“Oh, Christine, you’ve just been duped by this man, can’t you see it? Come away with me, and, in time, you’ll see it was all a sham of his to lure you into staying and living a life such as his. Please, Christine, let me take you away.”
She turned away from him, sat back down, and looked out over the city and then at the sky. Her hands were limp in her lap, and she spoke as if in a dream.
“Will you take me far away where the clouds are going?”
Raoul sat back next to her. “Yes, Christine, I’ll take you far away.”
She turned back toward him and took his hands in hers. “He’ll be watching me during the performance tomorrow night, and then he’ll be waiting for me to return to him with my answer. Meet me in my dressing room, and then we can leave before he knows I’ve left. See if there’s a train leaving for the north so we can leave before he finds out. Can you do that, Raoul?
“If I’m faint and fear to go with you, make me go, Raoul. Don’t let me change my mind. I can’t go back to him and look into his pitiful eyes, I just can’t. I can’t watch them fill with tears again. I can’t listen to him tell me he loves me and plead with me to love him. If I see him and hear his voice, I won’t have the strength to refuse him, I know I won’t.”
My fingers pressed hard against my face in a pitiful effort to silence my cries that were demanding their say. I can’t find a word that can come close to describing what those words of my lovely Christine did to me. I felt as if the last weak thread holding the fragile remaining portion of my soul had been ruthlessly ripped from my chest, leaving my defenseless and trusting heart to plummet to the cold stone beneath my feet.
I stared at her in disbelief. I’d been trying to prepare myself for what I thought would be the worst case scenario, but I was completely unprepared by her traitorous actions. My eyes blurred as I watched on, feeling I no longer had any control over my life, while they heartlessly moved on with theirs.
He took her in his arms, and she sobbed and pleaded with him to help her. He raised her chin and kissed her, and I felt my heart at my feet struggling to beat just one more time when it no longer had the will to do so. With her hand in his, they left the rooftop, and the stars, and the wispy clouds, and the beautiful summer night, and her downed angel with his bleeding heart.
The air on the rooftop became silent, with only my muffled sobs left as evidence of the sad scene. Christine had the soft shoulder of Raoul to fall against, while I was left with the cold bronze of Apollo as comfort.
“Oh, Christine, how could you?” I whispered into his back. “How could you?”
My fingers wrapped around the metal strings of Apollo’s lyre, and I cried tears of such agony. How could she? I began to question, I gave her everything I had. How could she do this to me? How could she leave me without even a goodbye? Did I not tell her I was prepared for a refusal, and all I asked of her was to be honest with me and give me back my ring? Was that so much to ask—just to be honest?
I didn’t even ask for my first kiss, not even a goodbye kiss from the woman I cherished, the woman I’d given everything to. I could have. I could have taken one anytime I pleased, but I didn’t. I’d been nothing but a gentleman to her, and she turned into a Delilah to me.
I started moving across the rooftop still questioning, Oh, Christine, how could you do this to me? I sat on the same bench where they’d just been, and I cried. I removed my mask, and laid my naked face in my hands, and I cried. I doubled over and rocked in pain, and I cried.
I only had enough strength to whisper, “Christine—Christine, why?”
My sobs subsided, my tears began to dry, and I focused on my feet, now left to walk their path alone once more. Where will you take me, my feet? How far can you walk without your heart? Italy? Spain? America? Or perhaps, the North Pole or the South Pacific Islands? How far can you walk without your heart?
I was using all my brain power to work out what I had to do next, but it’s hard for a brain to work without a heart. I did know though that I had to interrupt their plans just a bit. I couldn’t let her leave with my ring. I had to get it back. She could keep her heart, I finally decided. I didn’t want anything that treacherous lying around anyway.
Also, I had to let both of them know that I was still in control, and that I, and I alone, would be directing the last scene of our near love affair. I couldn’t let either of them leave without knowing that they hadn’t outsmarted me. So, after a few minutes, I had the final scene of the final act of our little drama written to my satisfaction.
They would be meeting in her dressing room after the performance, thinking they’d sneak away without my knowing. Well, I’d have a surprise waiting for them. I’d be there, dressed in my finest evening attire. I’d be staunch and in control when I reminded them that I always see and hear all that goes on in my domain, and that they’re both fools to think they could slink away without my knowing about it.
I’ll criticize Raoul by telling him that he didn’t get a very good deal on those tickets he bought. I’ll tell him he should have consulted me first, and I could have gotten him a much better deal. I’ll take the gowns and jewels I’d bought Christine to her dressing room and give them to them as her dowry. Perhaps, I’ll even buy something new and expensive for them both, perhaps a silver platter engraved with something special for the newlyweds, just to pour salt in their wounds.
If it weren’t for the stern air I planned to use, our meeting would be cordial, but my sarcasm would definitely get my point across. I’ll be anything but the wimpy, tearful fool she thought I would be. If any tears are shed, they’ll belong to my traitor. I even had the staging set. I’ll be sitting in her chair with my feet propped up on her dressing table and perhaps thumbing through her diary when she enters.
My planning was doing its trick, and it helped soften my pain. Now, I thought, if I can only keep up this attitude until the following night, we might all make it through this long and ridiculous ordeal in one piece.
I was leaning back on the bench and looking at the same wispy clouds that Christine was looking at when she made her final decision to leave without giving me my ring and without a goodbye. I’ll be much more of a gentleman than she was a lady, I thought. I was always more of a gentleman than she was a lady.
I should have known from the beginning that I couldn’t trust her. My first clue should have been when she ripped off my mask. If I couldn’t trust her with my face, what made me think I could trust her with my heart? She couldn’t be trusted. She says one thing and then does another, the lying wench.
I started to get up when something caught the moon’s light and sparkled under the bench. My automatic reaction was to look toward it, and then, once more, in disbelief my emotions took off in another direction without me. I reached for it. I reached for my ring. Rolling it between my fingers, I shook my head. She knew what that ring meant to me, and yet she treated it as no more than a child’s toy. I only asked that she give it back to me if she didn’t want it. That was all I asked.
I slid it back on my little finger where it belonged and where it should have remained, and then I walked to the edge of the roof, twisting my ring as I went. My jaws were tightening as I replaced my mask and glared down on the street below and the people carrying on their lives, with no regard for this fallen angel’s despair.
I’d turned my suffering into a cold resolve with my plans to rewrite the last scene, but with this new evidence of her betrayal, that cold resolve moved easily into uncontrolled anger. I cursed God for my pitiful plight, and I beat on the cold stone that surrounded me. Then I cursed myself for being so brainless as to allow another human to have that much control over me. But then my worst fear moved in and started a steady path toward the surface—my controlled anger.
It was that anger that had allowed me to plot against Franco and then to carry out my desire to kill him, and I would have succeeded at that young age of ten if it hadn’t been for the loving care of a father. My mind and heart could p
lan such a murder because of my controlled anger.
It was that anger I’d carried with me during that year and a half when so many lost their lives because of it. It was that controlled anger that nearly got Christine killed once before, and with what I was feeling for her right then, I feared where my thoughts were going. But as it began to take over my mind and heart, I once more became a spectator, merely watching myself from another sphere somewhere.
I was no longer cursing, my voice was silent, and the air on the rooftop became tranquil once more. My heart slowed to a steady beat as I looked out over the rooftops and into the distant hills. I looked to the north and wondered if Raoul had bought their tickets yet. I pictured both of them smiling, thinking they had it all worked out so nicely.
I huffed. She’s broken her last heart. She’s trifled with both of our hearts, Raoul’s and mine, long enough, and she won’t be permitted to do it any longer. No longer will I be the gentleman she’s known. I’ll take from her what I’ve wanted, what she’s refusing me. I’ll take that first kiss and much more. I only asked her to be my living wife in name only. Well, her little game of betrayal is going to come thundering back on her.
I felt my eyes narrow as I began envisioning my plans to make her completely my own. My lifelong dream of living within the walls of an opera house had been ruined, and I was then being forced to leave my piano and almost everything else I cared for. Everything was ruined because of that tramp, so she’d be made to pay for her folly.
She’ll either marry me for real or she won’t live long enough to marry anyone. She thinks she can play a game with the master of games and win. Well, I don’t think so. This master always wins—always.
As I walked slowly and deliberately down from the roof, I worked out the details that would put an end to the game we’d been playing. This will be the end of my lonely and tormented life one way or the other. I’d only asked her for my ring or her heart, and she thought that was too hard a decision to make. Well, she’ll soon come to realize what a simple decision that was—simple in comparison to my next demand.
She’ll either lie with me in my bed as my real wife or we’ll both be dead and buried within two days, one day to maneuver my plans, and one day for her to make her decision—my wife or death.
With my heart no longer in pain, I walked slowly through the empty corridors, probably for the last time. I went to the stable, rendered the grooms unconscious, and took César for a ride along the Seine for one last time. I didn’t care who saw me, and those who did received my icy glare as a warning. I took him to the lake, kissed him goodbye, and left for my home, all the while knowing exactly what I was doing, and I was doing it grimly.
When I knew the city was awake, I left my home and set out for the dress shop, and there I purchased the last dress for my deceitful wife, a bridal gown. It was a beautiful dress and such a shame it couldn’t be worn on a more festive occasion. Its white satin was overlaid with delicate Venetian lace, and small pearls were scattered throughout the bodice, truly a piece of art.
The shopkeeper smiled warmly at me. “It appears the other dresses you’ve purchased for your lady friend must have paid off.”
Coldly, I responded, “Perhaps,” and nothing more.
I next went to the pharmacist and bought a bottle of chloroform. Once home, I checked the connections to the two boxes on my mantle, both the grasshopper and the scorpion. Then I went down to my wine cellar and checked the connections to the gunpowder. Finally, I checked the connections on the barrels of gunpowder around the foundation of the opera house. I had no intention of doing the job halfway—I never did anything halfway.
Once that was completed, I poured myself a glass of brandy and sat calmly in my chair by the fire, while I wrote what I imagined would be my last words in my journal. After that, I played all my instruments: organ, violin, cello, Spanish guitar, and French horn, thinking it could be the last time I’d hear their special voices. Once finished, I played my piano for a long time, fearing it would be my last musical experience.
I played Chopin and Mozart peacefully and then all my own compositions, which almost started to break through my cold anger and make me start to question what I was doing. Therefore, I went back to my organ and moved into the more angry pieces of Don Juan, and, considering what was to take place shortly, they were most appropriate.
Then I dressed properly for the opera, and, once the second act of Faust started, I entered Box Five through the marble column. Casually, I took my cloak off, laid it over the back of a chair, and sat down. Then I proceeded to glare at Raoul and his brother across the auditorium from me. Christine appeared on stage and sang Marguerite beautifully, and I could tell she was pouring her soul out, and I knew it was my swan song.
Once more her voice almost broke through my determined hatred, so I moved my sight back to Raoul and pictured the train tickets in his pocket. That’s all it took to revive my anger, so, along with my glare, I silently told him to tell her goodbye, because that was his last chance to do so.
The time for the prison scene approached, so I was up, replaced my cloak, and entered the column again, heading down to the lighting organ and the two men in charge of raising and lowering the lighting for the stage. With a chloroform soaked cloth in each hand, I stood in the shadows, waiting for the prison scene to start, but, before it did, a man came out of a door beside me. So I quickly grabbed his head with the cloths, dragged him back into that room, and left him there unconscious. Then I again waited in the shadows until just before Christine was due to be the closest to the trap door in the stage floor.
Then I was around the corner, with those same cloths in each hand. I put one hand over each of the two men’s faces, and pressed their heads against my body until they went limp. Then I listened to the music and waited for my cue, while I pictured the players moving around the stage. Then, just as Marguerite began invoking an angel for guidance, I threw the switches and darted up the stairs toward the dark stage.
There were a few screams and a rumble of voices by the time I reached Christine. Then my hand, still with the chloroform cloth in it, went over her face, and within moments she went limp in my arms. Instantly, I tossed her over my shoulder, and we were both down through the trap door, and it was shut before the lights came back up. I carried her through the maze of beams and gears until I reached my passageway. From there it was only a matter of minutes before we were in my home.
I took her to her bed, or, should I say, my bed, and laid her down with cold indifference. Any other time in our relationship those moves would have been a dream come true, but that night I wasn’t even tempted to stroke her cheek. I didn’t allow myself to be moved by her beauty or my love for her, and I didn’t even cover her. I was too angry for those niceties.
While trying to rub the pain out of my injured right shoulder, I glared down at that temptress, that liar, that cheat. Knowing she would be out for several more minutes, I headed for my kitchen, and, when I returned, I was swirling brandy in a glass. Setting the glass on her dressing table, I locked her door and dropped the key in my vest pocket. Then I took the wedding dress from its box and spread it out over the bed beside her. Smirking, I thought, how foolish for anyone to try to outsmart me, especially a flirtatious and insensitive woman such as she.
Next, I went to the trash where I found the last two roses I’d given her, which were by then dead and dry. Hoping she’d remember what her roses stood for, her future, I crumbled them over the dress, making the silent statement that her future was dead.
After pulling out her chair, I turned it toward the end of the bed, sat down, and then, with disdain, I propped my crossed ankles on the bed’s railing. I slid my ring off my finger and put it in my vest pocket so it could wait for its cue to take its place in that night’s drama.
Taking my glass of brandy in my hands, I took a sip and prepared to wait. I relaxed as I placed my elbow on the arm of the chair, my chin on my knuckles, and my eyes on my soon-to-be wife. Then I
watched her and waited for her to wake and for the first scene of the real last act to begin for us both.
While I waited, my eyes wandered around the room and landed on her music box, the last gift I’d given her. I set my brandy glass down and picked up the box, reading the inscription: Music has joined one angel to another forever. My eyes narrowed, and I squeezed the box as hard as I could. I visualized it disappearing into dust under my grip, but it didn’t.
Then I read the inscription again and thought, no, don’t destroy it, this is perfect. She is joined to me forever, and there’s nothing she can do about it. I smiled and replaced the box on her table. Then, with repeated sips of my brandy, I continued waiting.
It took her nearly ten minutes to wake, during which time her beauty and my love for her almost took control of my hate-filled plans. To force their control away, I replayed the rooftop scene over and over in my mind until my anger pushed my love for her away.
When she started to stir, I watched her with narrowed eyes and a silent tongue. Another few moments and her eyes fluttered open and she looked around. Once it registered where she was, she jolted up and gasped.
I looked at her and snidely smiled. “Well, my dear, here we are again. Welcome home.”
Forty-Five
“Erik? What am I doing here? What happened?”
“Oh, my dear, you look confused. Don’t you remember?”
Her hand went to cover her open lips. “You? You did this? Why?”
“I did what, my sweet? Rescued you? Why, yes I did. You see you fainted right in the middle of your aria. You were praying for angelic help, so, being the upright angel that I am, I couldn’t leave such a lovely Marguerite sprawled out over the stage that way, now could I?”
“No—you . . .”
“I what?”
“I felt your hand on the back of my neck and a cloth over my face.”
“My hand? Oh, I don’t think so. It must have been a pigeon’s wing. You know how they like to roost on the rafters.”
Through Phantom Eyes: Volume Five - Christine Page 64
