“Margarette, you have my answer. Don’t insist.”
I was growing more impatient.
“Mother, you’ve been doing this for the last...I don’t know, five years! What difference will it make?”
“You saw what happened, didn’t you? Meg Giry, for Christ’s sake, leave the Ghost alone! If the managers hear that I’m still involved with this whole story...!”
For my mother, he would always be a ghost. A ghost that would tip her well for being his usher in box five.
“It is very important!” I thought for a second. “The ghost will be mad at both of us if he doesn’t receive it! “
She became quiet, obviously giving a thought to what I said. I felt bad for manipulating her like that. My mother had a blind loyalty to the Ghost, for which reason I would learn later: trying to repay her for her discretion as his usher, he whispered in her ears that he, as a ghost, had seen the future, and that her daughter, me, would became a baroness. I don’t think we had met by then...
My mother was so happy knowing that I would have a good life after her death that she became completely dedicated to the Opera Ghost. His guess was naturally untrue, but it bought my poor mother’s trust.
“Alright, you stubborn thing. Give me the letter!”
I leaped in the air in delight and ran to my room. I passed my eyes through it:
What does one write to an Opera Ghost? I didn’t know either. I knew this letter was my only chance of keeping him close to me, after all that had happened to him. Even without knowing him well enough, I could guess the state of mind he was in. Having invited Christine to his house, taken her there, (Ah, how angry I was just thinking of that!) and ending up having her screaming at his ugliness! And as convenient as it would be, I couldn’t condemn Christine, I just couldn’t! God knows, in her place I would probably have done the same, hadn’t I known who he was.
It would be illusion to think that at the first moment, one could simply not mind his face - for it was the most horrible thing I ever saw, and that deformity belonging to someone so special and so alive made it even harder to watch.
I felt guilty for being so cold with him when he probably most needed a friend, though I’m not sure that he would rely on me as one. At the same time I also hoped that my reaction had affected him somehow, that he would care whether I was indifferent to him or not.
Since the chandelier night, he hadn’t been to his box. I was not sure if it was for fear of the police, which became a certain presence at every performance, or if it was because there was nothing for him there anymore.
The accident brought lots of problems to the Opera House, which became the headlines of the newspapers for days. The police report blamed the fall of the chandelier on the old installation, but everybody in the Opera believed it to be the Phantom’s action instead. For this matter, all his further demandings were attended to immediately, including the restitution of my mother’s job.
She would dutifully place my letter inside the program she left for him, inside his box, before every night’s performance. Afraid of invading the Phantom’s privacy, she never asked me what the deal was about, but trusted that it was important to the Opera Ghost.
I would go to my mother before the end of every performance to see if he had left something for me. For many nights I was let down, and watching Faust waiting for his reply was becoming odious for me.
The answer to my letter came only some days later, when I finally received the same envelope back, with a new content inside. A little note read, “ to Mademoiselle Meg Giry, with the compliments of the Opera Ghost. In case you would care to attend.”
Affixed to it was a ticket to the Palais Garnier Masquerade Ball!
I stared at it for a while, dumbfounded, thinking that Erik had gone mad for good.
The Masquerade Balls were among the greatest events of Paris, where all kinds of people would get together in a somewhat crazy and bohemian party, and wouldn’t be exactly worried about their behavior. A night of the year when everybody was allowed to be whatever they wanted to be, without having to worry about society’s rules and gossip.
“It was, therefore, a chance for Erik to pass as a normal person and have fun as any other man,” it ocurred to me. Would he be there? And if he were, how would he behave, knowing his identity was conceiled by a costume?
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