I've loved Raoul since I was fifteen years old, shyly and
uncertainly far the most part, hardly daring to hope that he would ever look beyond our childhood friendship and brave the hostility of his family for my sake. And yet, now that I have all the proof any girl could ask of a young man's love, I find my tongue is chained and fettered in cruel silence.
Up there beneath Apollo's lyre, with only the wind and the stars to witness my betrayal, I was able to say that I loved Raoul and mean it with all my heart. But here
—
here in the presence of this omniscient mirror… the words dry in my throat and refuse to be spoken again
.
Suddenly I'm rendered utterly dumb with horror by the knowledge that I can kill Erik with three simple syllables.
I can't speak those words which Raoul so badly needs for reassurance; and even as we cling together, I feel we have been torn apart, each of us holding nothing but the shadow of our own lonely doubts.
The luck of the Devil's with me tonight, the planets themselves realign themselves in my favor at the Master's behest!
The Persian is watching, and just for once that suits me uncommonly well.
Nadir
?
Nadir no longer exists. I have washed friendship from my heart, just as I have purged myself of love. For the first time in my life I am unfettered by weak and contemptible emotions. I am filled with the power of hate, and hate gives me the strength to cut free from the shackles of humanity at last.
He's following me even now, thinks I haven't seen him —the fool! I could have killed him half a dozen times on this journey back down from the roof of the Opera, but I don't choose to do it… not yet! The daroga of Mazanderan will render me one last professional service before I send him to the mercy of Allah.
You see, I could kill anyone tonight, Daroga. If the Holy Virgin herself was to appear before me I could put a dagger through her heart without a moment's compunction! I no longer have a foot in either camp; I have made my choice. Like Lucifer, 1 prefer to reign in hell.
must move more slowly—once or twice he's almost lost me. Damn you, Daroga, must I light your way like a paid guide? You walk like a tired old man, keep closer can't you? yes… that's better! We're in the third cellar now, we're nearly there!
And here is the stone…
Are you watching, Daroga? Are you watching very carefully and congratulating yourself on your great skills of detection?
Of course you are! You've waited a long time for this, have you not, and at last your long persistence has been rewarded. Now you know the secret of the Phantom's lair. And when the chandelier crashes down in the auditorium tonight, when Christine Daae disappears from the stage in the ensuing pandemonium, you will know exactly what to do with that knowledge. You will know where to find me and you will know exactly whom to bring with you on your final manhunt.
I know you so well, you see. You have all the instincts of a highly efficient policeman… Really, you were always far more competent than you ever gave yourself credit for! You won't waste valuable time approaching the cynical Paris Surete with wild moonshine about an opera ghost. You'll simply get on with the job yourself. Your stern integrity will compel you to complete the mission that was entrusted to you all those years ago in Persia. You, too, Daroga, will pluck the weakness of old friendship from your heart tonight and remember only the righteousness of your cause. As I have betrayed your trust, so will you betray mine.
When the curtain falls on the final act, I want that boy in the house on the lake, helpless and entirely at my mercy.
I want the Vicomte de Chagny, Daroga!
And I know that I can trust you to bring him to me!
In half an hour the curtain rises on
Faust
and I will sing one last time for Erik, without even knowing if he will hear me. At the end of the performance Raoul's carriage will be waiting at the door. I shall not come back here to the dressing room even for my cloak, lest the sight of the mirror sway my wavering resolution to flee
.
I know I'm not doing the right thing and yet there doesn't seem to be anything else left to do. How can I go back to Erik too frightened to say yes and yet unable to say no? How can I look upon his grief and still stay sane? Oh, Erik, why did it have to be me? You chose a timorous, shrinking mouse on which to lavish your passionate devotion when, if God was loving, you should by rights have had a splendid young lioness!
How can I marry you now and willfully withhold your rights as my husband, how can I punish you on our wedding night by turning away and denying you physical love? No woman in this world has been ever been loved as you have loved me. Why isn't it enough, why can't I span the awesome void that lies between us?
I love you, Erik, I love you in so many different ways… but my love is the love of a child afraid to grow up. Children run away and hide when they meet a situation they can't face, when they see the dream is over-and a terrifying reality beckons instead. My love is just a shoddy, bro-
ken little toy that I'm too ashamed to own. Don't cry for my loss, Erik… I've never been worthy of your tears.
What I'm doing to Raoul is almost as wicked as what I've done to you, but I'm too tired to fight his determination any longer. I just want the decision taken out of my hands. He's so eager to pluck me from the ruins of my disastrous enslavement and suddenly it's the only way out that I can see, to go away with him. God knows I'd never find the courage to go away by myself.
I'm quite sure that Raoul has no concept of the price of victory. All those years ago when he rushed into the sea to fetch my scarf he seemed honestly astonished to find himself soaked to the skin.
I think he might now be equally surprised to find that no one who walks through fire can hope to emerge unscathed.
Ton told me so many beautiful stories, Erik, you taught me that even fairy tales can hare a tragic ending.
The white rose and the nightingale were punished by Allah for stealing a forbidden love.
Somehow I don't think any of us are destined to live happily ever after…
The arrangements were quite simple to make—simple, that is, for me.
One hour in my laboratory yielded all the materials I needed, and well before curtain time an explosive device was in place beneath each of the eight steel hawsers that held the counterweights of Garnier's chandelier in place. All eight were connected to a timing mechanism, and the quantity of explosives had been carefully calculated to blow through steel coils as thick as a man's wrist.
Entirely devoid of emotion, I worked with cool efficiency, and when I had finished I concealed myself behind scenery on the stage, dressed in a red hooded cloak that was an exact replica of the one Mephistophelcs would wear tonight. It seemed fitting somehow to be dressed as the Prince of Evil, a nice touch of which my Master would approve. A good apprentice always pays close attention to detail, you see. If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well…
When the charges detonated, I had roughly a second to admire the spectacular effect of seven tons of glass and metalwork plummeting from the gilded ceiling, before an equally finely timed interruption to the hydrogen supply plunged the stage into darkness. The ensuing panic was so great that no one saw me hurry Christine along the deserted corridors to her dressing room.
She made no sound during our flight through the mirror. There was no screaming or struggling. She had entered that state of passive indifference which descends on a victim just before execution, surrendering to my silent insistence with the unquestioning resignation of total hopelessness.
The wedding gown was laid out upon her bed, and only when I had told her to put it on did she show the first sign of horrified protest.
"Erik… please…"
"Put it on! 1 insist! You must be properly dressed to receive my guests."
"Guests!" She stared at me without comprehension.
"Wedding guests, my dear—witnesses to the crime, if you prefer. Now, do as I say. I shall give you half an hour to prepare for the reception."
I locked the door upon her as calmly as if I had done it many times before, astonished to find how easy it was to lock a living thing inside a cage. No guilt, no remorse, no vicarious claustrophobia… I was no longer capable of suffering on her behalf.
I went to my room, stripped off my costume, and for the first time donned evening dress with the aid of a full-length mirror. Mirrors, too, had lost their power to knife me. Protected by the Master's shield, I was insensible to all earthly pain. As long as I served him I knew that nothing in this world would be capable of hurting me again.
Music was flowing through my head like a tidal wave, driving me toward the organ with irresistible force. The final act of
Don Juan Triumphant
was writing itself, I was merely the medium, the midwife who would bring this thunderous cacophony of sound into the world.
Madness welled out beneath my fingertips, swirled up like a loathsome living thing into a maelstrom of ugly, passionate notes. I had never played like this before, never rained such savage torture upon my own auditory senses. Music filled with hate, music that lusted to kill… on and on I played until the keyboard itself seemed on fire and my fingers leapt back as from a powerful charge of static electricity.
The sudden silence in the house was deafening.
The music had been nothing less than a violent physical assault, and suddenly I remembered Christine with terrible fear.
She was kneeling on the floor by the wall when I entered her room and her forehead was covered with blood. 1 did not need to ask how she had come by such injuries. I was neither surprised nor shocked, merely annoyed that I had been stupid enough to leave her alone while my wicked music mercilessly clubbed her senses.
I carried her back to my room and laid her on the couch, attending to her cuts with professional indifference. How incredible that hate can cure love so completely; I might have been handling a corpse, 1 was so calm, so detached and utterly devoid of tenderness.
"Why are you laughing?" she asked fearfully.
"I'm laughing at you, my dear . . at your truly remarkable
incompetence
. You don't even know how to go about killing yourself with any efficiency, do you? What have you succeeded in doing except give yourself a headache and ruin your dress? You're really not very practical, are you? Why didn't you consult me first? I would have been quite happy to give you the benefit of my considerable experience in death."
"Don't talk like this," she whispered. "Please, Erik. Don't talk about death and laugh like that—it frightens me."
I shrugged with indifference as I looked down on her white face.
"Yes… 1 seem to remember how very little it takes to frighten you, Christine. But you really shouldn't be frightened of Death. He's very approachable, really, not at all aloof, never passes by on the other side of the road simply because he's not been introduced. He makes no distinctions of class… a flea-bitten rat or a beautiful princess, it's all the same to Death. But of course, like anyone else he enjoys a little novelty in his work. It helps to pass the time. So I expect he was quite amused by the chandelier. 1 never cared much for that chandelier, did you? I remember telling Garnier that it was quite overdone, but of course he wouldn't listen. He had this streak of pure vulgarity and he hated criticism. Most artists do…"
She lay as still as a statue on the couch, her hands clenched around the smooth satin folds of the wedding dress.
"The chandelier…" she echoed dully. "Oh, God… Erik… are you telling me that the chandelier was not an accident?"
"Surely you didn't think it was obliging enough to hop down off the ceiling of its own accord, did you?"
"But—but people must have been killed!"
"Oh, yes. I daresay that's quite likely! It's really very difficult to be a murderer without killing people from time to time, you know. By the way, you left this behind… have you missed it?"
I dropped the chain with its crucifix and engagement ring into her trembling hand and sat back to watch her reaction. If it were really possible, I would have said she went a little whiter.
"If you're going to be sick, my dear," I said coldly, "I hope you'll tell me in good time for me to fetch you a bowl. This was a very expensive carpet."
"
Why
?" she whispered. "Why are you doing this… why are you being so
cruel
?"
"Any cruelty I show tonight I learned from you, my dear, on the roof of the Opera. Oh, yes, I heard it all— everything… that boy has a very penetrating voice, you know. Of course, you can't help loving him, I know that, none of us can choose where we will love. I'm perfectly willing to be reasonable and accept that it's all his fault. Yes, it's him I blame… and it's him I'm going to punish when he comes here to take you back."
She sat up against the black cushions in alarm.
"How can he come here?" she stammered. "He doesn't know the way?"
"Oh, Christine! How gravely you underestimate the determination of the importunate lover! Do you honestly doubt that he would slay dragons and hack his way through a forest of thorns to fight his way to your side? That's really not very noble of you, child, not very romantic at all."
"He doesn't know the way," she repeated stubbornly, clinging to the phrase as though it were a magic talisman to keep him safe, "
he doesn't know the way
."
"That won't matter. I've arranged for him to have a personal guide, you see. I can quite safely rely on Nadir to bring him. Isn't it nice to have people about you that you can really trust, Christine? Nadir was a good friend to me once upon time.
Once upon a time
… That's how the best fairy tales begin, isn't it? Now… what shall I tell you about Nadir? Shall I tell you how he wept when his son died in my arms? Shall I tell you how he nursed me through Persian poison and risked his life to save me from the shah's malice? No… I don't think I'll tell you any of it. Why should I? You don't deserve to understand about Nadir. All you need to know is that he dies with your lover tonight because of you—because of your treachery! Because of you I'm going to lose my only friend! Unless… Of course! How could I have forgotten that? There is a way… There is a way it could be done…"