Masque (9 page)

The only paper I had in my basket was the script for Faust. He scrawled on the back. I was happy to see that the cottage was very close to my hotel. I would call, on my way past. She would get more gold than coppers.

9.

I spent the night at the inn in relative comfort. I never used to be so inclined towards luxury, but my years with the Countess have softened me so much that the rustic little room with the peasant-style, rope-sprung mattress and clay washbasin (there was no mirror) seemed quaint, if not totally uncomfortable. The bed was stuffed with feathers and the linens were clean, so I enjoyed my sleep and rose with the dawn, to the sound of the stable boy's wood chopping and the rooster's loud crow.

I had a hand-sized looking glass in my valise and I set it on the highboy dresser. The little mirror leaned against the wall and showed me enough of myself to reassure me that my hair had not become too dishevelled as I slept. At a little after six-thirty, the maid knocked with the breakfast I requested: a hot roll and a steaming mug of coffee. She left the tray precariously balanced on the mattress. I knew that since I meant to have communion during the mass I should defer satisfying my stomach, but I was so anxious about maintaining my strength for my performances that I did not want to risk wrecking my singing by altering any more of my schedule than was necessary.

‘Oh, Madame?' The girl was young for this work, eleven or twelve, dressed in a frock that began its life as a flour sack. Perhaps she was the daughter of my host. She was a thin little thing and could have used some feeding up.

‘Yes?'

‘There is a Gentleman here.' She blushed, quite prettily. ‘A young and handsome one, with a nice little moustache. He arrived late last night and asked about you. He wanted to know if you were going to church. If so, he wanted to know when you would be leaving and he offered me a bar of chocolate and a five-franc note if I will tell him so.'

Raoul. The little Comte. Did he not read the letter I sent him? I fumed, internally, carefully maintaining a light-hearted mask. Of course he read the letter. That is how he knew where I was. But then, if he read it, why did he not take me at my word that I wanted to be alone? I answered myself: because when you speak he hears only what he wishes to. He has always been like this; it is a habit from childhood.

Think, Christine, think. You have to decide what to do. You know that he is petulant. You know that he is spoiled, and that his brother loves him dearly. His brother is your boss. If you rebuff his advances too harshly, this boy could ruin your career just as it is launching.

The girl was staring at me, her big brown eyes open wide, waiting for a response. Suddenly, one came. It made its way to my lips as though in answer to an unspoken prayer. I must feign pleasure, play the game with him until I could return to the city and ask advice from my master. The ‘Opera Ghost', as the dancing girls call him, was wise (I thought) in the ways of the world. I said, ‘Of course, dear. The Comte. I know him very well.'

I smiled at her, allowed my grin to widen as her body relaxed. ‘Go wake him now. Tell him that the service begins at eight o'clock, and that if he should wish to walk me there I will be waiting by the front gate at a quarter to the hour.'

The girl took my coin in exchange for a country attempt at a curtsey and clattered out into the hall in her antique wooden shoes.

I paced the floor for fifteen minutes, thinking about everything that I knew. The Comte's elder brother ran the opera house and kept La Sorelli as his whore. She bedded him and, because of this, had the honour of being the prima ballerina in the company, in spite of her drinking, while toothless Little Meg (the better dancer) held a secondary role.

I am the best singer in the company. My master is training me to be the best in the world. If I deny the boy, Raoul, I will continue my training. He cannot affect the quality of my work. He can, however, affect whether anyone hears me singing. I shuddered at the thought of years spent wasting my talent on the most minor of roles. Oh, how I hate politics!

I had to force my hands to unclench and break from fists before my nails pierced my own thin flesh.

I knew that my master would help me as much as he could, but how much influence could he have in the larger, more visible world where money means power? If I could endure the day, return to Paris safely, without being pushed into making a formal commitment, I would learn the answer to that question. It might even prove to be a satisfactory reply. Until then, I must simply endure.

Raoul, why couldn't you be happy with friendship? I liked you well enough, when we were children. Why couldn't you leave it at that?

I had my father's rosary in a box at the bottom of my bag. The beads were carved from sandalwood and had a wonderful, calming smell that deepened as they drew warmth from my hands. I wound the necklace twice around my wrist and brought the onyx crucifix to my lips to draw strength from the hanging body of Our Lord. This was as close to traditional prayer as I ever seemed to get (my singing was much more like the thing itself, no matter the words) and the feel of it caused something deep inside my heart to relax.

I dressed in a hurry, regretfully eyeing my untouched breakfast as I used the bedpost to draw in my stays, tying the ribbons to the pole and leaning forward until my waist was reduced enough to constrict my breathing. This is one of the benefits of opera; when I perform I am allowed, and expected, to have a natural waist. Once I was presentable, I headed for the door.

Raoul was waiting for me at the gate, he must have hurried to meet me, although you'd never know it to look at him: not one hair was out of place, his hat was freshly brushed, his shoes were shined, even his moustache was perfectly trimmed. If I were an ordinary girl, with the usual goals – marriage, money, multiple babies – I should have found him quite charming. I admit, he was more than a little attractive, and although he acted much younger than he was (I am convinced that immaturity arises out of ease) we were of an age, ready for whatever love we were made for. It was, after all, springtime.

I had been annoyed by his presumption at coming to see me against my explicit wishes; I worried about his motives and wondered how I could possibly rebuff them without consequences, but now that he was actually here beside me he was utterly charming. He did not press his company on me, beyond the fact of his presence. He was content to walk beside me in silence, beneath the blooming fruit trees (such foul smells, such bright colours!) occasionally tapping me on the arm in the annoying, commanding way men have when they are setting the pace.

The path through the tree-filled churchyard was a field of emerald sewn with buttercups, the gravestones rose, white and black, like shadows and the only spectres were the heaped pile of skulls, a sprawling pyramid, propped against the rough stone wall.

We entered together, but Raoul did not break propriety by demanding to be seated beside me, taking his seat on the right with the few other men who came up from the village to breakfast on God. I sat with the women, elderly peasants (most wore white headscarves) and tried to pray in the conventional fashion while the priest sang the mass dedicated to the memory of my father. It was so good to know that there was at least one room full of people, at least, who would remember him in prayer. When he lifted his arms to raise the blessed Host, the loose brown sleeves sliding past his hairy elbows, he said my father's name as a part of the blessing and my spirit was filled with a beautiful calm; all my worries vanished.

I was lucky enough to have two Fathers, one in heaven watching over my spirit, one to care for my body on earth. Nothing could harm me, not even this over-eager young man. I was perfectly safe, protected, and would remain so.

When the time came, I approached the rail to take the Body on my tongue. The priest placed it in my mouth whispering, ‘The body of Christ, broken for you'. Raoul and I had been seated in parallel rows. He had come up with me to the altar. As I chewed, swallowed, I happened to glance beside me. The boy was glaring at the priest, like a husband at a rival lover! There was so much hatred in his look, such pale rage directed at a kind old man who had touched me only in blessing, that I was filled with fear so great I nearly choked.

I swallowed as carefully as I could and rose, taking hold of the rail for balance – my hands gripping wood polished by centuries of prayers and entreaties. I made my way back to my seat.

After the service I stuck close to the priest, thanking him over and over again for the service he gave. He must have sensed some animosity from my ‘friend' because when Raoul attempted to interpose his body between us, offering to escort me back to the hotel and then to the train station, the old man interjected that I might prefer to spend some time alone near the tomb of the Christian that I had come all this way to see.

I thanked him, agreeing, and Raoul took the hint, saying as he left, ‘Well, I suppose that I will see you again in Paris. After all, you still owe me a dinner. I will pick you up tomorrow, after your rehearsal.'

I agreed to join him then, to give me freedom today. I was seething beneath my calm.

I spent several hours there, sitting in the grass with my father. The crimson petals of the roses I'd left were already wilting on the green. I returned to the hotel in the late-morning, to pack my bag and buy a sandwich. By the time the sun set again I was on the train, speeding towards Paris.

ERIK

7.

There is a vast, oceanic difference between ugliness and deformity. Ugliness is human, a distortion of what is commonly perceived as the natural. An ugly face gives no pleasure to the fishwife passing in the street, but neither does it disgust her. Deformity, especially of the face, causes repugnance to rise like vomit in the breast. It goes against that which we like to call the kindness of God. I have never known my face to give pleasure to the world; it is exceedingly difficult for me to imagine that it could. I am not used to thinking of myself as human. Perhaps if all the faces in Paris were marred by the pox I could walk about maskless. In such a situation, with everyone about me, from the fairest maid to the most destitute prostitute blinded or riddled with pustules I would find my status raised. I would wake to find myself no longer a monster, a mere ugly man, one among many.

Since this is so, it is understandable that I was slow to comprehend what was really developing between Christine and myself. I had never thought of myself as a possible object of love. I know what I am. After seven years with that carnival it would be impossible for me not to be aware of my place in nature. I honestly believed that I saw her as a student, at most a daughter. God knows she was happy enough to see me as a stand-in for the father she had lost.

Though ‘see' is the wrong word. Before our sojourn underground she had only met me once in the flesh, and at that time I was wearing mask, wig, and gloves.

Sitting here, alone in darkness, looking back across the gulf that separates ‘then' from ‘now', I can watch the tragedy unfold clearly, without the blinding fog of confused passions which engulfed me at the time. Writing it down in this book that (I suspect) will be read only by myself enables me to examine our motives, as though through a mirror. I see the flaws that I was blind to, then. I see myself, a great ragged bird, displaying my courtship feathers.

When I started giving her lessons I was enamoured only with the potential that I saw in her voice, her potential for genius. Our lessons progressed for quite some time without interference or interruption from external or internal forces. It was a delicate balance. True, when we were meeting on the scaffolding high above the stage (the one sure place we had for privacy before she earned the privilege of a room of her own) I made the space as comfortable as I could for her, sweeping out the filth that Bouquet left behind while he lived (that was one body that they never found, as far as I know he is still hanging from that beam in the basement, above the corpses of the architects, unless the rope rotted, or his neck). The man was a pig and his sprinkled food wrappers had attracted many rats. How could she have focused on her work in such a place?

So yes, I decorated. Laid down carpet, a few pillows, I added some light. And yes, I gave her gifts when she did well, small motivational treasures when she began to be cast in singing roles. That tortoise shell comb, the music box, roses (in season), toys. I never questioned why I did it. It only seemed right.

And oh, how her face lit up when she found them! Oh, how she smiled, reading the letters I wrote in my unpleasant hand!

In retrospect, I can see how the problem began. If that boy had not thrust himself in our path, brought himself to my attention, brought my love to my attention by threatening its loss, we could have continued as we were, for years, happily dedicated to art, or should I say the great work of the spirit, without getting our filthy bodies involved. I would be the last person to choose to be bogged in the flesh. These mobile bags of rot ruin everything.

A beautiful dream, but it was not to happen. When Christine returned from her impromptu visit to the grave of her father she was agitated, red-cheeked, pacing her room in exactly the same manner that I paced my cage in the early years of my captivity.

I hid in my usual place, the crawlspace between her wall and the secondary rehearsal room; a space I designed for adequate passage. I spoke to her, throwing my voice in reply to her questions so that my answers seemed to spring from one or another of the gaslight fixtures. I had rigged them, by this time, to flare at the push of a button, for emphasis. I could see her through a crack I'd made in the wall, a fissure as thin as two sheets of good paper. She was pacing so quickly that her shadow made the light seem to shutter: the dark of her body, the bright white light. She was more beautiful than I had ever seen her. In rage, her voice was like warm, wet silk drawn against a frigid cheek.