Chapter 7 #2
“Eros was the son of Aphrodite,” the Angel began. “An archer with enchanted arrows, which would inflame desires in whoever they struck. One day, Eros was readying his bow to shoot a beautiful woman who had earned his mother’s ire when he accidentally pricked himself.”
I twirled the rose between my fingers, careful of any wayward thorns. “What happened to him?”
“She was the first thing he saw after—Psyche—and he was overcome with the urge to have her, to claim her, to make her his. But he worried she would only love him because of his great powers and beauty, so he came to her on a moonless night, when not even the shine of the stars would give him away. He wrapped himself in a cloak of the cosmos, covered his face in a mask of shadows, and wooed the fair maiden.”
“Lucky girl.” It came out before I’d even realized the thought was in me.
And the Angel of Music…laughed. “Some might say ‘Lucky god.’ ”
I stared at my reflection, noting how large my pupils were, how dark that made my brown eyes seem.
There was a rose-colored flush across my face, in nearly the same shade of red as the flower I still held.
My chest felt heavy, and my heart thudded with so much force that I wondered if the Angel could see its pulse.
I could barely manage to whisper my next question. “Then what?”
“He…” His voice lilted surprisingly hesitant, a curious change from his usual grandiose confidence. “Napoleon loved the roses,” he said, switching stories so skillfully I would have almost forgotten what we’d been talking about if not for the strange ache of disappointment panging within me.
“Oh.”
“Have you ever been to the Chateau de Malmaison? It’s as every bit as beautiful as Joséphine dreamed it would be.”
“Never.”
“You must go. The roses are still there. They look like little jewels, so luminous in the moonlight.”
“And Eros and Psyche?” I asked, hopeful he’d continue the story. It didn’t matter that I had a vague recollection of how it ended. I wanted to hear it told in his words, with his voice.
He made a quiet sound. “Sadly, their statue did not survive the War of 1870. Only the roses remain. There’s something poetic in that, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t tell if he’d deliberately misunderstood me, or if it was merely unhappy chance.
“I…” I knew it to be impossible, but the Angel sounded nervous.
It was such a human response, I found his unexpected vulnerability endearing.
“I always thought their story would make a most enjoyable opera. Joséphine and Napoleon’s,” he clarified quickly.
“The last thing the world needs is another Greek tale put to the stage.”
I tilted my head, considering what a production of such scope would look like.
“I…I once thought of writing it myself,” he admitted.
“Truly?” My interest piqued, sharp and fast. What sort of opera would an angel write?
“You’d make a wonderful Joséphine.”
A cry of disbelief caught in my throat, and I found I could scarcely draw breath. A role written for me, by the Angel of Music himself! It was a dream beyond imagining, far too good to be believed. I wanted to laugh. I feared I might cry. It was all too much, and he was too good, and too kind, and—
“And Napoleon?” I asked, unable to wrap my mind around Ubaldo taking on the emperor’s role.
“A baritone, I think.”
“I thought you said it was a love story.”
He let out a laugh, and I noticed just how lovely and low the notes of it were.
It spurred me to boldness. “Perhaps…perhaps if you ever do write it, we could sing it. Together. Surely there will be a duet or two?”
There was a hiss of air, as if he’d sighed or perhaps winced.
“I would like that very much, Christine. If ever it’s ready…” He paused. “When it’s ready. When it’s ready, my music will set the world on fire. Critics will be knocked on their ears. My music…my music will change everything.”
I believed him far too much to dwell on the logistics.
It didn’t matter that he was an immortal being without form or shape, popping in and out of the world as it suited him. The archangel Gabriel did the same all throughout the Bible, and I’d never heard a single priest question the complexities of it. If my Angel said it was to be, it would be.
“Yours will be the voice to bring my music to the world,” he went on, caught in the fervor of his vision. His words came out rapidly, and it was too dazzling, too bright.
My own vision seemed to shift, and the edges of objects around the room took on a haloed glow, as if ringed in heaven’s light.
I closed my eyes, blinded against such brilliance and felt as if I were falling, swooning.
I dropped the rose to grab hold of the mirror’s frame, suddenly struggling to stand.
“Christine!” the Angel cried out, and it seemed as if he was right beside me, just beyond the pane of glass.
I made my way to the piano and sank onto its bench, shivery and cold. “I’m all right. I only…Your words overwhelmed me. I pictured everything you said. I imagined singing onstage, singing your music, and I…” I shook my head, feeling foolish. “Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. You should retire for the evening. Rest. You’ve overtaxed yourself, and we are so very close. You’ll need to be at your best when the moment comes. I need you to be…” His voice cracked mid-sentence. He tried again. “I need you…”
The thought of going home to my empty studio made me want to cry. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be here, with him.
“Come with me?” I offered. “We could have our lesson at my apartment. There’s not a piano, but—”
“No, Christine.”
“But we—”
“I said no.” The room seemed to tremble under the force of his words.
I remained at the bench, wanting to do as he’d bid me, but I found it too difficult. His voice had such a curious hold. Sometimes I felt like a marionette being puppeted about by strings I hadn’t even been aware bound me. Strings that only my Angel could pull.
“I wish I could see you,” I said in a rush, quick to get the confession out before reason might stop me. “I sometimes wish…Sometimes I picture us together, what it would be like.”
“Together?” he echoed.
I blushed furiously. “Doing things outside the opera. Just normal, everyday things. When I’m at the market, I play games in my head, wondering which berries you would like best, or pretending that I’ll buy that chicken and roast it for you.
When I stop at a café, I wonder how you drink your coffee.
I wonder all sorts of things about you, as if you were a mortal man. It’s silly, I know.”
There was an unbearably long silence, and I wanted to rip back my foolish words—what must he think of me now? But then—
“I take it black,” he admitted, his voice hitched and too high.
I frowned at the incongruous sentence. And all the ones which had come before but which I’d ignored.
The Angel of Music drinking coffee…
The Angel of Music writing operas…
The Angel of Music leaving me a rose…
“I must go,” he said hastily. “Look over the Hannibal score tonight, but do get some rest. Rehearsals begin tomorrow.”
“Can we look it over together? Here? Just for an hour or so? I swear to you that—”
“You need to go. Now.” It was more than an instruction. It was an order that was not meant to be disobeyed.
“Please!” I dared to say, certain that when I left this room our time together would be over.
He’d disappear, and I would never hear him again.
I’d admitted my inner thoughts too freely, confiding secrets that should never have been allowed to see the light of day, and now he was sending me away, telling me to go.
When he finally spoke, it was nothing but a whisper. “Please what?”
I fell to my knees before the mirror, kneeling as reverently and earnestly as the penitents who lined the altar of Notre-Dame. “Don’t send me away.”
I heard a sharp intake of air. “Oh, Christine. I could never.”
My fingers fluttered uselessly over the glass. I wanted it to be him that I could reach out to and touch. I wanted to run my hands along his feathered wings, to see his divine beauty, to revel in his majesty. I was tired of heated conversations played out in empty rooms. I wanted him here. With me.
“Will I ever see you? Someday?”
“See me?” he echoed, sounding bewildered.
“Father said that when you came, you appeared before him,” I persisted. “He said he saw you and that you touched him. Held his hands.” My own hands strayed to my throat, running along its length to the hollow of its base.
He sighed, and I swore I felt strands of my hair shift, dancing in his breath.
“This is something you truly want? You’re asking this of me?”
“I have no right to ask for anything. You’ve already given me so much. Too much. But I…yes. I so very badly want to see you. I’ve pictured you in my mind so many times. I’ve imagined how beautiful you must be, and—”
I never got to finish my sentence.
The Angel of Music let out a sharp cry, as if in pain, and was gone.