet-wounds and whippings all over his body. He was pretty much out of his mind, even by my standards. We swapped life stories in the course of a night's hard drinking and commiserated with one another. And thus the idea came to me that I could explain my disfigurement by suggesting that I had been a soldier. That's how the guise of the old soldier came to be created — and I have to say that it's always served me admirably. When you have to wear a mask for a long time, you know, it has to fit really well, and that one fitted like a glove."

"The dogs?" asked Raoul.

Erik laughed. "My plan turned out better than I had hoped. Your brother wanted me as a bodyguard for you. It was only then that I got the dogs, and I only really trained them here."

"Weren't you afraid that Christine would recognise you?"

"Naturally. Hence there was a Plan B: if she had recognised me then I should have shot first you and then Christine, and then as many more people as I could get before I myself was shot down."

Raoul shuddered, and began to tremble when he realised how narrowly they had escaped a catastrophe. "That's insane," he whispered, appalled.

Erik nodded, and continued in a conversational tone: "On that I agree entirely. My real plan, as you and Christine correctly guessed, was to drive you out of your minds with fear. I knew what terror can do to a man, and I wanted to suck you down into that same maelstrom in which I had already sunk. I wanted to bring the two of you to such a point that you would do away with yourselves."

"You all but succeeded," observed Raoul. "Why the change of heart?"

Erik laughed again — not a hysterical laugh, but a bitter, humourless one. "I never even began," he gasped between the gusts.

"What? Surely that can't be true!"

"Oh, but it is," jerked out Erik, unable to control his fit of laughing. "I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"

The laughter turned into sobbing. "I'll never be able to compose enough Masses to express my gratitude that God granted me a last glimmer of conscience. Christine was carrying a child, and despite my rage I had enough sanity left to tell myself that I had no quarrel with this child; the child was not at fault, it should live. And thus I postponed the execution of my plans until after the birth."

"So when did you abandon your scheme?"

Erik was weeping now. "When you made me godfather to your daughter. I tried to talk you out of it... I warned you... but when I held Marie in my arms, I was lost utterly."

He hid his face in his hands. The tears fell and he could not stop them. "I no longer wished harm to you or Christine, I did all I could to take away your fears, but every time you had found some peace something would happen, and... it was as if I could not overcome the Phantom. Apparently my scheme was such a good one that I need do nothing at all; the plan would go into action all by itself, and I couldn't stop it. I saw how you suffered, and it tore me in two. You cannot imagine what it was like. I had set something under way that despite my endeavours I could no longer halt."

(continued..)

Original author's note:

Erik has led everybody up the garden path — as I have led my readers. Or did you guess that Pierre and Erik were the same person? [Translator's note: actually, despite my most honourable efforts, I think everybody did...]

It struck me from reading Leroux's novel that actually Erik often bluffs. He acts more dangerous than he is. He makes great play of his reputation of being a monster, but he has also a playful, childlike side and he definitely shows signs of conscience. Sometimes Erik seems to me like a frightened child who creates an imaginary monster to protect himself from the world.