I was already late, and I was perfectly aware of that. Grooming took me double time that morning, and even the simplest things, such as dealing with the bows of my dress, or looking for my gloves in the chest drawer, were a motive to disconcentrate and take endless minutes.
I didn't want to go there. I didn't want to see, to talk, to interact, and above all, to be touched, by any other man in the world for the rest of my life. I wanted to be concealed inside my bedroom, and never step outside again.
Unfortunately, due to my mother's indisposition on the previous days, I had already left the Opera a couple of times, once to mail a letter to my grandmother, confirming that we wouldn't be able to shelter Sophie that year; it hurt that, at the end, this decision was supported by my own hand; and the second trip, to inform my mother's superior at the bakery, an older lady with a stupid expression about her that made me wonder if she understood a thing that I was saying while she listened to me, with her mouth hanging open showing a couple of teeth, explaining that my mother wouldn't be able to work for some time. That probably would make her lose her job, I pondered.
Yes, I had been outside the Opera, but I refused to even look at men who passed by, wearing large brimmed hats that served to block eye contacts. Yet I knew I couldn't avoid this appointment with Doctor Ferrat.
I should have been already a quarter of an hour late, when the knocking on my door interrupted my exhaustive work of braiding my hair, which had become really long and pretty during this last season. Still, after the incident, I tried my best to wear clothes that surely wouldn't make me stand out in the crowd, that would hide every feminine aspect of my body. I dreaded the idea of wearing my tight ballet clothes once again, and especially, dancing with the men of the company. Oh, God, I was going crazy!
Holding the ends of my hair so my whole effort wouldn't be lost, I opened the door and walked back to the room, in front of the mirror, only telling the visitor to come in. I was half expecting Little Cecille's mom to bring some sweets and cakes for my mother anytime, and didn't realize what was going on until I saw, through the reflection on the mirror, a dark figure a few feet behind me.
Unsettled as I had been, I jerked from the chair and was halfway across the bedroom, when I realized who it was. It was that strange and impertinent man again, The Persian! Trying to catch my breath, feeling the blood slowly restarting to flow through my body, I gasped,
"I'm...I'm sorry, Monsieur...I...was...expecting someone else..." Glancing stupidly around the bedroom, which he had so carelessly invaded, I pointed out the chair where I had been sitting, and offered, trying to hide my state of mind, "Please take a seat."
His black eyes didn't scan me, as everybody's seemed to do lately, due to the amount of bruises that had shown up on my arms and face, it didn't matter how much I tried to hide them with winter clothes and make up. Instead, he looked inside my eyes, and his expression was in fact trustful, almost sweet, if it wasn't for a certain angle of his eyebrows, that suggested great gravity.
"When will you give up, Mademoiselle? When will you accept that you've taken enough?"
His bluntness startled me more than his sudden apparition did. He was totally aware of what had happened, I could tell, and yet his eyes didn't reprove me, but rather, offered some sort of fatherly comfort.
I sat down, swallowing hard, and couldn't manage to say a word. I could only plead silently that he wouldn't humiliate me any further, that he wouldn't start the gossip on the theater. Guessing my thoughts, he said through his thick accent, and dry lips that didn't seem accustumed to smiling much, "My child, your secret is secure with me. I have no intentions of defamating you or even black mailing. My only concern here is to protect you, believe me."
At those words, I could no longer contain myself, and gave out in an outburst of crying and accusing, "How could you know! Have you been following me? What do you want? I don't want to talk about it, please, please, Monsieur, leave me alone."
His eyes overflowed with compassion, and for one instant, I thought he would embrace me. But he said, with the softest voice he could, which still wasn't pleasant at all, "I was not spying on you, as you may think. I was simply doing my daily rounds, when I saw you, Mademoiselle, running through the Opera, crying, with your outfit damaged."
As he related the happenings, I cried even more, for I had been trying to shun them from my mind.
"So my first reaction was going down and asking him myself what had happened to you, for I knew he had something to do with it. I just knew it. As I reached the fifth cellar chambers, even though I knew I was under serious risk of life, I looked for him, and all I could hear was some strange sounds, which I had identified as the crying of the beast."
Surprisingly, and disturbing as it was, even after everything, I felt upset for hearing him referring to Erik like that. Oh, I was really so worthless! Could it be that after everything I still wanted to protect him? Well, that was not that amazing, after all, I had accepted the fact that I was really the little whore he had accused me of being. Wasn't it me who provoked, who started it, after all?
"But when I reached the lake...he had vanished. The boat was gone, and there was not a single sign of him. Oh, Allah forgive me, but sometimes I doubt my senses, and catch myself thinking of him as a true ghost... anyway, previous experience had taught me to never, ever, venture across the lake, so I just came back, without being able, once again, to see justice done. Such a young lady like you, I never thought he would come to this point...and I swear that I thought I had seen perfectly before to what extent his cruelty could go..."
"Sir, please spare me of going back there. Ask whatever you want to ask, for I know that all your compassion will be satisfied with a few answers to your police questioning, and leave me alone."
"I apologize if I've made it any harder for you, Mademoiselle. Please understand that my only aim is to have that man arrested, so I can stop for once his sinisters lurkings, and his .. crimes."
I blinked, apathetically.
"So, I hope this time you will cope with me, and tell me what you know."
His expression was hard, sculptured in stone, and I wondered what were the reasons for this man to be so obsessive about the Phantom.
"Mademoiselle, I would like to start asking you where he lives."
Still sniffing, I dried my tears with the sheet that covered my bed, and answered, quietly, "I don't know. I've never been there, I swear."
He didn't argue about it, it must have been clear that I was not in conditions of lying at that instant.
"Alright." He scribbled some notes in a little notebook he had in his hands, and went on, "How did you meet him for the first time?"
"He helped me."
"How?"
I thought for a while, and said, almost inaudibly, afraid of reminding myself, "I think he saved my life, in a way."
The Persian raised his eyes from the paper, but made no comment.
"Why did you develop a relationship with him? Did he force you to keep going back?"
I shook my head in response, looking down. No, he had never forced me to do anything...until now...and even then...he let me go in the end. "Meg Giry, what are you thinking, are you forgiving him already!?" I reproved myself in my thoughts.
"What do you know about his affairs with Mademoiselle Christine Daae?"
"I believe she would be more indicated to answer your questions on this matter, Monsieur."
"Do you confirm you danced with him in the Masquerade Ball?" I nodded, as every scene passed before me again, those times when everything was so much brighter.
"What do you know about the Chandelier accident?"
"Nothing. I was not in the audience when it fell."
Again the Persian stared at me, but didn't say anything, and proceeded with his never ending questions, always writing down something in his notepad.
"What time does he leave the house, usually?"
"I'm afraid the Phantom doesn't have a very strict schedule, Monsieur."
At my answer, the Persian smiled, for I had said it so devoid of sarcasm that it took him by surprise.
"Did he ever tell you why he wears the mask, or ever show you why?"
Again I shook my head, and for the first time in a long time, I had a dim impulse of laughing, for I noticed I was being able to sidestep every annoying question of his without having to say any lies.
"What do you know about the money he steals from the managers every month?"
"That he has the right to this wage according to the rules of the Opera." I thought I had heard my mother saying something to that matter, and just repeated it. For the first time, the Persian seemed upset by my answer.
"Yes, indeed, Modemoiselle, with the rules he sets for himself."
I shrugged.
"Is he still attending the Operas?"
"Again, Monsieur, you should ask my mother about that. She is the boxkeeper in duty."
The compulsive interrogation went on, and he seemed really disappointed, when he was getting to its end, for he couldn't find a single new piece of information about the Phantom, from what he probably had considered his most prominent and promising source.
After a long sigh, he dropped the notebook on his lap and looked at me, this time not being the policeman he seemed to play, but simply an acquaintance of mine.
"Do you love him?"
The question took me totally aback. I didn't know how to deal with it. I hadn't dared thinking about the feelings I made myself believe I had for him before that day. But now...for some reason, my tongue felt tight, dead, and I simply couldn't say a thing, neither to deny nor confirm. Did I? And if I ever came to love him, could I ever forgive him, could it be that I still loved him? I decisively wouldn't think about that!
"Monsieur, I regret to inform you, but I have a doctor appointment, and I need to leave right away. If you could please excuse me." My distress showed in the imperative tone of my words. But the Persian didn't move.
I jumped to my feet, noticing my hair was loose again, and the braid was long ago gone, and said, even more angrily, "Monsieur, can you hear me? Pardon me for not having any servants to show you the door, but I will gladly do it myself!"
He quickly stood up and made his way to the door, which I slammed after he left. Just in time to hear him saying to himself, "Yes, she does. Just as I imagined."
That drove me beyond control, and I was again on the floor, yelling in fury at that stupid foreign man, torn apart.
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