Chapter 32 #2
Monsieur Firmin exploded, striking the desktop with a balled fist. “Damn him to hell—who is this man?” He charged at the ballet mistress with unexpected viciousness. “You know something! I know you do!”
She startled out of his path. “Please, monsieur, I know nothing!”
In her haste to get away, a page of Erik’s letter escaped the stack and fell to the Persian rug. I crossed over to grab it, but Raoul beat me to it, swooping in like a diving falcon.
His eyes darted back and forth, reading silently. I could only guess at the terrible things Erik must have written. When he was finished, he lowered the note and rubbed his eyes. His lips pressed together in a tight line, and I noticed the way his nostrils flared as he fought back anger.
“What does it say?” My mouth had gone dry.
I wasn’t sure how to read the expression now darkening his face and had no idea how to respond.
Did he need my tears and trembling or my pleas of mercy and denial?
Should I be sweet? Should I be helpless?
How best could I console him? What did I need to do to keep myself protected? “Raoul?”
He raised one hand, drawing everyone’s attention, and then, in a booming, measured voice, read the rest of Erik’s note.
“As for Miss Christine Daaé…there’s no doubt she’ll do her best. We all know her voice is good, but—should she wish to excel—she has much still to learn, if only her pride will let her return to me once more. Your obedient friend…and Angel,” he leveled at me. “O.G.”
For the first time that morning, the room fell into complete silence. I could feel the weight of everyone’s stares, even as I kept my eyes trained on the carpet before me.
“I can’t do it,” I whispered, keenly aware of all the ways I was failing everyone in the company. “I won’t.”
Raoul took in a deep breath, then stopped short, as if struck by a new thought.
“We’ve all been completely blind.” He wiped a hand over his mouth, stifling laughter.
“All of us have been dancing about, wailing and gnashing our teeth to this madman’s song, but there’s a way to make it end, to make it all stop.
And the answer has been staring us straight in the face!
Each of us can get exactly what we want.
” He laughed again, looking at everyone gathered.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see it till now. ”
Monsieur André tilted his head. “We’re listening…”
Raoul stepped into the middle of the group. “What’s the one thing he wants?”
The room was silent, everyone thinking.
“His opera,” Raoul said, answering himself. “He wants his opera produced. So we’ll do it. We will go along with his game and perform his work, all the while remembering that we hold the ace.” His eyes landed on me.
Ubaldo let out a gasp of understanding. “If Christine sings—”
“Then he’ll be in attendance, watching!” Monsieur Firmin realized, clapping his hands together.
Monsieur André nodded excitedly. “If we make certain the doors are barred—”
“And we make certain the gendarmes are there,” Raoul added, “when the curtain falls, his reign will end!”
The men began to cheer as if they’d solved every problem in one sweep.
“Madness,” Madame Giry hissed. “This is madness!”
“Not if it works,” Monsieur Firmin said, noticing that not everyone in the office was as enthused as he was. “The tide will turn and—”
“There is no way of turning this tide,” she insisted.
They fell into argument, each shouting louder and louder to be heard.
Carlotta and Ubaldo huddled together, whispering with heated indignation and throwing surreptitious glances over their shoulders, as if fearful of eavesdroppers. Despite their precautions, I heard my name mentioned several times.
I looked around the room, taking in all of the quarreling melee. Arguments rose, forming a cloud of jumbled words and phrases I could only just catch but not make sense of. I couldn’t tell who said what, only that everyone was so terribly angry and frightened.
“Hear my warning! Fear his fury!”
“It’s clear to all that she’s insane!”
“If Christine sings, we will get our man!”
“Say your prayers, Angel of Death!”
“This will seal his fate!”
I felt the force of each word, of every threat, as physical blows striking my ribs, punching my heart. Could they not see what a terrible plan this was? Could they not imagine the disaster that would befall every one of us?
Their whispers, their warnings, buzzed in my head like a swarm of hornets. I wanted to swat at them, to slap them to pieces, but I feared the sting which would follow.
How could they…
How could he…
My misery sharpened as I watched Raoul shout at Madame Giry. How could he ask this of me? How could he betray me so easily? He’d said I didn’t have to sing, that they couldn’t make me. He’d promised to keep me safe. Yet now, he offered me up as a lamb to slaughter.
Tears ran down my face. I didn’t know who I feared more in this moment—Erik or Raoul. They both asked such impossible things of me, setting up ordeals by fire and watching to see how far my loyalty dared go.
I couldn’t do it.
Pleasing one would destroy the other. It was a game no one could win, and one I could not emerge from unscathed.
If I sang, Erik would come. But he was far more cunning than anyone in this room. I had no doubt he’d easily evade the gendarmes. He’d take me away again, this time forever. I’d never again see Raoul. I’d never again see anyone.
And if I ran, if I fled the production, the opera, the whole of the city…
what then? I’d marry Raoul—if he still wanted me—and become his wife.
I’d start life anew, but Erik would still be there in the back of my mind, singing songs and filling me with the most dreadful of all questions: the burning and unanswerable doubt of What if?
What if I hadn’t run?
What if I’d dared to sing?
What if I’d been good?
What then?
The questions spun within me, turning into a whirlwind of anxious wondering, of calamitous dismay. I rubbed my forehead, wishing I could still my thoughts, wishing I could still it all.
“If you don’t stop, I’ll go mad!” The words ripped out of me, a shriek of mania so loud it cut through the arguments and accusations like a guillotine blade flying to its swift and dreadful end.
The silence which followed was deafening.
I turned in a slow circle, searching for understanding, craving some small bit of comfort. When I finally met Raoul’s stare and he didn’t immediately come to my side, I let out a quiet sob.
“Raoul, don’t put me through this. Please…don’t ask this of me.”
He frowned, as though my fears confused him. He didn’t see. He didn’t grasp the myriad ways his plan could go wrong.
“Christine,” he began, and I hated the way his feet remained planted alongside the managers’, still and motionless and taking not a single step toward me.
“I know what we’re asking of you will be difficult and that you’ll have to be so very brave, but you said yourself, this won’t ever end.
Not if we don’t act. Not if we don’t capture him here and now.
He’ll always be out there, haunting us. You know this. You know this better than anyone.”
My lower lip trembled. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his stupid unmoving shoes.
“I can’t,” I whispered helplessly, and raced out of the room before anyone could stop me.