Fantôme – Chapter 5, Part 4

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Raoul awoke with a shaft of light in his eyes, and, bleary with sleep, it took him several moments to realise that it was moonlight. More moments passed, and he realised that, tangled up in sheets though he was, Christine was not by his side. He raised himself up onto his elbows and looked about, confused.

She was sat at the casement, wrapped in her travel shawl, and softly singing – so softly that she would not wake Raoul, yet in a reverie that left her eyes glassy and her face pale in the moonlight. The song was haunting, and her beautiful voice gave off an emotion that caused chills to run down his spine – an impatience, a revelry in horrible acts, a desire for some unpleasant sin he could not name. Raoul shivered, but he could not turn away from her remarkable power.

“The twelve months and the day being gone

A voice spoke from the deep

Who is it sits

All on my grave

And will not let me sleep”

She caught a glimpse of Raoul watching her, and startled, ended the song prematurely.

“Christine – why are you up and about?”

“I don’t sleep well these days.”

“Not even with me holding you?”

At that, she smiled. “I slept better tonight than I have done in a year. The warmth of your arms, Raoul, made me forget Paris – for a little while.”

Raoul raised his eyebrow. “And I hope I gave you satisfaction, my love? That makes a woman sleep soundly, in my experience.”

She turned her head, and looked to the countryside. “Sometimes that is not enough.”

At this, Raoul was concerned. He wrapped his lower half in the blanket from the bedclothes and walked to the window. As he stroked Christine’s hair, he looked out to see what she saw – and there, in the corner to the north-east, was the graveyard where her father was buried. The wind whistled, the leaves flurried like it was no longer summer. The yews seemed to sing with Christine – they sounded almost like a bow scraping the strings of a violin. Christine evidently heard it too for, trance-like, she stared out.

“He’s going to play for us.”

“Who is?”

At this, she looked at him, aghast. “The angel!”

“He came with you?”

“Raoul, you are one step behind. It was he who organised my trip – he bought my train tickets, he controls everything of mine!” Her eyes were wild, and her hair, untied for bed and cascading down over her shoulder, framed her face in a halo of unruly curls.

“Christine, it is your Angel who agitates you so? Tell me the rest, for what you said last night cannot have been the whole story.”

“Raoul – “

“Wait!” He said, and gently scooped her up off the windowsill. He carried her over to the bed, built her a throne of cushions, and pulled the divan over her feet. “I will not have you catch a chill by that window, Christine – and I want to listen to you intently, without distraction.”

“Raoul, I – “

A haunting, plaintive melody played on the violin cut through the air, and Christine began to cry. Her defiant face melted and she bowed her head until her unruly curls eclipsed her face. Raoul only stared as her gentle sobs shook her body. After the song of the violin stopped, Raoul took her hand, and the pair sat silently for several minutes, the only sound the heaving of Christine’s agitated breast and the leaves of the yew trees rustling in the wind.

“Christine.” he began, “You must tell me the rest. I don’t doubt the veracity of what you have told me in the slightest, but I am sure you are missing something – and it isn’t clear to me why.”

She breathed in heavily, and looked up into his eyes. “Embarrassment.” she simply said. “Embarrassment and a fear that chills me to the bones.”

“A fear of what I will do?”

She gave a cold laugh. “You can do nothing but what you have already done. You have played my game, and perhaps I have played his. I don’t doubt that you will be angry, Raoul, but remember – this is not a man. There is nothing to do but to carry on this merry dance, taking the steps we lead one another in, until we die, and perhaps after that, too.”

At this, Raoul grew stiff and haughty. “Christine, what game? Please, my sweet tell me.”

She laughed her cold laugh again, and lay back onto the pillows he had piled around her. “Very well then, dear. Hear the full truth, and become unhappy.

“My lessons with the angel have always been private. You have seen that one of his powers is to lock and unlock doors – so it is that I am locked in with him when we sing. His focus has always been on fundamentals – my posture, my annunciation, my breath. It was in the breath lessons that his mind first became apparent to me, that he began to get bold. It was out of the blue one day that he first had me… that I first…” Here she fell silent, but Raoul did not dare interrupt her for her mouth moved as though she were searching for words to form. “He has me… that is to say, I must…” She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “He instructs me to touch myself… intimately… until my breath catches and I

Raoul was aghast. “Christine!”

“Of course, the first time he asked me this, I said no. I blushed and went to leave, but I was locked in – and he became angry. Without a person entering my room, each mirror cracked, one by one, as if they had been soundly struck. I fell back onto the settee and gasped, afraid, and aware of the locked door. It was then that he asked again – so penitent and wheedling was he, and so afraid was I, that I obliged. There was a bottle of scent on my dresser when I was finished, the tag written in his scratchy hand and peculiar ink. Since then, it has been a weekly part of our breathing class together, and still he grows bolder, wanting to see more of the act or have me undress – and the same, every time – if my breath catches and I pant heavily, he leaves me gifts. Last week, I heard whispered behind my ear in his honeyed voice, ‘Christine, do you trust me?’ Of course I replied in the affirmative, and it was not a lie – for although I fear what he is capable of, I do believe and trust him, especially when he says that he wants the best for me. When I told him so, told him, ‘Yes’, I found myself blindfolded by a scarf, and carried to the couch. There, he… well, he did the same unto me as I had done to myself. He felt like a man behind me – I could feel his hot breath on my neck and the arthritic bones of his hand about my torso, holding me still, though the scarf with a gentleman’s scent was the only trace of his physicality left behind. This trip, I suppose it was a reward of sorts – when I peeled off my blindfold, instead of scent or lace, there was a letter detailing the itinerary and the tickets for the train; telling me that he intends me to sing as he plays tomorrow, that he feels I am ready for Papa to hear.”

Raoul realised that, over the course of her talking, Christine had curled her body up until her elbows rested on her knees, and she was staring straight forwards into the candle mounted on the wall. She turned to him, and smiled a wan smile.

“Now you see, Raoul, why I wanted you here, and why last night’s talk of chastity and souls and love upset me so. Heaven will understand why I wanted to give myself to somebody I love before any chance of defilement comes, and Heaven knows that I trust you, yes – but I love you also, and I do not fear you in the slightest.” Here, her smile widened, and became genuine, until she looked over at Raoul, whose face was like a thunderous grey cloud. “My love… it is not that I see us as married, that was simply a convenient lie for the inn-keeper… I do not seek your protection from such supernatural forces, only to give myself wholly to life before I begin to live a death.”

Raoul said nothing, but rose and began to dress. Christine exhorted him, grabbed at his shirt and braces begging him to tell her where he was going, but the man said nothing, and would not be deterred. When she kept his shirt from him, he threw his coat over his vest and went to pull on his boots. Around his waist he slung a belt with a short, decorative knife, an enamelwork Vendetta Corse given to him by his father. At this, Christine was hysterical, but Raoul would not be moved from his purpose. As he left, closing the door on Christine’s weeping face, he said simply: “I believe in no supernatural force but Righteousness.”

He was found the following day, unconscious and undressed, on the steps of the church, his coat hanging on the wings of a marble angel behind the building, in the graveyard. He babbled about a cape and laughter, saying nothing understandable, not a single sentence of coherence, until half-an-hour after he was back at the Inn. It was only after a full breakfast, with his feet in a tub of soapy water and his coat laying at the grate of the fire to dry, as the landlord polished up his soiled boots, that his repeated words became comprehensible and his train of thought could be followed. Raoul had heard a hideous laugh, seen the sheen of a black silk-velvet cape and its blood-red lining in the moonlight, and chased a shadow out of the churchyard. Christine slept in, took a bath at noon, and went nowhere – not even downstairs – the whole day. She thought Raoul had seen nothing but a local cat; Raoul regretted not bringing a gun. They ate together – their meals punctuated by their happy chatter and gentle smiles

The next night, no music came from the churchyard, although Christine waited until sunrise by her father’s grave. She laid a lock of her hair down as an offering, gently braided and tied in vibrant green ribbon, and sang a sea shanty he was partial to as the sun came up, before tripping back upstairs to Raoul.

As they began their trip to Paris, everything about Christine was slightly amiss: her hair laid a little too flat on her head, though she had styled it neatly; her dress was well-cut and newish, but it hung loose over her thin frame; her smile was serene and kind, as always, but her eyes darted about the room, some unspoken fear evident even to the innkeeper behind the bar. Her beau, though neatly and properly attired, was quiet – not surly, but worried. He stood up more straight than when he had come in, and kept his hand over something in his pocket. The innkeeper understood – he knew why a pretty girl and handsome fellow that came from Paris would travel separately, and he hoped their parents would come to terms with their elopement, for they made a fair couple. He hoped, fervently, that she would come to enjoy married life. The couple would feature in this humble man’s prayers for months to come, and he would never know how much they would need Heaven’s help.

On the train, Christine rested on Raoul’s shoulder, and slept more thoroughly than she had done in a year, but as soon as he put her in a taxi and began his own walk home, neither could stop their incessant thoughts of the trouble they were sure was forthcoming.