Fantôme – Chapter 1

Our curtain rises on the Paris Opera in 1910. We are, it transpires, in September – on a luscious, languid late summer night. It is the gala performance tonight, which will open the opera season in Paris and, coincidentally, mark the passage of the managership from Debienne & Poligny, statesmanlike older men, to Richard & Moncharmin, sprightly and middle-aged. These men are wandering the passages of the Opera together, seeing what doors their keys will open and introducing national ministers and wealthy dowagers, telling how they will be glad of their continued support and faith in their management. Women wear exotic creations of feathers and lace, men’s hats shine with clean, fresh silk and spotless, unwrinkled gloves wave at acquaintances from across the open atrium. For a moment, Richard and Moncharmin stand shoulder-to-shoulder and gaze down the magnificent staircase at the exquisite assembly below. They do not see the cariyatids holding the torches aloft, only the glint of the diamonds and rubies which shine just a little brighter in the dim, bluish tint they give off, they take in the heady musk of Turkish tobacco mingling with expensive scent from the Avenue Champs-Elysees. They do not wait for the bell to ring out the performance time to begin enjoying the opera. They hear nothing but merriment and the buzz of delighted patrons, and smile. It is only a moment; the manager’s work is never done, and in a second Debienne & Poligny return with the Interior Minister, who is congratulating them on an enjoyable tenure. Tonight will be a triumph, he says that he is sure of it, and the new managers trip over one another’s words in their haste to agree.

At the same time, the bulk of the Opera’s staff are working hard in the cellars and backstage. A group of carpenters in cellar one are working rapidly, their set-piece has splintered and is needed during act one. Nearby, painters are putting the finishing touches on their wooden tobacco factory, almost ready for the board the carpenters are sanding. In the din of sawing, hammering, sanding, tiny, delicate feet are heard padding down the stairs at pace – they make a noise like heavy rain, but that would not be heard down here, so the men look up – and are accompanied by poorly supressed giggles. The feet are on legs in hose, the legs on leotarded bodies, the bodies on heads of hair, artfully messed up with duck feathers and curls, and in the heads are the curious eyes of little ballet girls, peeping around doorjambs and set pieces, running down to the next staircase in a higgldy-piggldy group that you would never guess make lithe and choreographed moves that awe the whole of Paris. The girls are in thick grey socks over their hose, their faces are made up with black-and-grey feathers, and their shoes around their necks, but even in such costumes they stand out in the gaslit cellar, the trembling light catching the satin threads in their shoes and the silver pearls in their hair. Before they can get to the stairs, a short, slim woman with flat shoes and a fur-trimmed wrap comes up them, and eyes the girls with a gentle suspicion.

“Young ladies, you cannot be going to the stables in such garb?”

“Oh no, Mademoiselle Sorelli!” trill the girls, for it is she. Sorelli is who all of the girls hope to become, she is the principal ballerina, and tonight she will dance The White Swan – the favourite of Monsieur Poligny – in the anthology the cast are presenting to bid au revoir to their hardworking managers. The dancer bends down, taking the nearest girl by the chin, and asks where, in that case, they are going.

The girls chatter in a cacophony, each saying that they are not needed until the interval or that they will be careful not to ruin their clothes, but one little voice rose confidently above the others “We are hunting a ghost, Mademoiselle.” Sorelli smiles at the little redhead, and begins to gather the girls around her.

“But my dears, you are merely making a nuisance of yourselves, getting under foot of the workers, and as little ballerinas you know just how important feet are to good work. Besides, ghosts do not come out for hunters – they are ephemeral and cannot be chased. No, my dears, come to my dressing room instead, make your mischief into an entertainment for this poor old dancer, for I must hear stories as I dress, it makes me smile.” The girls would not follow authority, but they would follow their watering mouths to La Sorelli’s backstage oasis, for the beautiful dancer always had candies to share with the girls. The workmen doff their caps to Sorelli and bow deep, sawing with motions twice as large after the women leave.

When Carlotta had arrived earlier, she found the same path as Sorelli on the way to her own space backstage. The workmen cordially tipped to her, but she did not get the same dignified sweep from the men as the ballerina, and it was not because the men did not enjoy her singing. Her beautiful coat swished, her beautiful chin stayed high, and her beautiful hand pushed the door open with the widest possible gesture. Unlike Sorelli, who waited until she had swept every mischievous girl from the room before leaving the men with a sweet smile, Carlotta let it slam behind her. She did not turn to acknowledge the hats and, nose pressed skywards, strode towards her unshared dressing room.

***

The little ballerinettes had not been wrong about Sorelli. The principal had no sooner sat them all down in her room before pulling a box off her table, de-ribboning it, and passing it down to the girls, who nested in the cushions and drapes like little cuckoos. “My darlings I have been sent these delightful violet creams by a delightful Englishman, but you know how I am about saving my teeth.” The girls chirped in delight – one took the box lid and cradled it, whilst others swooped like hungry sparrows for its contents. Sorelli turned to her mirror and smiled, slipping off her robe and picking up her puff. “Now girls, you must tell me where this idea of hunting ghosts came from.”

“Everybody knows the opera is haunted.”

“Yes – I heard Debienne warn the new managers earlier.”

“You did not, Marie – you have been nowhere near their office.”

“I heard that Remy will not go beyond the third cellar because he once saw a skeleton walking in there.”

“I heard that if you don’t cross yourself before entering the boxes the ghost will push you over the balconettes.”

“I heard that he lives in the eaves like a bat and steals sheet music to eat.”

“That’s silly Joséphine, ghosts don’t live at all, and if they did they wouldn’t be bats.”

“Oh! I wish I had an Englishman to send me chocolates and caramels! This is heaven!”

“I didn’t say he was a bat, I said he was like a bat, and anyway, why else is Gabriel always tearing at his hair about missing sheets?”

“Mice don’t take whole sheets away, Marie! They eat little bits!”

“Stop shoving me! It isn’t ladylike.”

“It is well-known that the ghost wears the best evening dress and sneaks into places he shouldn’t be, like a cat, and his eyes glow.”

La Sorelli did nothing more than smile as she steadied her arm on the table and painted her face, but the girls guessed she was listening and asked her if she had seen the ghost.

The lady ballerina was blasé. “My ladies, there are many men in dress-clothes at the Opera who one might take for a ghost,” the lady said, before turning around, “but Joseph Buquet thinks he saw the real one tonight!” A gasp went up around her audience, and Sorelli grinned. The real ghost! “He has been telling everyone that he saw a sinister skeleton man in a fashionable cape and shiny shoes stalking the corridor outside the dressing rooms.” The girls’ hands all went to their faces, and the chattering begun anew.

“But Mademoiselle Sorelli, he could be outside right now!”

“And that, ladies,” said the dancer, “is why I do not discuss the ghost. No good can come of it. I simply let him do as he will, so he has no reason to bother me.” She turned back to her mirror and powdered her décolletage until the air glimmered with talc, the girls sitting quietly breathing in her expensive powdery-lavender scent.

The little redhead had gone from the ringleader in the cellar to quiet as a little music-eating bat in the dressing-room, and after the powder-dust settled the girls all turned on her.

“Why did you suggest we hunt the ghost?”

“Why did we have to go to the basement if he is by the dressing-rooms?”

“Shall we ask Monsieur Buquet to tell us about him? If we rush we can make it before the house opens.”

“What will the ghost do if we catch him?”

“My mama knows him, and he does live in the basement” said the girl with the box-lid, and it was Little Meg Giry. “She says that he can make any of us nobility if he chooses, that he is nobody to trifle with but is kind and generous if you show him respect.”

“My girls, is that not a wonderful message for how we should treat all people?” said Sorelli. “Meg, my dear, your mother is very wise to teach you so.”

Meg sat with a pout. “That means you don’t believe me, Mademoiselle.”

“Au contraire, my darling. It means I am focussed on the trifles – I think hunting the ghost is trifling with him, I think Joseph Buquet gossiping about the ghost is trifling with him, I think Madame Giry is right about such things. Please do not be disheartened, ladies – there is nothing wrong with making your heart race, whether you are pursuing a fine Englishman or a ghost. But do be cautious, whether your man is of spirit or flesh. Now, little Meg, it was me who caused you upset – would you help me with my crown? You can try it on yourself before you put it on me – it is very precious, and your hair is so fine jewels will suit it.”

And so, we leave the girls of the ballet, crowing at Little Meg in her borrowed finery, gossiping and feasting until their call-bell rings, but firmly leaving the supernatural out of their talks under the advisement of their friend and paragon La Sorelli.

***

Elsewhere in the Opera, a few girls are chastened for batting their eyelashes at a handsome Comte as they take his hat and overcoat or glaring at the lady in the vibrant green dress and obvious rouge who has come without an escort. Tonight, though, nothing too exciting is happening with the audience, and so we must wing our way backstage to find out if what La Sorelli said about Joseph Buquet is true.

Alas! We find him gossiping. For yes, the men of the opera gossip as much as the women, and it is unlucky for poor Joseph that the information he has to share is not about politics or infidelity, which are safe topics, if unkind. No, it is Joseph’s encounter with the ghost that he wants to tell about, and there are no shortage of people in the opera who want to hear. Why, even a couple of regular audience-members have found their way to Joseph – I see The Persian there, looking surly as he hides in the back. The carpenters’ work is done, the painters’ too, and Joseph has come to lend his strength to taking the sets upstairs, for it is his job to lift the counterweights and furniture during the performance. In actuality, however, he is sitting on the set piece, which is lying still on the table, as the other men gather around him.

“How were the eyes?”

“Did he fly away when he saw you?”

“Whose dressing-room did he favour?”

“Aye, Marc’s right, for it cannot have been Carlotta!”

The men’s laughter is raucous, but unfortunately Joseph does not have a way with words, and instead can only compare the ghost to that which he knows already.

“It was like Monsieur le Garde.”

“That is ridiculous, Joseph. Monsieur le Garde is not a ghost?”

“Who is le Garde?”

“Why, the little milksop of a man who comes to Box Three with the countess upon occasion.”

“I heard he is her nephew.”

“Yes, and he is the younger son, so he has his sights set on a pretty ballerina.”

“Well I hope he is rich, for no woman of the ballet could love his droopy little moustache, blazing comets that they all are.”

“Joseph, how can you have been afraid if the ghost was like le Garde?”

The men laughed heartily, for Joseph had been scared – he had run up all the steps for three flights to make it above ground again, and his eyes had been wide with fright as he spluttered about having seen an apparition.

“Gentlemen, he was like Monsieur le Garde in his apparel. A very modish ghost was he, yes, very modish, but he was even thinner than le Garde. He was a skeleton, walking around! Yes, gentlemen, a skeleton!”

“And his eyes, Joseph?”

“His eyes were the first thing I noticed. They were red as fire, and he appeared to me from behind the wall.”

“So you turned tail?”

“Yes, Joseph is only willing to fight after he gets beer and gin in him!”

“Remember at Louis’ birthday when he swung at the barkeep?”

“Aye, gentlemen, we must buy Joseph drinks after tonight’s performance, and then he will show us where we might all see his cat-eyed fop ‘o a ghost!”

With the laughter ringing out through the hollow earth, the men clap Joseph on his back and begin to move. The strongest of the firemen help Buquet with the set piece, although it is more awkward than it is heavy, whilst the carpenters picked up their tools and trudged towards the back exit in their heavy boots. Their compatriots would know which pub to find them in when their own shifts finished.

***

Upstairs, the bell has just rung, and a short-sighted woman in black is rushing to Box Five with a footstool in anticipation of her guest. This lady has been working Box Five for several years, and knows her patron well enough to anticipate their needs. Her dress is old-fashioned, the leg-of-mutton sleeves resolutely last century and the cotton around her cuffs worn and fluffy, although not threadbare. The pleats in the back match the purple trimmings, the uneven needlework shows a little in some of the joins between the two colours. Around her neck is a lorgnette, whose handle and nose-bridge are the shiniest gold colour though the rest is of a mottled, tarnished brass. When she gets to Box Five, she sets the footstool down and brings the lorgnette to her eyes – for on the guard rail lays a letter in a creamy paper envelope; thick, crinkling with tissue lining, in a tasteful ivory colour. She must know who it is addressed to. Through her glass she reads, in spindly green ink, the words ‘The New Managers’, and Madame Giry falls back onto the footstool and fans herself with the envelope. Although nobody is in the box, she asks aloud,

“May I deliver it tomorrow?”

The curtains in the box wave as a voice, deep and raspy, replies,

“Yes. Before noon.”

After only a few moments resting her feet, the woman gets up, curtseys to the empty box, and leaves. She returns intermittently during the performance, bringing Champagne, oranges, and programmes to the box, which had not been sold and in which not a soul is sat. The other boxes are accustomed to Madame Giry’s peculiar ways and pay her no mind, preferring to watch the comings and goings of the fashionable, the trollops meeting their johns, the jostling of the masses – and even the show! – to the peculiarities of an elderly servant who does the same thing every night. The box office never sells Box Five, and yet Madame Giry is fastidious about keeping it. It is not to be remarked upon, they say, for she only wants to keep her daughter at the Academy, and must look busy so she is not let go. At the back of the hall, though, are two keen observers of box five; and after the Madame takes the eaten orange-slices out of the box, clumsily curtseying as she moves backwards, Monsieurs Richard & Moncharmin both try to catch the other’s eye, and share a silent look.

***

You would be forgiven for thinking, given these scenes, that the gala evening was a grand success. From the audience perspective, it was – glorious singing, impossible dancing, dazzling lights and otherworldly costumes meant that anybody who was not backstage went home with visions of the Opera as a vibrant place, their hearts full of the hope and wonder of true love, tempestuous villainy, and daring rescues. For those backstage, however, there was no escaping the very human tragedy that befell.

Joseph Buquet was found dead before the end of the evening.