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It was quite sometime after my maestro told me to bar my door that I felt safe to come out and face the scene we had left. I had been wrong in indulging him by putting on the bridal gown. I would not make the sad and pitiful sacrifice of claiming I would die for him in song. I couldn’t give him my love just like he couldn’t bring my father back by being an Angel of music. We were two sad puppets, playing on each other like out of tune instruments. I didn’t want to learn Aida, because in singing it I would be lying. I couldn’t die for him, though sadly I have come to the realization that we’re dying every day by living in this state. Our devotion to music is too passionate a flame to last forever, it consumes everything it touches until there’s nothing left but smoldering ashes. I went near the organ, amazed at all the pieces of music scattered about. I could not forget the maddening music he had played, it almost commanded my heart to stop. It was not devilish in origin, his Don Juan Triumphant, it was a sarcastic recording of a life that had been hidden from the world, and all the people that had played a part in it. Erik had told me once that Shakespeare said that life was like a play and we all have an intricate part. Maybe, in a strange way, they both were right. I quietly started sorting the music for him, for what seemed like hours. Then, my hands shakily found the lost musical page to Verdi’s Aida. My heart began to pound underneath my chest, as my breath held while I touched the notes as real as he could be playing them now on the beautiful and ornate pipe organ. Surely, he would be sleeping, he would not hear me, I thought. Would I be so cruel not to humor his subconscious? Could I sing it, now? I had not heard him for hours, for all I knew he was asleep. And suddenly, a thought came to me that was as forbidden in his home as was pure and natural daylight. What would Raoul think? I punished myself internally, haven’t I done enough? Yet, the thought of fleeing from here, fleeing for myself, is too entertaining and a relief. My answer to Erik lay within this Opera. Would I stay and pledge a life of what could be eternal darkness? Could I give up the world above for the one below? I bit my lip and dragged myself away from the pile of organized music and sat near the fire. I was trying to disconnect myself from everything, to push myself away. Like the ebbing oceans tide, trying to make all of the sand disappear, grain by precious grain. Inwardly I shouted at him, as if he could hear. “Could you not have loved someone else, someone better suited for you? How can you insist that I’m some part of union that could never be, this nightingale and rose? Which am I? Must you chain me? “ I quietly cried for a moment, noticing that I had made my lip raw from the pain I was holding back. It seemed at that very second a difficult burden to bear, and why should I? Selfish, childish Christine, I thought. Think one moment of someone else, and not of your escape. I walked in to my room and paced, thinking of what I had said and what I have done. I am only a young woman, and alone at that. What would it be to live your whole live alienated and alone? Erik had lived his entire life by his own influence. No one instilled morals upon him, he built his own kingdom, his own creed-and the majority of his beliefs were very corrupt . Yet, I knew there was something good in him, for he wanted to by my angel. You see, I laugh at this now, this foolish notion of an angel of music. If there are Angels, they have left for me to sort this on my own, and they do not care for the musical career of one silly girl. I sat on the bed and looked across at the clock, which rung at me like some odd sort of sentence, like the doom of a church bell. They ring on christenings, weddings and death, I thought morbidly. Even Erik’s clock was musical, although he said he cared not for time and had only one clock, for me to know when to go back up unto the world. The hour was 3 o clock. I should well be asleep, but my mind would not let me rest, thinking of the worst situation that could have befallen him. These attacks that bring him so dangerously to death’s door could happen at any time. Any moment I could come across a cold corpse with that face! That face! I clenched my fists and brought the image of that deformed visage out of my mind, as if to block it forever. It was just a face! Couldn’t I for just one moment look past it? My eyes were well irritated by my tears, but it mattered not, all things considered. The clock ticked, the house was quiet, even the cat could not be found. For a moment I felt so closed in, and then again, the enormous space of his home seemed vast and fearful to me. I wished for Raoul’s arms to close around me and remind me of the light, instead of this frightful dungeon. When Erik is not around this seems like a huge birdcage to house me lest I think of running away. Upon Erik’s arrival, it is anything he says it is to me, although it sounds complete nonsense. He has told me of the many traps that he has built here, almost with calm coldness. Heaven above, if there really is several dead people just feet from where I am, how will I stand it? I began to go back to the warm light of the fireplace, cherishing the dying flames. Life itself was contained in the orange and red flickers of heat. Gently I reached for Aida again, feeling as if I would be safe and away from here if I could but sing. Erik did not demand it, and so I could do it freely. My fingers flew to a scene that I knew I could sing as Aida, there in that piece I was ready for her. Air went into my lungs and exhaled it self as brilliant music, spinning like a spider’s web, gently and softly I sung. The few phrases were my own, my very own words it felt were upon those notes and those words. In it I poured my heart and my soul, my love for my father, my hopes and dreams.
Too well remembered are those days of mourning,
It is when I felt myself returning to the room, my hands clutching the plush Persian rug, that I noticed the tear that was glittering as it slid down my hand. A tear foreign to my eye. I looked to the right of me and noticed that he was kneeling beside me, his head looking towards the floor, eyes tightly shut. Daring not to ask how long had he been standing there, silence was imperative. I could not judge whether he was angry, or pleased, and some part of my thinking resolved it self to chose ignorance over both emotions. “You should be in bed,” he spoke gravely, still kneeled and tense, “Do you not have the common sense to do as you are told?” I clamped my mouth shut to bite back a comment that I did not answer to a bailiffs demands, mindful that I was buying peace. “I was restless. I did not mean to wake you, maestro, not for one minute.” I looked away, focusing on the gates of his home. Pursing my lips, steeling myself, I wondered just how long I would have to be trapped here, forever following his orders. Forever carefully trying to think of the best way to keep him rational, to keep me alive.
The earlier days, when I lived on her breath, the look in her eyes as she searched for an angel’s wings behind the mirror, were all I ever would have. As much as I deserved, for lying to her. But lies could bring such precious moments that I never would have experienced otherwise. If only, if only she could be mine, just for one minute! No, I was beginning to see that not even my power of persuasion would stop Raoul and Christine’s ..meetings. The more she lived here, the more desperate she became, not unlike myself. The poor girl was cleaning up after me after my tantrum, a thing I should have taken care of in the first place. I walked slowly behind her, about to order her to go to sleep when the most sad sound hit my cursed ears! It was the voice that I had trained, but my emotions no longer showed in it, it was truly hers. The same voice that I had heard all those months ago, only so beautifully trained it belonged in heaven’s choir. Unaware, I began to weep, soft gentle tears of gratitude as I knelt in reverence. There was a moment of recognition, when I finally opened my eyes and saw her catch her breath as if in question. “You should be in bed,“ I spoke after her seeing me cry, “Do you not have the common sense to do as you are told?” “I was restless. I did not mean to wake you, maestro, not for one minute.” I nodded, exhausted by the evening’s events, coming to the realization that music would be all I ever shared with her. I took her gently by the arm and led her to her bedroom, trying to give her the impression that there would be no more of my rages this night. It was something I could not promise. |