Fantôme – Chapter 9, Part 9

Catch up with Fantôme from the beginning

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“I thought I was lonely, at first.”

Her voice rang out clear in the cold night air. The motor-cars and engine-powered autobuses were sparse but still present at this juncture in the late evening, or early night, and the couple were high enough that the tlot-tlot of the horse-hooves barely carried up to them on echoes.

They had come out under the cupola, onto the roof of the Opera’s grand salon, with the heavy stone of the main theatre building behind them and the streets of Paris far, far below. Christine pulled off the high, heavy wig almost as soon as she’d sat down, and smiled widely at him.

“You must trust me to a powerful extent for me to be led such a merry dance without explanation.”

“Love is the star to every wand’ring bark”

“That sounds like a poem, I don’t know it.”

“Oh, my love, we shall read the sonnets together!” he paused, and looked at her as she shook out her natural hair and removed the leather mask. He could see the light coating of paste cracking on her face as she smiled, but he could also see the marks of sleeplessness now: purplish shadows under her eyes, exacerbated by the heavy white powder she had worn for the event. “You were alone?” he asked, with a touch of pity creeping into his voice.

She smiled serenely back. “I thought after a quiet childhood I had lost the knack of being by myself, enjoying the peace. I live among others always now: here at the Opera, or back with Madame Valerius, and there is so much chatter about me constantly that I thought I simply craved that constant companionship I had been used to. I think it is fear, though, that keeps me in this heightened state.” Here, again, Raoul started – but she cut him off: “Yes, my dear, I am aware that this is no angel I am with, but a man.”

“You have been with a man all this time?”

She smiled drily. “I am no angel either, Raoul.”

“And when were you first aware of this?”

“Oh, from the beginning, perhaps. I told you how he seems both part of the physical world and incorporeal, how he uses presents – oh! Such presents I have gained these weeks – as bribery, or apology. I won’t pretend I understand how he thinks, I only know that he oscillates, and he feels something like apologetic later for his wildest conduct. I am learning, though, how to manage him, and I think I can avert… whatever he might do to the others.”

Her cowed body combined with her wracked, pale face, and Raoul could not resist. He grabbed her roughly, harshly; grabbed her by the shoulders and drew her in to face him. Her mouth parted and her eyes grew wide as she looked into the face of her oldest friend, rage and jealousy coursing through his body.

“In the name of all that is good and holy, Christine, where have you been? Who is this man who offends your honour?”

She only laughed a hollow laugh.

“I have been all over this city – I have asked the theatre-managers, the denizens of stage life, your guardian. I hear of you at restaurants but not at work, in carriages beating hell for leather around the city at night but never at peace in your bed. What can be so important, Christine, so compelling as to neglect yourself like this? Why have you resurfaced now, when you surely knew I would have been at your feet in a single summons any time?”

Her laugh, now, sounded a little like a whimper or a cry – high pitched, and tense.

“I am torn between my desire to see you and protect you.”

“Protect me? Protect me? Christine, I am a solider. I am your protector. Lord! Who must I fight for your freedom? Why are you so evasive, woman!?”

“Aye you are a soldier, but you are also a man Raoul, and there are greater powers in this world than you can comprehend. You have no subtlety – your overtures to me are obvious to all of society, your noble bearing and sense of fair play are able to be exploited. That puts you in danger, Raoul, and I will not have you ruined, or so much as a single drop of your blood spilled. Let go your urge for propriety and understand that wiles may be the order of the day.”

“Are you admitting to scheming, then?” By this point he had stood, but she stayed sitting, staring out into the violet night.”

“Calm down, Raoul. For heaven’s sake, if you should fall!”

“Christine, if you will not give me a straight answer so help me I will walk back into the gala and ask everybody party to any Opera secrets at all what is the meaning of all this subterfuge.”

His foot was half through the window by this time, but she leapt up and covered the passage back into the building with her slight, delicate arms. “In the name of our love you shall not pass!” she cried, causing Raoul to laugh quite maniacally. “Our love?” he responded incredulously. In a whisper, now, she replied, “Let me keep you safe, dear.”

“And protect me?” His voice was acid. Her arm left the sill, she stroked his hair and spoke quietly, with a choke in her voice, “Please.” Raoul sat once more, his black boots getting grey scuffs as he kicked against the marble fascia in front of them. A few tears fell upon his cheeks and he didn’t care that a lady could see.

“Oh, Christine!” he wailed plaintively, and one might have thought her name echoed against the pale, heavy stones. She looked about her in alarm, but it was only the two of them up on the ledge. She sat in the jamb of the window and leaned her body into the annular stones, her full skirt and heavy cape falling in down in folds over the brickwork as though she were sat upon a waning crescent moon. “I am willing to hear any explanation, for I know no lie could pass from your lips.”

“That is exactly the problem, my love. I cannot lie and say I do not love you, that I would not prefer a life with you to what has come to pass for me. It weighs as heavy as my preference for folk songs to opera, knowing that a woman must make money, and my only asset is my voice.”

“I ought never to have left Paris with you.”

She looked sharply across to him at this. “Raoul, how dare you say such a thing! Do not bespoil my favourite memories!”

“Those memories shall drive me mad, Christine! I have thought since then that you wanted to marry me – you said as much – and in the city you are so different, so guarded, that I worry.”

By now his tears were flowing freely, but Christine pursed her lips together and, as sad as she looked, did not allow herself to display her emotions so loosely. They sat together for some time in this approximation of quiet: the traffic a hum far below them, the music of the party unable to penetrate their solace, and Raoul’s laboured breathing as he sat and wept. Christine tousled his hair and massaged his shoulders as though he were a poodle

“One day,” she said, apropos of nothing, into the near-silence, “you shall ask my forgiveness, and I will give it to you. I know you too well, Raoul, to know you mean badly – but I also know all too well that your emotions will override your reason. That is why I came tonight, dear: to beg you to act with prudence, and to forget me everywhere but in the darkest, most private corner of your heart. Bide your time, dear. Simply wait.”

He looked up at her so sadly, with betrayal in his eyes, and she looked back to him with gravity.

“I will not sing again, dear, and I shall go away, perhaps forever but at least until we are old. I cannot say where for you would not believe me if I did – only think back to those happy stories you half-believed this week, about angels.”

“Are you headed for hell, my love, or paradise?”

“If I am lucky then it shall be a peaceful, dreary duty I am lead to, and duty can never be hell.”

“I am sorry my love. Will you forgive me?”

“Someday. When you know the truth and what you really are asking, then we shall forgive each other.”

She slipped her hand from his, cupped his face and gave a long look loaded with love and meaning and prayer, then slipped through the window and began to climb back down into the hubub and bustle. Raoul watched every movement he could, then he stared after her, listening, until he could no longer hear even the pitter-patter of her slippers on the hardwood floors. He felt himself waiting even longer, letting her get far away from him, sensing the urgency and heat of the danger pulsating all around this messy situation, and wanting it to cool.

The wind was what finally drove him in. It whipped up around him and his cape agitated in the air. Holding onto his hat he climbed through the window and back down – no longer in the blaze of fresh jeopardy, but with a cold, calculating danger, watching on from the high, flat roof of the Palais.

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