Phantom (53 page)

But I could see no sign of him and at length, glancing at my watch, I returned to my dressing room and began to write while I waited for him to take me back through the mirror.

Two hours!

It is two hours since I left her among the crowds on the
grand escalier
and came back here to learn my fate. I'm still dressed as Red Death, high plumed hat and striking red cloak that trails behind me like a king's train. No mask necessary to complete this costume, though! Everyone else is masquerading, but I—I have come as myself!

The silence in the passage is like a closed coffin, claustrophobic and stifling; and relentlessly it shows me my own folly. I should not have confessed to my black past. Even if she comes back to me tonight, I'll never be sure now that it isn't out of fear for that boy's life. Two weeks of building up her trust, and I destroyed it in as many minutes. What a fool I am! Why did I tell her? She didn't have to know!

I'm so tired! Everything's such an effort now, all those hundreds of stairs stretching up into infinity… hard to believe that only six months ago I never even used to notice them.

This whole sorry business is like some nightmare contract that I despair of completing on time and to budget. Well… Giovanni told me long ago that there's only one thing to do when you grossly underestimate on a costing— you have to be prepared to withstand the loss.

But instead of accepting that sound advice I continue to behave like a crazy gambler in a casino, recklessly raising the stakes at every round, irrespective of my ability to pay up at the end of the day. I'm actually laying lives on the table now, digging a grave that's big enough to swallow us all.

The sound of the door opening makes me look up eagerly and then sink back in weary disappointment as a figure in a white domino enters stealthily.

Chagny! What's he doing here, skulking about like a criminal behind the curtains of the inner room? He looks as pale as his costume, and if I'm not mistaken he's lost weight this last fortnight—it certainly doesn't look as though he's arranged some secret lover's tryst!

Have they quarreled, I wonder? Have I reduced him to spying on her? Well, if he feels only a tenth of what I feel for her I daresay the poor lad is in agony, but I'm not going to pity him. It's a terrible mistake to start pitying the enemy!

So… no quarter on either side, Chagny! And to each man his own choice of weapons! Youth, beauty, and right are in your corner. But you don't have my voice. And when she comes, you shall see its power demonstrated here in this very room.

A long wait before the door opens again and Christine enters. We both remain utterly still in our respective hiding places while she sits and scribbles furiously before laying down her pen and locking the paper away in a drawer.

I hope you're watching and listening very closely, young man, I'd hate you to miss this particular performance.

There
. Do you see?

Does the sound of your voice make her smile like that?

Can your unseen presence lift her from her chair and make her turn with slavish joy?

Can you spirit her away from beneath the very eyes of a stupefied rival…
like this
?

Oh, please! Examine the mirror to your heart's content, monsieur! You won't discover its secret, I can assure you! Yes! That's shaken you rather badly, hasn't it? You're beginning to wonder if you may indeed be dealing with a ghost!

If I were you, I'd go home now and have a few stiff brandies. Think about taking a trip somewhere far away where you can forget the evidence of your credulous eyes and your feeble human senses. They say the North Pole can be very pleasant at this time of year…

Believe me, my friend, I've sent a great many people a lot farther than that in my time!

Killing is like riding, you see, one never really loses the knack.

This is the last warning I shall give you, Chagny.

Don't tempt me to clear the stage!

Beyond the lake lies a hidden world of magic, a temple of dreams which I explore with ever-deepening wonder.

Day by day I sink a little deeper into the quicksand of Erik's influence. He draws me effortlessly through a succession of brightly colored and constantly changing dimensions until my mind spins like a whirling kaleidoscope, a soaring kite on an infinite length of string. My awareness of the world is utterly changed now and I look back on my old self with fierce contempt. What a poor, ignorant caged creature I was before I knew Erik, imprisoned within my limited perceptions, no thought in my head beyond the next performance, the next new gown. Now I see and hear and understand in a way that would have been completely beyond me six months ago.

I do not languish in his power like a pale prisoner denied the light of day, but grow ever upward beneath the benevolent sun of his genius. Where once I was content to be a wilting marigold, I now aspire to the glorious height of a sunflower. He has captured all the wonders of the universe, enchanting baubles that reflect shafts of incandescent light. And like a child starved of toys, I reach out eagerly with both hands, turning my back gladly on the world I have left behind.

I often sit on a cushion at his feet, with my back resting against his chair, and beg him to read to me, gazing into the flickering fire while his voice paints pictures in my mind. Sometimes he reads to me from the
Rubaiyat,
weaving the delicate, melancholy rhymes of Omar Khayyam into a rich tapestry, that I may touch the ancient poet's regret for the fleeting swiftness of life and love. Shakespeare… ancient legends… and then, tonight, an old minstrel song that

made me close my eyes on tears… the story of the white rose who loved a nightingale against the will of Allah.

"
Night after night the nightingale came to beg for divine love, but though the rose trembled at the sound of his voice, her petals remained closed to him
. …"

Flower and bird, two species never meant to mate. Yet at length the rose overcame her fear and from that single, forbidden union was born the red rose that Allah never intended the world to know.

The thought of that white rose filled me with such bitter shame, made me hate my ignoble cowardice, my unworthy physical shrinking, the childish, lingering revulsion for that face. Yearning to turn and reach out to him, I remained unable to conquer that inner fear. It was a chasm I dared not cross. And so instead I sat there, like the little mouse in Aesop's fable, not daring to look upon the lion bound by cruel ropes. Chained by fate and shackled by pride, he starved in silent pain; and because I lacked the courage of a rose, I could not set him free.

When the story ended we sat in silence for a long time until at last he leaned forward with a sigh.

"It's very late, my dear," he said gravely. "I think it's time you went to bed."

Drifting into my bedroom, my mind still revolving ceaselessly around that lovely Arabic tale, I caught a movement from the corner of my eye and turned to find upon the counterpane the biggest spider I had ever seen in my life. It was easily the size of my fist, and at the sight of its black malevolence I let out an unlovely shriek which brought Erik to my door.

"What is it?" he demanded in alarm.

Unable to speak, I simply pointed and he laughed as he went over to my bed.

"I'm afraid we get a lot of these down here. He is a big fellow, isn't he? I suppose his mate is in here somewhere too"

"Oh, God!" I said with feeling, glancing nervously across the floor. "Do you really think so?"

"They're usually found in twos," he said absently, bending to catch the hideous thing gently in his hands. "When I've put this one out I'll come back and look, if you wish."

I stared at him in horror.

"You're only going to put it out? Won't it just come back?"

"That's not very likely, my dear."

"But it might," I persisted stubbornly. "Erik, I would die of fright if one crept over me while I was asleep. I've always been terrified of spiders. I'd feel so much happier if you just… well, just got rid of it permanently."

He stiffened, and when he turned to look at me there was something in his eyes which made me shiver.

"Ton want me to kill it?" he said expressionlessly.

"If—if you don't mind, " I stammered, suddenly unnerved by the pulsing venom of his gaze.

"
Oh, I don't mind at all," he said with an anger that was now unmistakable. "I rather think the spider might have one or two objections to make
—
but then, after all, it's only a spider, isn't it? Just a mindless, soulless, ugly thing that has no right to live and frighten people
!"

Without another word he clenched his fist tightly, dropped the crushed insect on the carpet, and walked out of the room.

"Erik!" I cried after him, in alarm. "What about the other one?"

"Kill it yourself, if you can find it!" he said coldly, and shut the door on me with a savage bang.

I covered the spider with my shawl, so that I should not have to look at it, and when I had glanced warily beneath the sheets, I sat miserably on the bed with my legs tucked up beneath my chin.

It was the first time he had ever spoken to me like that
—
as though he hated me
!

Slowly I slipped into the lace-trimmed nightgown and ventured at last beneath the sheets, exploring each fresh cool expanse with tentative toes. I lay awake for a long time, brooding on his anger, but I must have fallen asleep at last, for the sensation of something brushing my cheek made me wake with a scream.

I leapt out of the bed in a mindless panic and rushed into the adjoining room.

"Christine!" Erik laid his book aside and came toward me in concern. "Oh, my precious child, don't cry like that!"

I covered my face with my hands; I was shaking from head to foot like a perfect fool.

"Erik… I know you're very angry with me… but please, please, go in and find that other spider. I know there's one still in there… 1know it!"

"You really are very frightened, aren't you?" he said quietly.

"Yes…" My teeth were chattering with cold and terror. "Yes! I'm sorry, but I can't help it. I know it's cruel, I know they have the right to live like any other creature, but I just can't bear them! If one touched me, I think my heart would stop."

He gestured for me to take his seat by the fire, the same slow, rather elegant unfurling of hand and wrist with which he often drew me toward him when he sang. There was something infinitely powerful and irresistible in that

movement; something that made me feel I would follow that hand even if it led me over the edge of the world.

He guided me into the chair, as though I were a marionette incapable of moving without his aid, and yet still he did not touch me.

I sat and stared into the hearth while I listened to him moving furniture in the next room. Presently he came back and threw a crumpled piece of paper onto the fire.

"It's gone now," he said sadly. "Go back to bed and I will bring you something to make you sleep without nightmares. "

I got up in silence, like an obedient child, and returned to my room. In the doorway I glanced back and saw him staring at the paper, which was shriveling and turning black against the coals.

He made no movement and no sound.

And yet I am almost sure he had begun to cry.

If you touched me I think my heart would stop.

She doesn't know it, but she's answered the question I dare not ask. This is a love that Allah never meant to be. These are petals which will never willingly open, even for the song of a nightingale.

Once more I stand and watch her sleep. I did not need to give her so much laudanum. She'll sleep the clock around now, in a deep drugged, dreamless slumber that will admit no conscious memories.

If I took her now, comatose and unresisting, in this very bed where I was born, she wouldn't even remember in the morning…

I want her!

But I will not sink to the level of a mindless beast. Murderer, thief, unscrupulous extortionist, contemptible drug addict… this is one crime I cannot commit. I can take nothing from her that is not given of her free and conscious will.

So I will close the door and return to my music and my morphine. Peace waits for me now in that sweet, familiar needle. The price of the oblivion that drowns all thought and desire is a simple pinprick and a single, welling drop of blood—the only blood-red rose I shall ever sire in this world!

Good night, Christine! Look with tolerance, if you can, on the pale ashes of my indulgence tomorrow.

Morphine is a vice that delivers me from greater sin.

I woke in the early afternoon from a dream I have had several times before.

It's always the same. I'm standing on a high cliff staring down into the still, dark waters of an uncharted and seemingly bottomless pool. The landscape of surrounding rocks is chill and forbidding, evil looking and inherently ugly, exuding an ever-present sense of menace which makes me want to turn and run.

And yet I linger, shivering in the cold wind and staring down with futile longing. The pool is guarded by a huge sea spider who lurks unseen just below the surface; and yet I know that beyond this hideous ^guardian of the depths, Neptune waits for me upon a golden throne, waits to crown me as his queen with a tiara of flawless black pearls. I know that if I can only kneel before his throne at last I shall be lifted up into his mighty embrace and these two clumsy appendages on which I walk will be transformed into a mermaid's graceful tail. A thousand sea horses will form the litter that carries us through the wonderful splendors of his world to the palace of white coral where I shall live forever and ever.