Unmasked (3 page)

I looked around the table. There were salvers
of shrimp in cream sauce, roast duck, vegetables in cheese, venison
stew, and several other dishes that I could not identify but which
smelled heavenly. All were foods my Grand-mère had forbidden me,
warning that heavy foods made heavy people. Now that I was dressed
so beautifully, I was ashamed of what he would think of me as I
took dinner. Despite my gnawing hunger, I was too embarrassed to
take any.

“Is the food not to your liking?” he
asked.

“Oh, no, monsieur. It is very well. But…I
don’t seem to be very hungry.” I said this with an apologetic smile
on my lips.

My words fell uselessly before him. He drove
his fist onto the table. “I told you before and I will not say it
again – never lie to me again or you will suffer the sting of my
wrath!”

A streak of fear shot through me, but his
message was clear. I was loath to tell him the truth, but I
stammered it out. “Forgive me, monsieur. It humiliates me to eat in
front of others, for people always regard me with a mixture of
curiosity and disgust when I do.”

Never had I spoken this to anyone. The
honesty of this moment was too much for me, and fresh tears
threatened to spill from my eyes. He looked away, and I wondered
what he thought of me now.

“Forgive me, I did not consider it.”

His words stabbed at me, not just because I
embarrassed him, but because his apology meant that he agreed with
me. I felt a tear run down my cheek.

“Your appearance does not matter here,
chérie. There is no need for shame in these depths. Darkness hides
what the eye beholds.” He reached over, and with the bowl of a
spoon, extinguished the candles around me.

We ate our meal in silence. I found the
darkness very comforting, though I could not see what I was eating.
Still, the Phantom could not see me, and right now, that was all
that mattered.

When we had finished our meal, he led me back
to the outer room. He seated me on a comfortable chair near the
fireplace, and then poured us some port wine.

“What is your name, monsieur?” I asked him as
he took the wide settee across from me. His breach of conduct at
dinner had empowered me to ask him anything.

He took several moments to respond.

“Erik.”

He spoke his name as if it were new to him,
and I surmised it was probably the first occasion he had mouthed
this word in a long, long time.

"Erik," I repeated, liking the way it felt on
my tongue. "How is it you came to live here?"

"It is a long story, chérie. One filled with
much pain and anguish."

"Share it with me," I said, more out of pity
than curiosity. "Please."

He studied my expression. He was ever
vigilant for a hint of dishonest or patronizing sentiments, I
think, so I quickly learned to speak from the heart.

"I was commissioned to help build this opera
house about twenty years ago. I was but twenty-one at the time, and
my patron desired to establish the most beautiful, most elegant
theatre in the world."

"You...created this magnificent building?" I
asked, a childish wonder betrayed in my voice.

He nodded slowly, patiently, though evidently
pleased by my compliment. "I designed the palace of the Shah of
Persia, you see, and Monsieur Garnier knew I had a talent for
creating splendor. What he didn't know was that I had also designed
an intricate maze of hidden rooms and secret tunnels through which
the Shah could maneuver at will, and escape from his many
enemies."

"You apparently did the same for the
opera.”

"It was an ideal location for my own secret
palace. Only I know the way around it. Though I admit I was a fool
to leave unlocked that panel through which you came and found
me."

The one with the cobwebs, I thought. "Don't
you ever leave this dungeon?"

He chuckled, and it gave me much pleasure to
see him do so. "I suppose you are right: my palace is nothing more
than a 'dungeon,' after all.” He stared deeply into the glittering
etching in the crystal goblet. "I used to go out and explore the
city. Late at night, when the moon was tired, I would walk the
streets of Paris and take care of my business affairs."

"You do not go out anymore?"

"No. Not since..."

I waited patiently for an answer, but none
was forthcoming. He was lost in memories. Deep within the holes in
the mask, his eyes closed tightly, shutting out the painful
remembrance of whatever made him seal himself up in this tomb of
his own creation.

"Not since
her
." The word barely made
it out of his lips before the great Phantom of the Opera crumpled
like an autumn leaf.

At that moment, I forgot all the frightened,
warning voices in my head. Instinct, compassion, or perhaps
something more profound compelled me to go to him. I sat beside him
on the settee and wrapped my arms around his trembling
shoulders.

At first, he recoiled at my touch, unexpected
as it was. But then, he embraced me, too, more tightly and more
desperately. In that instant, I became aware of a deep and powerful
urge to protect this man who trembled in my arms, whose tears were
unseen behind his mask. Something maternal sprang up within me, an
urge to protect and nurture, a deep instinctual violent coil that
grew angry at the threatening, imaginary presence known only as
her
. Still, there was something else, more private and more
disturbing, a vague realization that I held a man in my arms, a
feeling that was quite new and very, very pleasant...

I felt the cold mask upon my cheek. He
loosened his embrace and drew back. He looked into my face, and for
the first time that night, I could see the features the mask did
not hide. Tears still misted his eyes, which were the transparent
blue of the sky in summer. His mouth was wide and perfect, and his
masculine lip trembled slightly.

"Why are you being so kind to me?" he asked,
incredulous eyes searching mine for an answer.

I looked into those amazing eyes, now
strangely vulnerable and pleading. "Because you let me."

Of a sudden, his expression changed. He
blinked, as if a veil had been lifted and he could see clearly for
the first time. Something was being born in him, and he looked at
me through eyes that were filled with both wonder and surprise.

"Thank you," he said, and I have never since
heard those words spoken with such heartfelt gratitude.

My thoughts turned to that woman, the woman
he now referred to only as
her
, and I was infected with a
viral curiosity to learn what power she had to wound a man so. I
asked him to tell me about her.

Her name was Christine
Daaé
, he said, and she was a young singer
whose voice and aspect he had found mesmerizing. He became her
teacher, training her voice until she was elevated from chorus girl
to lead soprano. His mentorship had blossomed into something more
intense, but she did not reciprocate his affections. One day, she
ripped off his mask, and then recoiled in horror at the sight of
his naked face.

It was difficult for him to speak on this,
the feature that drove him to living behind a mask. Though I would
hear more of his deformity, he did not speak it.

After that, she shrank back from him, and
sought refuge in the arms of a childhood sweetheart, a vicomte.
Despite her betrayals, he harbored a love for her that nothing she
did could alter.

"That is why," he said with a sigh, "I never
caused her any harm. I visited my rage on those around her, but
never her."

His puzzling statement brought to mind the
rumor I had heard. "Do you mean the chandelier?"

He nodded. "When I saw her kiss de Chagny, I
became enraged that she could give of herself so freely to that
pampered fop. And I, who had nurtured her voice until the applause
shook the opera foundations, was an object of disgust from whom she
cringed." He began to tremble with rage.

"What did you do?" I asked, an unshakable
apprehension gnawing at my belly.

His voice, customarily deep and full, became
so cold and detached that I hardly recognized it. "I...cut the
cable that suspended the chandelier. It fell, crashing into the
seats below. The sounds of shattering glass seemed to last an
eternity. Then the screams came, loud and long. Screams of fear, of
anguish, floated up to me like prayers from hell. I heard them, but
all of them together could not drown out the screaming in my own
head."

To see him thus, and hear his confession,
chilled me to my marrow. What kind of man murders for love?

He turned to me, and seeing the expression on
my face, grinned jadedly. "I have learned much since those days,
chérie. I was unwilling to feel shame at my face, unable to accept
the powerlessness of it. Hate, anger…those are empowering emotions.
But they can be cruel masters, and when the blaze of the moment is
extinguished, you find that they have consumed everything in their
wake, even the things you care about. I shall have to live with
those anguished cries in my ears for the rest of my life. I have no
desire to add any more to my grief.”

And yet this woman still grieves him. “And
what of Christine? Do you love her still?”

He looked away, and I could sense, rather
than see, his discouragement. “Unrequited love is no love at all.
One might as well love the cold, stone walls.”

Legends diminish in grandeur when you get up
close, and so, it seems, do monsters. Despite the blackness of his
past, I could not see a monster now. This was only a man, consumed
by grief for what he has lost and for what he never shall have.
Clearly he was at one point a man full of love to give, though no
one has ever accepted it of him. This, if nothing else, is the one
element he and I had in common.

Instinctively, I leaned over and placed a
soft kiss on the cheek of his mask. The fact that I had done so
surprised even me. Perhaps it was the darkness that emboldened me,
or perhaps it was his shared confidence. But his desperation to be
loved touched something within me. The kiss was mine to give, and I
chose to give it to him.

He blinked at me, amazement swimming in his
eyes. His fingertips touched the spot that I had kissed, as if it
had been his real cheek that had sensed it.

I looked into the eyes behind the mask.
“There are none so capable of loving as we who are never
loved.”

He tried to respond, but no sound came out.
He took my hand in his, and bowing his head, placed a tender kiss
upon it. He turned away slowly, and disappeared into the
darkness.

Even if I had known the way out of this
labyrinth he called his "palace," I would not have left. There were
no clocks of any kind here, so I did not know what time it was, or
even whether it was day or night. Erik was long in returning, and
the food still warm in my belly filled me with a delicious
drowsiness I found difficult to resist. I lay my head upon the arm
of the settee, and soon I was fast asleep.

I awoke to the strains of the most beautiful
music I had ever heard. I recognized it to be coming from a violin,
and it seemed to be resonating from the very walls. The tune was
melancholic, but sweet and hopeful. I rose, and something shook
from my dress. I noticed that my dress was covered in flowers. The
colorful petals of roses, lavender, and violets were strewn all
about me like a thick floral blanket, and their heady fragrances
rose up to meet me. Blossoms of red poppy – the flower of
consolation, I noted – were tucked into my hair. I smiled as I
thought of Erik, and stood up to find him.

The music was strangely hypnotizing, up then
down, trilling then moaning, magnetic then frightening, but always
irresistible. I followed the sound through a series of corridors to
a cavernous, well-appointed chamber. Erik was there, his back
turned to me. He stood in the center of the room, swaying to and
fro, carried by the lovely melody that floated from the instrument
on his shoulder. I was about to call out to him, but I too was
mesmerized by the magic of the violin.

When the last note faded, I spoke his name.
He stiffened, then bent low and picked something up off the floor.
It was his mask, and I was surprised I had not seen it before. He
tied it around his head, and then turned to face me.

I was disappointed to be denied the sight of
his face. "The music...it was breathtaking. What is it called?"

He smiled. “I have just created it. I call it
‘Paulette’.”

I blushed hotly. “Why?”

“I have not written a single note since…since
long ago. The wellspring of my music has been dry these many years.
I did not know that there was yet another song in me waiting to be
born. Until you came along.”

A curious elation welled up in me, and it
warmed me in places that felt new. Flowers, music…these were
tributes offered to other women, beautiful women. This man offered
them to me, and for an exhilarating moment, I allowed myself to
secretly believe that I numbered among those women. I hoped he
could not see the pleasure that he gave me.

He seemed to struggle with his next words, as
if he was gathering the courage to say something. “I would have you
stay with me, if it pleases you.”

I did not know what to say. Surely it was out
of the question to stay here, in this place, with this man…was it
not?

“This room…it is the finest I have. I came to
consecrate it with my music, and now, it is yours, if you desire
it."

My head began to swim. It was unthinkable.
Grand-mère would be aghast. What would Society say about an
unmarried woman staying in the house of a gentleman? And yet, I
reasoned, this was no house. And that was no gentleman. And Society
had snubbed us both long ago.