Gift Five
"The Vow"
(Part V)

CHRISTINE DAAÉ'S JOURNAL
(entry cont.)

Again I must make an intermission of my prose.

The house has gone silent just now. Erik's brutal pounding of his organ - the pace of which could only be described as nothing less than punishing – has finally just chased itself to its tremendous climax, and at last he ended the madness with a sharp, guttural ejaculation.

Now his door opens and closes, and he steps lightly down the way – I think he's coming to the room -

If she hadn't been listening as intently as she was, she would not have heard his two quiet knocks against her door.

Christine clutched her pen tightly between her fingers as she stared at the door in paralyzed fear. It was locked, thank goodness, but she knew locks didn't matter in this house. A locked door might as well have been an open archway for Erik.

But him knocking on the door meant he had no intention of entering unless she invited him in. And she had no intention of doing that, that was sure.

"Christine?" His voice was so soft, so timid. "Are you awake?"

Of course I am, Christine wanted to say. How could anyone sleep when someone was pounding their organ that loudly in the next room over?

She did not reply, though, too afraid to speak as she was. For if she answered this one question, she would undoubtedly be forced to answer the next, and the one after that, and then any and all of his subsequent questions.

"Erik is sorry," he persisted. "Let him say that to your face. Please, Christine. Please open the door."

She did not.

"Erik will not hurt you," he implored. "He wishes only to speak of the matters of this past night and day, and to apologize for his wicked words and deeds. And Erik wants to know… do you know that it is after midnight now – far past it – and the actions required of us have not been done? Do you understand what that means, Christine?"

She did; that latch was locked for a reason.

"It means it can all be un-done," he said, in a voice that might have passed for a whisper… if only he weren't trying so hard to make sure she heard him! "That which we have not yet done is the thing that will undo the rest of which we have done already."

Her blood chilled as he let out a single chuckle. There was a sound as his fingers brushed a longing path down the wood of her door.

"It's poetic, Christine, in a sad little way. We shall create a new life no matter what we do."

Whether she wanted to or not.

"Let me in," he pleaded again. "Please, Christine. You have nothing to fear from me. I won't hurt you again."

No, she silently replied.

He let out a deep sigh, half-strangled by a sob, and muttered to himself, still just loud enough for her to hear him through the door, "She is smart to keep that door closed."

And then his footsteps padded away towards the parlor, each step falling a little softer than the one before it, until finally they at last eclipsed back into silence.

CHRISTINE DAAÉ'S JOURNAL
(entry cont.)

I have placed my sewing scissors on the desk beside my journal. They are there, just in reach, if ever I should need them in the coming hours. And I write 'hours' – for I cannot imagine this stalemate between us continuing for more than that. One of us must give in.

I am the weaker of us two, and so I already know it will ultimately be I who will surrender. I do not wish it so, but I know it will be.

For now I must make the most of my remaining time. My nerves are so fraught and frayed, so perhaps it would do me well to return to my recollection of events. Or perhaps it would serve me better in this world - and the next - to label it as 'My Testimony'…

We were up from the table in an instant. Raoul knew not what to make of the card, but he knew enough to know that receiving a card emblazoned with the command "In pace requiescat!" is not a happy thing to ever receive – especially not when in hot pursuit by a man such as Erik, who had both the means and the motive to help him to fulfill such a dreadful task.

Immediately, we abandoned the fanciful and annoying whims that proper etiquette would normally demand of us, and rushed each passenger we came across on our way back to our private cabin in the first-class car. We made no distinction between a fur-coated woman and a buttoned steward; we assailed them all the same, with the same panicked question: "Have you seen a man in a mask?"

And – if you could believe it! - they all said: "No!"

How could this be? A man in a mask is a very conspicuous sight! Erik must have been on the train with us, and yet nobody saw him! He must have been very good at hiding, or otherwise determined a method of hiding in plain sight. We collected our items from the cabin and then went back out in our fright. Probably it would have been a better idea to sit tight in the cabin and hide, the way a child might hide in their closet from a fire, but we were frantic and worried and so held but a single, unhelpful brain between the two of us, which we lobbed and ferried both backwards and forwards. It would be better to be in public, we reasoned together, because then he cannot get to us.

Not that this has ever helped us before. I was in the most public of spaces – performing in front of a theatre of thousands – when Erik last spirited me away that fateful night…!

And so we came full circle, returning ultimately to the dining car. We found the waiter who had served us, and asked him similarly if this Monsieur Montresor had worn a mask, and he shook his head in firm, concerned denial.

"Not a mask," said the waiter. "But he had a strange appearance, nonetheless."

"What was it? A face like a corpse? The eyes of a demon?" Raoul pressed. "A head of death, perchance?"

The waiter again shook his head. "Nothing like that, Monsieur, or at least I did not take notice. It was instead his expression which struck me, I mean – the poor man seemed to be in the grips of a certain sort of agony."

"And by that you mean death, certainly?"

"A certain sort of death," the waiter corrected. "A broken heart."

"Bah! Foolish sentimentalism," Raoul scoffed. Then he took my wrist. "Let us flee!"

By now the train was arriving at our stop in Chagny. We disembarked swiftly, him pulling me along, moving as briskly as we could through the crowded platform of milling people. We kept our eyes open wide for Erik, but I realized I was not sure I would be able to spot him in a crowd like this. If he was wearing that normal-face mask he had so bragged to me about, I would never stand a chance of recognizing him.

"We must be quick!" Raoul said, tugging me again. "The longer we stay around here, the greater his chances of finding us!"

The rain was picking up now, so Raoul pulled me close to him and huddled me beneath his cloak to shield me as best as possible from the storm. We both ended up rather wet in doing so, neither of us fully covered by the cloak; and he, being less used to such unfortunate circumstances by way of his fortunate birth, became increasingly testy and agitated the longer we prevailed out in that deluge.

He pulled us finally out of the train station and to the curb, where some ten or twelve funereal-looking cabriolets were waiting, all with their own darkly hooded drivers sitting stoically at their helms. They seemed a macabre set of gargoyles, motionless on their perches even as the rain poured down upon them; their horses, too, all seemed dismal and dead, and they were rather more like the black, skeleton-like creatures I had heard about from my father's stories.

Raoul quickly picked the first cab we could get the attention of, the furthest one at the end, and then we all but jumped into the bed of the carriage. As I was rearranging my skirts, which were being pulled by my boot, I heard a small thump from behind the carriage, as if one of the horses around us had stomped its foot particularly hard against the ground, and then the driver came around to the front and mounted his station with all the grim grace of an undertaker.

"To the Chagny estate," Raoul directed from his seat, just as from the corner of my eye I spotted a black-cloaked figure boarding the carriage behind us. Raoul must have seen him too, for he added urgently, "Post-haste!"

The driver uttered no response - or if he did it was lost beneath his grim hood - but instead whipped the reins sharply against the two bony mares' wet bodies, issuing forth a snapping wet crack. And then off we were, careening directly into that tenebrous deluge, where only darkness and shadow play…

Christine paused a moment from her writing, studying the ink as it dried on the page. There was more to the tale still to be written, but she was finding the words becoming increasingly more difficult to pen as she went on.

"Is it because I know the ending?" Christine mused to herself. "Is that why I wish not to write on? Oh, but I wish I could just take this pen in my hand and change it all!"

And yet she could not! So she set the pen down and took a breath, again regarding her writing. She'd kept that journal for almost as long as she'd been down here. So many pages filled with nothing but woe! Oh, she had thought herself in bliss – had thought herself happy and content with the way things were – but skimming through the previous entries revealed nothing but unrepentant misery, for months on end! And Erik had read it all, she knew; there were no secrets between them. He had made no attempt, either, to pretend otherwise. Some nights, she recalled, he would sit in his favorite armchair in the parlor, holding her journal in one hand as the other touched at his lips, almost advancing past but not quite…

Those were the nights he would turn in earlier, excusing himself to his bedroom and leaving her alone with the crackling hearth. In the parlor it was harder to hear the muffled sounds from his room, but in her own bedroom she could hear his choked sobs loud and clear. Some nights she would hear him pet his fingers against his organ a bit, too, aimlessly searching for distraction but never quite reaching fulfillment. She never understood what it was that she had written that made him cry so much.

If these were the words he had read… she understood fully now. Every sob, every sigh; they all made sense. She'd broken his heart a thousand times over without meaning to.

Perhaps he deserved it. He had hurt her in so many ways… perhaps this was his just deserts. He was a foul and wicked man, who cared for nothing but his own selfish, hateful delights. He cared about her only because he loved her; if his heart had not taken a mind of its own and latched onto her, she never would have amounted to anything more than dirt to him.

And how awful he could have been to her! He could have treated her just like he treated the rest of the world. All those callous tales he had told of Persia came back to her. How much like a king he had been in those days! He had made an entire country bend to his whim, and spun that spoiled little sultana tightly around his finger. He had thoroughly ruined her, in the course of a single night – befouled her in her locked bed chamber in every sort of way except the explicit sin – and once sated, had cast her aside like the snapped string of a violin. She had pursued him afterwards to the point of mind-breaking obsession, desperately clutching at a chance of escape from the complacent boredom of her idyllic and perfect life, spouting soliloquies of love from her veranda in the tragic hope that one night he would hear her plea once more… but no amount of soldiers that she sent after him could convince him to change his mind and come back to play the way she wanted. It mattered not what she felt - only what he felt!

No, that wasn't quite right…

If that was how he truly was, Christine and he would have been married long ago. There would have been no chance for waffling, for debating, for loving. She would not have been given that opportunity. He would have taken her the way she knew he wanted to. She would have hated him for it.

And yet she did not. He restrained himself for no other reason than for her sake. What was it he was always talking about? Coercion? He did not want to make a bound woman his wife; he wanted someone free – free to choose not to love him, and then choosing him anyway.

Wasn't that what everyone longed for, in the end?

In an instant she knew: she had to speak with him.

Christine stood from her writing desk and moved to the door. Hand on the lock, she sent a quick prayer to heaven before unlatching it and slowly pulling it open.

He was not in the hall – nor the kitchen, nor the dining room, parlor, or anywhere else.

"Erik?" Christine called, standing beside the extinguished hearth and shivering in her night-robe. "Where are you?"

There was no response.

She toed her way back down the hall, and spotted his door. She hadn't heard him return down this way, but maybe…?

She knocked twice. "Erik, are you in there?"

A sigh came from behind the door, like a breeze through an open window, but nothing more. But it was enough to know he was in there. He just didn't want to see her.

"Erik?" Christine prayed, fingertips brushing against the hard wood of his door. "Please, can we speak?"

Still he kept his silence.

"Erik?"

Not even the wind stirred.

"Erik, please!"

Christine pressed her hand against the door as tears threatened to fall from her eyes. Her fingers curled slightly, as if to turn into a fist with which to break the door down.

It was no use to try, she knew, even as her palm struck the door. He'd designed these doors, just as he he'd designed the rest of the house. No doubt he'd used the strongest sort of lumber, like mahogany or oak, or else something imported with strength unlike anything she'd encountered before. Her clenched fist could pound away at the wood until it bled, and still it would not open.

"Erik!" she cried out, in one final, desperate heave. "Just talk to me! Open the door!"

"Christine…" his sad voice drifted through the door, as though he stood very far away from it, "I'm afraid I cannot oblige you. I cannot open this door… I cannot guarantee your safety at this moment if I do."

"Do not say 'cannot' again, Erik!" She struck the door with a harder fist. "You can do anything you wish! You only cannot if you choose not!"

"Then I choose not to guarantee your safety!" he shouted back, mad fury suddenly alight in his voice.

"And why must my safety be up to your determination, anyway?" Christine called, equally incensed. "Why must you decide for me if I am able to protect myself from you? Why must you decide if I have need of protecting myself from you?" Despite her words, the metal of her sewing scissors burned against her palm. Just in case, she had told herself... "Are you not my husband? Am I not your wife? Let us be as married people are!"

"No!" he screamed, voice throttled through tears. "Christine, I beg of you – do not make me open this door! I couldn't live with myself if I did!"

"Why did you bring me back here then? Why can we not live above-ground as normal couples do? You told me back then that you wished for that! To stroll through the Bois with me on your arm! Why can we not have that life, Erik? Why do you refuse to allow us both that happiness?"

"You know why!" Erik shouted. "Damn you, Christine! You know I cannot trust you!"

"You mean you choose not to trust me!"

"Fine! Yes, yes, Christine, I choose not to trust you! Why should I? You do nothing but try to escape every time I give you even the slightest bit of freedom! Every time I allow you even the smallest share of liberty, you betray me! You connive and conspire with the Persian, and that old hag of a boxkeeper too, each and every time I let you out of my sight! And even before – oh, Christine, even before you knew Erik's horrible truth - even before Erik told you that you must stay with him forever - Erik just asked you not to do one simple thing, Christine, do you remember that? - and yet the very first time Erik turned his back, you ripped his mask right away from his repulsive face! Horror, horror, you said! And horror, horror it has all become since, all by your own doing, you wicked girl! What a spectacular choice that was of yours, Christine, don't you think? What a way to ruin the mood of our jovial relations! Oh! How can you possibly expect Erik to trust you after all of that?"

"Then let me go!" Christine pleaded. "Why force us both to endure this lonely existence? If you cannot trust me enough to allow yourself some happiness, then release me!"

"Oh, but Erik cannot do that either -"

"No! It is not that you cannot! You choose not to!"

At that, he suddenly went silent, and stayed that way for a long time. Christine stood, breathing deep heaves as she remembered herself and her precarious position, and a small vein of fear alighted within her. What if he did open the door? What would she do then? Her sewing scissors were only so sharp...

But then, without warning, a loud discordant blast of sound came from his pipe organ, before quickly spiraling downwards into a reckless assault of menacingly low chords. There was no rhyme or reason to the noise – for it could not be called music – and it sounded even more hateful than anything he had ever played before. Even the Don Juan had inspired more hope than this!

"Erik!" Christine yelled at the top of her lungs, straining to be heard over the noise and stammering in her anger. "How dare you try to ignore me! You impossible man! You are the absolute king of denial! After so long in this wretched dungeon, why do you still persist in choosing to be so unhappy?! I am here, Erik – right here! Everything you have ever wanted! If you can't let yourself believe it – if you're that impossible to convince – just release me! Let me go! Why must you drag me into your misery as well? Why must we suffer together, and yet so separately? Please, Erik - why?!"

The noise did not relent. If anything, it grew even more hateful, garnering more grotesque chordal evasions and demonic temporizations than even before.

There could be no reasoning with Erik now, Christine realized. She made herself back away from the door, still simmering with frenzied despair, and realized there could be no reasoning with her at this moment, either. The organ still blaring its bitter and spiteful disgorgement, Christine shut herself back up in her room and, with hot tears in her eyes, began to scratch her pen once more against the unfeeling, uncaring pages of her journal.

Perhaps he would read this entry, at the very least.