The air was musty, but sweet. A pretended sweetness that deceived, falsely welcome us to the night. Erik was right and grave as always and we walked quietly to the carriage.
For this time his hands felt really cold when he helped me get into the brougham. But the weather was cold... wasn't it?
There was something tragic, distant, in his attitudes. His sight was not inviting as I thought it had been in the night before. Maybe that hand of death which had touched his face was beckoning him further and further into morbid thoughts and that tomb he lived in.
His profile against the moonlight that entered the coach was stiff and artificial. What had fallen upon him?
"Are you doing fine, Erik?"
"I apologize, my dear. I'm feeling a bit tired tonight. Nothing that could be deserving of your worries."
I smiled sadly, infected by the sorrow of his voice, and I asked him a question I could tell he had never been asked before.
"How was your day, Erik?"
Such a simple kindness, traded among cordial meetings and semi-strangers.
"My day, Meg?" He was amused with the idea of answering it, and did so in a paternal way, as if he had to give me back the same naivity I had granted him in asking such an ordinary question. "Well, my days are certainly quite different from yours."
I quickly thought about some silly but funny talk with colleagues from the Corps of Ballet, a nice walk I took before the rain fell down over the city, a delicious soup I had for supper... and suddenly felt guilty for this frivilous joy.
But he was not accusing. He was just making a true affirmation. And he explained, "I have quite peculiar habits of spending my time, Meg. Habits a normal wife would never accept, but my only companion: my music."
I felt pity invading my heart, and it was strange, for I should have been feeling relief. Yes, relief, for this solitude could be my ally in reaching him.
I asked mindlessly, "Do you compose?"
"Yes. I'm working on what will be my masterpiece. When it's finished, I'll be ready to die."
"Neat, I didn't know you composed!" I wanted to change that uncanny and restless tone he was using. I thought that maybe talking about a subject he was fond of would bring him back to his normal self.
"There are many, many things about me that you don't know." He chuckled lightly, deep inside his head mocking himself for being in such innocent, or rather ignorant, company. "But don't worry, I'm not planning on dying too soon. That theater wouldn't be the same without me."
I had to laugh at his dark humor, and agree with this remark.
"And yes, I do compose," he answered my question, "but not always. My music controls me more than I control it, commanding me when it feels like - and during this time I allow her to consume my whole self, with this eagerness the arts have. And then she leaves...and I spent a few more years alone, without touching my piece."
I didn't know what to say in reply to that! His voice had been filled with a passion I failed in comprehending, or even sharing.
"Is it an Opera?"
He nodded.
"What is it called?"
"It's called...Don Juan Triumphant!" he revealed to me, through clenched teeth.
That name struck me sharply, his disgrace clearly translated in this infamous title, and in that self-punishment he willingly inflicted upon himself. And I had only begun to enter his controlled and steady despair.
"Don Juan Triumphant?" I repeated, shocked. What could I say to him, who without knowing it, had just opened his soul to me?
"Sounds funny, doesn't it?" He turned his face away from me, looking out the window. "I thought so, too, when I began to write it."
"And when did you begin to write it, Erik?"
"Oh, that? A long, long time ago, Little Meg."
I sighed with the idea that he spent his life on this work.
"I don't think I would like to hear this piece," I said, looking out the window, too, without focussing on anything.
"No," he said with finality. "I wouldn't play it for you, either. I'm the only one who can get into the secrets of my 'Don Juan'."
"Well, I suppose I wouldn't understand it very well either. Music for me sounds all the same. I never really cared much for music," I said, trying to show him I wouldn't be the ideal person to judge his playing, and that I didn't care to talk much more about it.
He looked at my face singularly, seriously, and asked, "You truly don't care for music?"
In a stupid and unthoughtful reply, I told him, "No...not really, I never did. Music never meant much to me... "
And he answered, "It's a pity..." and he silenced for a long time. "There are some people in the world that can only communicate through music. You know, music is the only freedom and boldness that is left for them. That's why my 'Don Juan' burns, Meg, because it brings things that only music can say, horrible things only music can redeem and make beautiful."
And in that moment I knew, I knew perfectly, I had closed my last and only door to him.
Erik truly believed he could live only through his music, and now I had just placed, because of it, each of us in a different world. I laid my head against the carriage wall, feeling an immense tiredness weighing on me, crushing me for this silly act.
Why did I have to say that, anyway? It wasn't even true! I might not be what one would call extremely musical, but I enjoyed listening to all kinds of music a lot (as long as it was not Faust, for the hundredth time), and would have loved to learn more about it. I had just been speaking without paying attention to what I was saying, as I always did. How much longer would I go on, losing things that were precious to me, just because of this foolish habit of mine, of not thinking twice before opening my mouth?
We arrived to what I recognized as the Luxembourg Garden soon after that. I stepped on the street with a peculiar feeling. It was even darker and more deserted than the Bois de Bologne had been - or was it me? - with the moon now hidden behind thick clouds, not lighting our path and our night. The night was as dark as his thoughts. We walked silently side by side.
Erik had a very unique stride, his feet never seeming to touch the ground; he moved with the least noise, like a shadow, like the Phantom he became inside the theater.
It was uncanny how he could manage to find his way without light, too, for I could see him constantly looking around, facing and considering places where I distinguished nothing but blurred darkness, as if something was hiding there. He was aware of everything that surrounded him, even the ones I failed to notice.
And the most unpleasant was his habit of turning back constantly, as if waiting for an eminent danger that followed him everywhere. I'd noticed this on the first night we went out, but I thought it tactless to remark about it.
At a point, he slowed down his pace and said, "Meg..." He began, with a dark voice, "after going for this ride tonight, there's something else I would like to ask you."
He sounded dark, it's true, but at the same time there existed a slightly noticable sweetness in his voice, furtively letting me know he was ready to talk of something of the most extreme relevance for him. I retributed calmly in an intense but almost loving look, "And what is it, Erik?"
Solemnly, he answered, "It's...it's about something I have ...for you..."
I cocked my head, both curious and pleased with the idea.
"But it's a surprise!" he said a little childlike, making me grant him a large smile.
"What is it?" I almost jumped in excitement, provoked by his words.
"You will see...in time..." His voice became obscure again, and I had to wonder what was going on inside his mind that couldn't be restrained, and was spotted on his attitudes and mood.
That gloomy atmosphere eminating from him was disturbing, and suddenly I was not sure if I wanted to know what his surprise was anymore.
Of course I was glad that he hadn't paid attention to the foolishness I said about music before, or at least I hoped he hadn't. But at least in that way I knew that if he ever came to love me, it wouldn't be a confused feeling of an extension of his love for music, just as I liked to explain to myself of his infatuation for Christine.
I liked to state to myself proofs that Christine would never complete him, even if she could offer him her music. He needed more than an instrument, he needed more than an artistic partner... Ah, and if he had shown this dry and enigmatic side to Christine, that would explain part of her horror for him - especially if he allowed his dark mood to show itself when he was around her.
Dark mood! How ignorant of me calling that a dark mood. No, Erik's moods were a lot more serious, and dreadfully more somber than that little demonstration of disquietude. And this, I was on the edge of discovering...
We were now standing close to a light pole, and the dim light reminded me that I still had the sketch I had brought on the other night, which I had regretfully forgotten in the bosom of my dress.
"Erik, taking advantage of this light..." I said, looking at the gas burning inside the lamp, lighting and showing us in the darkness, "...there's something I would like to show you."
The flash lit his shining white mask. "He does look like a ghost sometimes," I thought, while unfolding the paper.
"It's just a little drawing I did...of you... It's not that good, I know, but I just felt like sharing with you."
"I didn't know you were an artist," he commented politely.
"There are many, many things about me that you don't know." I parodied him, friendly. "But I'm not an artist... It's just that your image got kind of stuck in my head."
I couldn't help but grin nervously. Now I felt the pressure of presenting him something really good, and unsure of what he would think of the primary sketch, I almost retrieved the paper.
"I wanted to save that memory better."
He took the paper from my hands. I knew he was a perfectionist, a lover of beauty... Would he laugh at my feeble attempt of representing him?
Erik looked fixedly at the paper for what seemed to be an eternity. Slowly and gravely, he raised his head, until his eyes finally met mine, from behind his glowing mask. His blue eyes reflected hope and confusion, and a slight sign of vanity.
Oh, this was one thing about Erik that always amazed me! Besides everything, he was always sure of himself, and self-conscious - Erik knew that he had very admirable qualities, even if the simplest things in life were denied him as a result of his ghastly ugliness. He had a precious and powerful mind. He was a genius, as I learned little by little. A troubled genius, as most of them are, but still a person with a vast, clear, and rich mind.
"Is it really as you see me?"
He was severe, for he was dealing with a fragile side of his personality - establishing his image of himself - but he was also tasting some level of release, of being liberated from the chains of being a Phantom and a freak for long years.
I took another glance at the paper, to remind me of what points might have surprised him like that. It was a black-and-white sketch, made with regular black pencil, showing a mysterious and beckoning masked man, who carried the most deep and enticing eyes I had ever had the chance to see. I tried to include in the drawing his catlike figure, too, that overshadowed his slender but delicate structure.
It's not easy to portray through pencil and paper someone that occupies a dear position inside your soul. It's an impossible task for the artist to represent anatomically and loyal the model. It's useless fighting the impulse, the instinct, of documenting what this person looks like for you, in an individual interpretation.
"Is it really the way you see me?" he had asked. I scanned him, passing my eyes over his whole self, and glanced at the paper again. "Yes. Yes, it is."
Our eyes lingered, and connected, and Erik showed a discrete sign of surrending, again, as if he was ready to ask me to teach him more about himself, to change the apparently definitive image he had built, or rather, had been built for him in his past days.
"Hey, lady! You are very pretty, you know?"
The noise of the unfamiliar voice came from my right, forcing me to look in its direction, and I was surprised that someone else had dared to brave that night. My eyes wandered around the dark square until I found a couple of men staring on our direction. As I looked on their faces, brute and sneering, it became obvious they had spoken to me. I ignored them like I had done many times before when walking on my own through the alleys of the city.
But they insisted, the other man yelling this time.
"You free tonight, baby?" Again I turned around, more irritated, noticing the repulsive aspect of the pair. The one who just talked to me was very tall and strong, though not as corpulent as the other one, and wore a long mustache above his sardonic smile with sharp teeth.
The second was bigger, had clothes that reminded me of the Navies of dock areas I had been to in England, and held a green bottle.
"You wouldn't charge us much, would you, baby?" He continued, the voice hoarsy and trembling from the alcohol.
I blushed, embarassed not for myself, for I wouldn't care if they wanted to think me a prostitute, but I wanted to die for having them saying that in front of Erik; whose opinion about me mattered more than anything else.
I tried to joke, as I usually do in bad situations, and shrugged in an ironic disdain, "Drunkards..."
As I fit Erik again, I felt frozen inside. He didn't take my joke, and least of all the gratuitous insult. His eyes had a very new and terrifying glow in them. I didn't want to know what passed through his head.
The sound of heavy and hard steps on the pavement made me switch my stare from Erik to the two men crossing the street coming in our direction. I was glad for not being completely alone, but Erik was not exactly an imposing man, after all. His structure was gracious, elegant, but didn't suggest any strength or opulence to defend us, or intimidate them, if that was necessary.
Erik had always been the master of disguises...
They stopped beside us, closer to me, and gave a careless laugh.
"Why are you so shy, my pretty?"
I just said, in a restrained offense, "Get lost..." They laughed again, and I could face neither Erik nor them. I could tell they were ready to say something else, when they quit laughing, conserving meaningful silence. They hadn't noticed Erik's presence until that moment. Erik had this way of almost becoming invisible, if he wished so.
"Ah, I see," said the taller one. "You are already...escorted."
If I had been scared before, now I was tasting panic. If they decided to do anything to Erik, there would be nothing I could do to help him! And they were so much bigger than him...and certainly a lot younger, too.
I looked desperately around, searching for someone, trying to see where the coachman had stopped the carriage. But he was far, far away...there were no one to help us.
"So you chose to ignore us..." threatened the one holding the bottle, who had his face covered by a disgusting and dirty beard.
"Our masked man must have a lot of money, then!" And he grinned intentively to his partner, both of them staring at Erik.
They surrounded Erik, whose eyes I was still avoiding. If something happened to him because of me, I would never forgive myself...
"Either that...or he is a very handsome fellow, to captivate you like this." They laughed again in a jest, for common sense said that if Erik didn't have a reason, he wouldn't hide his face. Taking the bottle from the hands of the other, the taller of them took a sip of the liquid and said, mocking, "Why don't you show it to us, Stallion?" and he moved his hand towards Erik's mask, chuckling evily.
By then I was leaning against the pole, terrified, dreading the humiliation they would cause Erik, and it's terrible consequence to our relationship; when I saw the hand calmly held by one of Erik's animalesque grips, and his velvet voice, in an unrecognizable serenity, saying "No. Wrong. You won't see Erik's face."
His voice was so deprived of emotions that I wondered who that man was in front of me. The two became infuriated at Erik's superior and controlling attitude, advancing at once toward him, one reaching for Erik's pockets, and the other immobilizing his arms and trying to get hold of the mask.
An incredibly loud scream slipped from my mouth, my piercing voice reaching every house, denouncing what was going on. I only quit my scandel when I noticed what was going on...
Once I started to scream, at the assault, they released Erik and came to me, covering my mouth in fury. And then it all began...
The hand the man had violently placed on my mouth was suddenly removed, followed by a spasm of pang that deformed his whole face, and a scream of grief I failed in comprehend. He little by little kneeled on my feet, his hand clung to my dress, violently contorting his body. He finally fell flat on the ground, taking with him a piece of my skirt. His eyes were open and focused high above, as if in a last attempt of pray for forgiveness. He was laying in a puddle of a thick dark liquid that I anticipated as blood.
I raised my head in dismay, only to meet Erik's hand stained with blood, too, holding a knife which shined under the gas light above us. He had stabbed the man in such a quick and reflexive way, that I guessed immediately that I had a formal murder in front of me.
He looked at me, briefly, and I didn't know who he was: for the first time I was seeing a beast in the place of the man, a beast that attacked and killed, but kept the eyes cold and emotionless.
Driven beyond sense with the dying man's screams and Erik totally out of control, I could barely realize when the other man, completely taken aback by the happening, took another long knife out of his pocket, and in a challenging act, pointed it at Erik- his big and last mistake.
Had he held the weapon a little bit higher, preferably closer to the level of his eyes, as I learned later, he wouldn't have felt in the most mortal strike of the Phantom - his lasso.
In a frighteningly skillfully movement, Erik made this thin rope - whose origin I couldn't guess - spin in the air as a whip, it's sharp noise spreading in the silent night, finally wrapping and tying around the man's neck in a fatal grip.
Erik's arm assumed an inhuman strength, tightening the lasso more and more, until the big mass of muscles, solid and apparently invincible, fell on his knees, gasping for air with bulging eyes. His hands were trying desperately to untie the knot, while Erik held the other end of the rope with tense and firm hands, laughing under his breath.
The pleasure Erik felt with the murdering and the bloodshed was evident. There was nothing I could do but be rooted in the place I was, watching the man's life slowly being extinguished by that efficient assassin. I took hold of Erik, hysterically trying to convince him to let the man go.
But he didn't hear me. He was completely unaware of anything around him. He was lost in a rage.
When I finally heard the man's last effort in breathing, people of the street had opened the windows of their houses, and the lights were lit one by one. It wouldn't be too long before Erik was surrounded and lost in the crowd's hands.
He understood it at the same time I did, for he grabbed my hand and forced me to follow him in a mad run.
As I ran, totally overwhelmed by shock and despair, I kept telling myself he had done that to defend us, and only becase of that. But his laughter would come back to my mind, and I would remember how easy it was for him to kill the two men.
After endless turns, alleys and stairs, we ended up in a deadended back street. I sat on the border of the street, tears uncontrolled, fear finally taking complete hold of me.
He leaned against the wall, his back turned to me, and neither of us said a word. I shivered uncontrollably. I had never felt so scared in my whole life. I couldn't think clearly, of course, and it took a long time to control this outburst.
Erik finally stepped back from the wall and started to walk away from me, without a single look. Using my last energy, I yelled to him, "Oh, great! After all that you are leaving me here alone to be raped?"
He stopped, but didn't turn back.
I added with sarcasm, my voice failing me after screaming and crying so much "You could have done it as well before that cruelty show, then!"
In two steps he was incredibly close to me, ready to attack me if necessary.
"Careful! I advise you to be very careful when you address me!" His voice was frozen and evil.
I just looked him in the eyes, resuming my cry. I had trusted him! I had trusted him more than anyone else, and how hard would it be for him to kill me like one kills a bird?
I buried my face on the brim of my skirt, asking pitifully, "Why are you doing this with me? Why are you doing this with me?"
I was terrified. I had never seen a death from so close before, and I couldn't think clearly.
"You wanted to go out with the monster, didn't you?" he barked.
"I tried to keep a distance from you, but you wanted to tease me, didn't you? So, are you happy now? Did you get what you wanted, or are still seeking more?" He yelled madly, in a wretched voice, visibly realizing what he had done in front of me.
I shook my head without daring to look at him.
"Why did you have to cross my path! Why did you have to push your way into my life, when I neither allowed nor welcomed you?"
I was so out of control that I simply answered, in a long sob, "Because I thought I was in love with you..."
At my pathetic confession he roared with the darkest fury I ever saw, and screamed hoarsely, "Be quite, you foolish girl! Don't you dare talk of love to someone who knows nothing about it!"
I thought he was going to hit me, but he restrained himself. I realized it would be useless trying to talk with him then. He had his own immutable truths, and those wouldn't be easily destroyed. The sadness became so immense that I couldn't cry anymore, my sobs suffocated by my own grief.
He cursed me again, finally lowering his voice, until his words became unintelligable. I managed to raise myself to my feet, and approached him.
"Take me back to the Opera."
Unreasonable as it may have been, walking on the streets of Paris at that time, completely alone, scared me more than being with Erik. And I was afraid that if I turned around and left him there, it would be the last time we would see each other.
I knew that in time I would forgive him for that night, but I also knew I would never forget the sight of those two men dying right at my feet.
When we got back to the main street, the carriage was gone, and all the windows were closed again. Without a word, we began to walk back to the Opera. I felt faint and weak, the corset hindering my already uneasy breathing.
As we walked side by side, I romped the silence and asked him, totally sure of what his answer would be, "You had done that before, hadn't you?"
He simply nodded.
We both seemed to be remembering the scene over and over. My heart felt heavy in my chest.
I was definitely not feeling my best. I asked him for his arm, for I seriously needed some support. It was a long walk, and most of it we made quietly.
When we were beginning to approach the Opera, he asked me the dreadful question.
"Why don't you try to take my mask off as well?" His voice was bitter, and the question was unavoidable. With the shock, I stopped walking and stared him in the eyes, as if I hadn't understood his question.
"I'm sure you also want to see Erik's face. So why don't you just go ahead and take it off? Or perhaps you think I would kill you, too," he said, stepping forward to me, his arms alongside, offering me his face.
I was tired. I was so tired. I only said, as I resumed my walking, "Neither your mask nor your face are of my concern. You can show it to me if you ever decide to do so."
We didn't exchange another word until the Opera. I never found out what he had planned for us that night...
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