The denizens of the Opera Populaire did not know what to do with themselves the following day. Never before, not even in the bleak days of the war with Prussia, did such a calamity befall the opera house so that it closed indefinitely.
Madame Giry knew – or was determined, rather – that the opera house would reopen, but the managers themselves were deeply unsure. When she entered their offices to inform them that a large congregation of confused singers, dancers, stagehands, orchestra members, and costumers were milling about in the foyer, waiting to hear their fate, she met the same confusion mirrored in the two men's eyes.
Lacking the mental energy even to sneer in contempt, Anahid left the office and took charge.
She announced to the crowd that the opera house would reopen once renovations were complete in the theater. In the meantime, everyone would be on paid leave (if the managers complained, she'd point out that the Phantom had seemingly disappeared, so they could save with the salary he would not collect). For the dancers who lived in the opera's dormitories, they would use this time to rehearse, rehearse.
Uncertain but taking some measure of comfort from Giry's eternally unflappable air, the crowd slowly dispersed.
Leaving Giry to head back to her flat, sore, stiff, and exhausted from a night spent awake with worry.
She found Meg returned from Christine's. The girl sat primly in their small kitchen space, her hands folded neatly in her lap. There were circles of fatigue around her eyes.
Madame Giry was just about to grace her daughter with one of her rare genuine smiles, relieved beyond words that her girl was back, when she recognized the look in the eyes staring out of that otherwise placid face.
It was a look that Erik and Julien had often noted lurked in Anahid's own eyes.
The look of an ancient cobra, usually complacent but stirred now, raring to strike and nothing could stop it.
"Mother, I'd like to talk to you."
In spite of herself, Madame Giry almost laughed. There was something so dastardly silly about that charming but unprepossessing voice – girlish, thin, innocent – and the grave look in those clear eyes.
But that look – not quite accusing, but penetrating nonetheless – sobered her immediately.
She knew what was coming.
Moving to the coat hook, Giry wearily removed her shawl, and said with her back to her child: "Yes, Meg, what is it?"
"You know who he is."
Giry bowed her head. She should have known how direct Meg would be. She was never any other way. "If I do or if I don't, it is of no concern. I believe he's gone now."
"Are you sure?"
Madame Giry did laugh this time, but it was bitter, empty. "Ah, are we ever sure of anything where he is concerned? Only time will tell, my daughter. But for now, we must only hope."
A slight pause. And then, "Who is he, Mother?"
"You must not ask me these things, Meg." Giry affected carelessness, unlacing her boots, but she would still not face her daughter.
This is why it surprised her when suddenly Meg's hand was on her arm, spinning her around. The placid face was gone, and the cobra was striking now. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes ablaze. "For God's sake, Mother! You are aiding and abetting a murderer."
Meg initially quailed at the way those dark eyes suddenly narrowed. But her heart beat fast in her chest with the inflamed memories of Buquet's strangled body, the crash of the chandelier as it crushed the bodies beneath, and a night spent by Christine's side. The destroyed singer had rocked back and forth in misery in her bed, weeping like she'd die of it.
Before her mother could rebuke her, Meg pressed on. "How long do we wait, Mother? How many more have to die? All because you don't want to reveal who he is?"
Madame Giry snapped at her now. "Listen, girl, it is not as simple as that! You don't know what you ask!"
Meg still would not back down. "Mother, please. Think of Christine. Think of Buquet. Think of the woman who lies dead simply because the ghost probably heard she was one of Carlotta's patrons and so he made sure she always sat beneath the chandelier, just in case he would one day grow mad enough to release it."
Madame Giry stared aghast at the girl. Could...could she really be so astute?
With a pang, Giry wondered how much about her daughter she truly did know.
"Think of them, Mother. Think of them, and help us."
Giry looked once more into that expansive green-gray gaze.
She wanted to crush her daughter to her chest again, but things were calmer now and Giry must be firm.
"If you love and trust me at all, promise me you won't ask any more questions about him." Her voice was expressionless, low and far away.
"But, Mother" –
"Promise me, Meg."
Meg looked at her mother. Truly looked.
She saw, as usual, the ramrod-straight posture, the stillness, the impassive pale face with its long midnight eyes. Seemingly impenetrable.
But tilting her head, Meg also saw deep waves of despair within the darkness of those vast eyes, pallor about the skin that was not natural but imposed on her through years of secrecy, years of forbidden knowledge.
Meg saw that her mother was a dam. A dam built centuries ago with pomp and granite that had withstood intense flooding and disaster, with no damage visible.
But just because it was not visible did not mean the damage was not there. Beneath the chalk-white skin and grim stoicism there were cracks in the dam's facade, minute evidence of wear and fatigue.
Meg's first instinct after this raw assessment was to shake her mother by the arms, urging her to release her tension and reveal all.
But some wise invisible hand stopped her. Releasing the flood wouldn't strengthen the dam; it could very well burst it irreparably.
Giry watched as the interrogative light dimmed in her daughter's eyes. "All right, Mother," Meg said in a small voice. "I won't ask anymore."
Her mother's face relaxed. Giry's mouth twitched as she reached out and tucked a stray lock of Meg's hair behind the girl's ear. The sad gleam in Giry's dark eyes revealed she wanted to do more. She yearned to reassure, to comfort. But proud shoulders slumping just the barest amount, the dance mistress instead turned away to her bedroom.
Meg watched her mother depart. The young dancer stood quietly in the ballet fourth position, as always.
The mother could not see the daughter's eyes. If she had, she would have known at once what she was thinking.
I won't ask her anymore questions.
But that doesn't mean I won't find out.
A blissful period of peace followed. For Raoul and Christine, this period was cemented always in their hearts as the most thrilling, romantic, close moments of their lives.
During his time in the navy and his return to Paris, Raoul had often fantasized about revisiting Perros-Guirec again. He eagerly envisioned himself as he was as a boy, watching the seaside commune grow larger as the train took him nearer.
Yet it was Christine's face he studied in awe as they arrived. He waited until she'd sufficiently recovered her spirits after the chandelier disaster before purchasing their tickets and solidifying their plans. He barely left her that week, despairing at the lifeless expression in her sorrowing eyes.
Now those warm brown eyes gazed affectionately out to the green hills and rollicking waves of Perros outside the train window. Her pale pink mouth part-way open in anticipation filled too much of his soul to allow in any other sight.
"I can't believe it's been six years," Christine exhaled as the train jerked to a halt at the station. Her eyes were swimming.
Strong fingers squeezed hers. She felt giddy at the sight of his wry half-smile. "For some of us it's been even longer," he reminded her.
Yet still, still, his eyes were on her, not Perros.
Knowing the stories circulating about the two of them, Raoul was intensely concerned about Christine's reputation. Therefore, he rented a cabin close to the Valerius estate instead of staying with her there. He would not risk her honor further.
But the two lovers lent this situation its own romantic ritual. Each morning, before breakfast, they would meet on the beach of their youth, stealing a few moments alone in the early morning light before facing the day in its entirety.
Here in Perros they were in another world entirely. An older world, a safer world. Here Christine's sabbatical from the opera house and its repercussions could not touch them. Here Raoul could forget the letter he'd hastily left behind for his sisters and what their reactions would be to his taking up the company of the half-Jewish opera singer that appeared to be stirring up a lot of trouble in the newspapers.
Here they had just each other, and the sea.
Idalia Frisk, Mamma Valerius's older sister, was a sweet old dame half deaf and with cataracts starting to obstruct her vision. She'd never married, never had a lover. She previously carved a career for herself in Stockholm writing anonymous poetry for gift cards and advertising copy, living in a boarding house with other single eccentrics until her declining health made her sister insist on placing her nominally in charge of the Perros estate, while the staff truly looked after the house and her. Sister Idalia spent her time in the kitchen drinking hot chocolate next to an open window, listening vaguely to the waves and seagulls, smelling sea salt air.
Very few people had lived such contented, full lives as Idalia Frisk.
Because of this deep contentment, she was not the inquisitive busy-body Raoul had feared she would be. Instead, she seemed always a little jarred by their presence, uttering a discomfited "oh!" whenever they entered the dining hall for breakfast or tea. Eventually recovering herself, she would cough and inquire with perfunctory politeness about these two strange but nice young people who were suddenly in her orbit. Christine noticed her hands shook a little, her smile genuinely friendly but a little anxious as well.
The young couple adored her. Her combination of utterly no curiosity about them and slight air of wishing them well but also maybe not quite so close in her vicinity gave them ample opportunity to rush away without leaving the impression of rudeness.
"If it weren't for you, I'd marry that Idalia Frisk," Raoul said one morning when the old woman suggested in her quavering, uncertain voice that the market she heard the servants speak of earlier was something two young people such as themselves really oughtn't to miss. But they'd want to leave soon, for by afternoon the fair would be far too crowded.
Whether on the beach or lost in a market crowd, the only people in Perros were Raoul and Christine, according to the thoughtless, intoxicated pair. It was as if they were walking hand-in-hand through a museum: the sea vista, sun-bleached rocky hills, bustling marketplace just pretty pictures, the backdrop for their whispered words of appreciation.
Young girls watching them in the street would sigh in pining wonder at these two handsome figures, moving and feeling quite obviously as one. To have that, they would give anything.
But of course, these girls did not see the shadowy demon, invisible to the naked eye but hovering over the two nonetheless, shading Christine's happiness as an umbrella keeps away the rain.
Raoul, however, always knew somehow when to whisk her away from the brink of abject misery when that shadowy demon pressed down too hard on her spirit.
It was difficult for her at first, to retrace the steps she'd walked with her father, revisit spots where he had sat with his violin, playing to her singing. But being with Raoul was reassuring. His sunny brightness illuminated the encroaching darkness, and the love she knew her father had felt for the boy made the whole thing seem indisputably right.
They rejoiced in pointing out their old stomping grounds. There under that tree was where Raoul had taught Christine how to play cards, there upon that cliffside was where Gustav first told them about the Korrigans, "and there, right there, Raoul!" Christine pointed to a spot in the water one brilliant afternoon. "There is where you rushed into the sea for my scarf."
"Is it, then?"
"Yes." Christine twisted around, shading her squinting eyes with her hand. "Oh, look! I think that's where the log Papa sat on used to be! I think you can still see a little of the wood beneath all that moss." She turned back to Raoul and her smile faded and her mouth dropped open, her eyes comically wide with surprise. "Pray! What are you doing?"
Raoul's jacket dropped to the sand, and he started to remove his boots and stockings. "This is an important location, mademoiselle. Only one way to commemorate the occasion: a re-enactment." He finished rolling up his trousers to the knees and stood before her, arms akimbo. "Don't you think?"
Her brain stopped working as she looked at the dark golden hair peeking out from his shirt. The muscular bare shins. "Umm," her cheeks burned as hot as they had in that same place ten years ago when she first beheld his face. "I – I left my scarf in my room."
"Hm," Raoul pretended to meditate for a moment. Then his blue eyes – blue like the sea, blue like a jungle cat's, Christine thought with lust broiling in her stomach – brightened with inspiration. "Then I shall have to rescue you!"
He lunged at her. Christine shrieked as he swung her off her feet, the slim girl wriggling in his brawny arms.
Her head buzzed as he pulled her tighter then marched whistling toward the waves. Her cheeks were as crimson as the scarf in her room, her laughter like a madwoman's. "Put me down! Oh, you villain, put me down! How dare you!" Her hiccupping laugh diminished the impact of her censuring words. "Raoul! Raoul! Ahh!" She covered her eyes and kicked her feet as he crashed into the water, the splashing foam almost but not quite reaching her.
With a baritone battle cry he spun her around and around, lifting her high so that the water wouldn't ever touch her.
His cries, her laughter, and the sloshing waves created a joyous, summer-tinged cacophony.
"Had enough of being rescued?" he asked, still spinning.
"Yes, yes! I order you to cease in rescuing me this instant!" She struggled to catch her breath. She squeezed her eyes shut and leaned her head back. A glorious smile stretched her face, rich brown curls flowing down, almost to the waves.
Raoul stopped spinning.
After a moment, Christine opened her eyes.
Raoul's face was now deadly serious.
Before she could adjust to this new attitude, he turned sharply and hurried back to the sand, carrying her as if she were weightless in his arms.
He trudged up to a clearing by some rocks until they were obscured from plain view, from any chance wanderers.
He laid her down gently but urgently on the sand. He followed her down.
He propped himself up on his elbows above her. Her heart skipped painfully.
His lion's eyes were soft and fiery, solemn and eager.
He looked like he could devour her. Yet when he moved, it was only to brush her hair away from her eyes. The gesture turned into a caress of her cheek, crimson for another reason now.
Then the hand trailed lower, down her slender throat.
The instant that hot hand touched the nape of her neck, massaging her sensitive skin, she closed her eyes. A soft moan escaped her – soft, very soft.
She reopened her eyes when he stopped. The look in his gaze now was strained. Hesitant. Instinctively, she knew he was waiting for some sort of consent.
Wordlessly, she nodded.
His mouth was on hers, harder than it had ever been before.
In that moment, she could barely think. She saw, as if flipping rapidly through a scrapbook, her vivid childhood fantasies about Raoul. Those had been leisurely, tranquil, rose-colored, and vague in comparison with this.
This was pressing, real: violent and tender, urgent and revering.
She gripped his shirt collar, pulling it open further by one and then two buttons. His chest pressed against hers and she could feel the tickle of his curling chest hair against her collarbone. He smelled intoxicatingly of the sea.
She gasped in his mouth as his hands slipped into her bodice, gently but insistently pressing and cupping the sides of her breasts.
Her lower half writhed beneath his. She suddenly felt it, there: hardness. Real, human, alive.
Her groan was far louder now. Her characteristic timidity seemed vanished, as if she were a mouse turned into a wolf.
Then a strong gust of wind rushed against them, spraying sand over their bodies, and the unromantic squawking of a seagull made them rigid. They broke their kiss.
Their breath was haggard and Raoul leaned his forehead against hers. His eyes closed. Then he laughed raggedly. "I suppose taking one's love on the beach isn't as romantic as all those lurid novels would have one believe."
Strangely disappointed, she still managed a coy smile. "You mean to tell me, monsieur le vicomte, that you've read such stories?"
"Well, you know, those long nights at sea…."
The hands that had just moments before moved sensually beneath her bodice now tickled her under her arms. She shrieked mirthfully again, shoving him in the chest.
He rolled off of her, supporting himself with one elbow. He smiled ruefully. "Come." He stood, holding out a hand to her. Reading the dashed hope and desire in her face, he said seriously, "You deserve better than this, Christine."
Her sad but loving face gazed at him with reluctant gratitude. He stared at that dark cloud of hair as the wind blew through it.
She deserved the world, he thought.
Almost six months passed this way. Lust battled with honor, but always ended in laughter, teasing, and affection. They were deliriously in love.
But absolute bliss was not yet attainable to them.
He kept trying to speak of marriage, but she'd hesitate, bringing up his station, Mamma Valerius's frailty, her career. He would respond that he'd fulfilled enough of his promise to Philippe as he cared to, and he'd never wanted his blasted title. He told her they'd look after Mamma Valerius together; she would live with them. Christine could sing wherever and whenever she'd like. He loved her voice, and would be proud to have an ambitious wife with a strong career.
"Sweet, foolish boy," she'd whisper then, dark mournful eyes studying him. She wondered how he could be so good, so kind, so in love with her – and yet for someone who seemed so knowing and brave, so recklessly naive.
Of course, he'd never been an orphaned singer. Never been a woman without a station in life. So how could he know that what he spoke of so simply and frankly would in the end prove an ordeal almost insurmountable?
And of course – of course – there was an even larger storm cloud always threatening to break overhead.
"He's gone, they say," Raoul would remind her, citing newspaper articles and what Meg reported in her frequent letters to Christine. "There's nothing to fear."
She'd bury her face in his neck, whispering with harsher intensity, "sweet, sweet foolish boy."
How to let him know that with this dark angel nothing was certain? How to let him know that at odd moments in the day, even holding Raoul's hand in the middle of a bustling market crowd, the suffocating fear she felt after wrenching off the mask would seize her?
The singing in her head stopped and no longer haunted her nights. But the memories remained.
She could not visit her father's grave.
Gustav and his tales of the Angel of Music were sullied for her now. She was robbed worse than if the Phantom had ripped her entrails from her.
All that remained, that glistened as brightly as it had since she was a child, was Raoul. Unlike the Angel, unlike her father, Raoul was real, there, solid, alive – and honest.
Her father was cold in the ground. The Phantom's touch was cold. The tombstones that traced the steps of her past were cold.
Raoul's touch burned her.
She would hold onto that fire with all her strength if need be.
That fire, that passion within him, that he wanted to use to encourage her to stand strong and fight for herself, ironically sheltered her too much. She let him shepherd her, and so swept up was he in protecting her that he did not notice how violently she came to depend on him.
She eventually followed his lead. Pressing, murmured words, and she acquiesced. They arrived back in Paris just in time for Christmas.
Meg's letters during this period were as effusive and chatty as the girl herself. By these letters alone, one could surmise that the July tragedy had not altered her bright and inquisitive personality at all, or her childlike bursts of affection.
She gave very detailed accounts of the renovations after the chandelier's fall, of how with Madame Giry's guidance the managers skillfully avoided lawsuits from aggrieved family members and traumatized audiences. Carlotta had also taken a sabbatical, rebuilding her confidence singing at private concerts in her native Italy, Piangi always at her side.
And again, there was no sign, no word from the menacing figure who started the entire ordeal.
However, with Piangi, Carlotta, and Christine gone, there was little to pull in audiences for an opera once renovations were complete.
And so, once again, Firmin and Andre deferred to Madame Giry's judgment. They put on a ballet instead.
The ballet chosen was a recent composition by the Englishman Petrie, an adaptation of Charles Dickens's David Copperfield. Italian export Carolus Fonta played David, La Sorelli his true love Agnes, and Meg was the addlepated but sweet child-wife Dora.
What Meg failed to mention in her letters to Christine was that this was her greatest role yet and a turning point in her career.
Although she spoke not of it, critics certainly did.
"What is so puzzling about Mlle. Giry's career," Charles Bisset, the most influential critic in the Queue said in his column, "Is how she has as yet to take the stage in a leading role. Is it a fear of accusations of nepotism on her mother's part, a fear of upsetting La Sorelli on the part of the managers? Ever since she was a girl Mlle. Giry has shown tremendous promise, and she's never carried herself so ably – so adorably, so proficiently – as she does as Dora.
"Her trained grace combined with an undeniable natural energy and openness makes Sorelli's Agnes seem so cold and stale in comparison, though the prima ballerina executes her steps as technically well – and dully – as always. Mlle. Giry has always excelled in brisk turns and small jumps, combined with intricate foot-work. Because of her small frame, in the past she may not have always been the most flexible dancer, but her Dora shows marked improvement there, particularly in her pas de deux with Fonta in Act III.
"This spirited and sprightly dancing, in comparison with Sorelli's much more sedate movements, fits the flighty character of Dora perfectly – while the heart and soul evident in the pretty girl's expressions (thankfully the managers are aware at least of her beauty, and never fail to capitalize on that in silent roles in the opera) give the character the proper soul and depth required to make her far more than a one-note ninny.
"One can readily understand why David falls under this Dora's spell. This reviewer and his fellow audience members certainly did."
His notes were echoed in other columnists'. While La Sorelli seethed and wept, Meg became more than a promising leader in the corps de ballet and was for the first time seriously talked about as a soloist.
Fear of nepotism had indeed been part of why Giry had heretofore held back the reigns a bit on Meg's career. But truly, she was too distracted over the years following Erik's instructions and protecting his secrets to spend too much time advancing Meg's prospects.
Now, however, with ballets the only source of entertainment available at the opera house, and – more importantly – Erik's absence freeing up her time, Madame Giry could focus more on allowing Meg to shine.
Ballets had never been as great an attraction to Parisian audiences as the opera. Careless subscribers felt it redundant to spend a night watching dancing alone when operas combined both dancing and singing into one. However, with the positive notes Meg and David Copperfield received, the crowds became larger and larger at each showing.
Moreover, once the Opera Populaire reopened, a morbid subset of citizens was eager to take in the Phantom's domain, as one visits an exhibit at a freak show.
The chandelier was not yet replaced, and Firmin and Andre relied heavily on candelabras, which succeeded in adding a softer and more mysterious glow to the scenery.
And so, through a combination of positive publicity and a curious populous, Meg's star quickly rose.
It was not modesty that kept Meg from mentioning this in her correspondence with Christine. The young girl was merely still too swept up in the goings-on around her, too preoccupied trying to find ways to discover the Phantom's secrets, to fully take in and enjoy her growing success.
Still, maturation was showing in small ways. She no longer trailed her mother quite so often now. More often than not, she was more comfortable taking charge of her own tasks, whether it was visiting Pauline to make adjustments to her costume or consulting the conductor on matters of tempo and pacing in the orchestra.
Yet it was still the same sunny smiling face with girlish eyes wide with glee that greeted Christine and Raoul when they returned. Raoul quickly grew fond of the petite rat, Meg taking the place of the little sister slot Christine once filled in his heart. "Mlle. Giry" was soon replaced with his pet name for her, "Flibbertigibbet." Meanwhile, she delighted in curtseying to him exaggeratedly, greeting him with a piquant "Monsieur le Vicomte" and sticking out her tongue.
Meg and Raoul both noted Christine visibly shrank into herself the moment she stepped out of the carriage onto the steps of the Paris Opera House again. Her eyes were everywhere around her, distrustful of every shadow.
Yet her fearful attitude slowly changed once Raoul finally convinced her to accompany him to the last showing of David Copperfield before the New Year and its new season. Raoul and Mamma Valerius had sat in Mamma's bedroom with Christine the morning before, the singer's contract spread over Mamma's blankets as the old woman read over the pages with the vicomte. They both talked Christine through the fine points, impressing upon her the fact that she herself had done nothing to deserve dismissing, and she'd come back in more than enough time for anyone to consider her absence nothing more than a richly needed vacation.
Christine nodded numbly, allowing Raoul to practically speak for her to the managers that afternoon, who with barely suppressed irritation agreed to extend Christine's contract.
Madame Giry, standing behind the frazzled gentlemen, frowned at the passive stance Christine struck, sitting staring at her feet as Raoul pleaded her case. Their behavior was reminiscent of a hard-selling lawyer speaking for his indifferent and glum client. Giry could tell the vicomte meant well, but his concern and love blinded him to the fact Christine would never grow stronger if he continued coddling her. And it was obvious Raoul wanted her strong. How to get across to the young firebrand that Christine was not the only one who needed to adjust her attitude?
Christine gripped his hand when they took their seats to watch Meg dance. Almost ten years later, Christine would express her regret to her friend that she did not fully appreciate Meg's breakout role, too nervous scanning the rafters, too busy studying the large gaping absence where the chandelier once hanged. Meg forgave her instantly. She would have felt no differently were she in Christine's place.
As it was, Christine at the time only vaguely took in the sparkling young girl twirling about the stage, bright curls bouncing with each step. Meg was a fiery phoenix in a herd of tranquil swans as she played first the charming coquette and then the struggling housewife.
But all of Christine's senses were spent focusing on the air about her, listening for an ominous word from above, watching for a shadow rushing by to the side of her. But as the show went on, Christine relaxed.
Nothing. She felt nothing. No presence, no whisper in her ear.
After the curtain call, Christine whispered to Raoul, "There's somewhere I must go." And without another word she slipped through the departing audience members, disappearing backstage.
She slipped the key into her dressing room door. She took a moment to try to compose herself, looking around her. The passage was dark, empty. Her breath was coming out in panting huffs. Closing her eyes she turned the key and entered. Hands trembling, she struck a match and lighted the lanterns.
She gathered all the courage hiding within her and stared into the mirror.
She stared for what seemed like hours, forcing herself not to turn away.
Stillness. Not eerie, not electrifying: just stillness.
Her own face staring back at her and nothing more.
At last she let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
And the first true smile since returning to Paris glowed on her face.
She knew somewhere deep inside that the rapture she felt was only temporary, but it was enough for now.
She opened her dressing room door to see Raoul standing outside. He'd known.
Staring directly into his slightly questioning blue eyes, she said, "Well, my love? Shall we marry?"
He took her hand firmly in his.
A/N: Leroux fans will note I changed Carolus Fonta from a tenor to a dancer. Artistic license, whee! Also, Petrie is the name of Herbert Lom's Phantom in the 1962 Hammer Horror film.