by J. Smith
“I had helped him, you see, when his dear little Aziz had fallen ill, so he felt it was his obligation to do the same for me. I stopped taking the Shah's drugs, to clear my head, and we made a plan, he and I, of how to get out of Persia. When the time came to go, he had to come with me—for to stay behind was to ensure his own death for treason.
“So I came back to Paris, with the Daroga in tow. I learned of the chance to build this very opera house, so I ingratiated myself to the head architect, and made myself indispensable to him. I helped him rework his original plans, solve problems he encountered, and I even did much of the masonry work myself, alongside the other laborers. At night I would return, and I would build in the parts of the opera house that were not for everyone to see. Fourteen years it took to build this place, Jenna. Fourteen years I planned and toiled—to build a fitting palace for the one true beauty I had encountered in my life of misery. Music. And I have been here ever since, alone with my music, apart from the world, save for when I am forced to consult with the buffoons above who think they know something about running my opera.”
He turned to her, finally, meeting her eyes as he said, “So that was my life, Jenna. It has always been my lot to be alone, to hide in the shadows, lest the light reveal what I truly am. That is why I am not allowed to love. For who could ever love a monster?”
Jenna held his gaze, tears in her own eyes, her mind swimming from all that he had said. “You are not a monster,” she spoke with conviction, her voice thick with her tears.
“Have you been listening to a word I have said, Mademoiselle?” He asked, his voice rife with derision. “I have killed. I have murdered. Countless times over.”
Jenna rose from the bed and approached him. “You killed in self-defense, Erik, after four years of unthinkable torment. In Persia, you were drugged and used by sadists and fiends to do their dirty work while they sat back and watched.”
“But…I enjoyed it, Jenna,” Erik railed, raking his hands through his hair. “I reveled in the power of taking a life—in the fearful respect it earned me in place of derision and subjugation.”
Jenna walked even closer to where he stood. “The gypsy master deserved his fate and more, for the abuse he doled upon a child. The Shah and his mother surely knew exactly how much of that drug to give you to be certain you would continue to do their bidding. And yet, when faced with committing a truly heinous act upon an innocent, even the drugs were not enough. You are not a monster.”
“Are you sure, Mademoiselle?” Erik's voice was once again a rolling whisper, heavy laden with threat, as he began to circle her just slightly. “Are you so sure? I have been off the drugs for years now, and yet my Punjab lasso is always by my side. Death always waiting, Mademoiselle, lurking patiently at my fingertips.”
“And how often have you used it, since you came to Paris, Erik?” she asked him, challenging him with her eyes.
“I have not been given cause,” he answered, “but that does not mean that I would not use it, Mademoiselle.”
“I gave you cause,” she countered, moving closer, raising her head to keep his gaze. “That first night when I appeared out of nowhere, you had no reason to believe I was not a threat. If you were the monster you claim yourself to be, you could have strangled me without question, and this whole crazy mess we're in would not have even started.”
“No…” Erik said, a little flustered, shaking his head.
“A monster would have just let that carriage run me over on the square. After all, I would have received what I deserved for running from you—like all the others who ran.” She continued to advance on him, getting closer, ever closer. “You could have let the horse's hooves and the carriage wheels grind me into the ground, crushing the life from out of my broken form.”
“No,” Erik said, this time with a bit more force, the horror of her words beginning to break through the walls of his self-reproach.
“Yes, Erik,” she insisted, moving closer still, until they were a hair's breadth from touching. “You could kill me now and be done with me. No mystery to solve. No meddling girl to get in the way of your music lessons.” She saw him shaking his head, but still she continued. “You wouldn't even have to use your lasso. It would be so easy,” she whispered, taking his hands in hers and bringing them to rest on either side of her throat, “to use your hands just to snap. My. Neck.”
Erik's hands dropped to grasp her tightly by the shoulders once more. “No, Jenna!” he shouted, with eyes desperate to be believed. “I could never hurt you!”
“And that is because you are a man—not a monster!” Jenna declared triumphantly, seeing the last of Erik's shell shatter before her. He crumbled into her then, a wretched sob escaping his lips. Jenna caught him with her arms around him and held him tightly as he wept. All the years of bleak desolation, the decades of loneliness and pain, left his body in choking gasps and hot, searing tears. She slowly steered him over to the bed, helping him sit so that his exhausted body could rest as it rid itself of the vestiges of abuse he had suffered his whole life. She continued to cradle him in her arms, stroking his hair and whispering soft words to soothe him, her own heart breaking with each trail of sorrow that left his eyes. When at last his sobbing quieted, he lifted his head from where it had been resting on her shoulder. His eyes were red and puffy, and he looked completely exhausted.
Jenna reached forward and cupped his unmasked cheek with her hand, and as he closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, it seemed as if his tears would start anew. But he somehow managed to gather his emotions and when he lifted his lids, his gaze was full of gratitude. “Jenna,” he said her name, in a hoarse whisper, as he continued to find comfort in her touch, his hand grasping hers and holding on for dear life. “I never thought myself a man. I was always an abomination—a fright to all who knew me.”
“Oh Erik,” she answered, sure that her heart would burst out of her chest from the sadness in his tone. “I have never thought of you as someone to be afraid of.”
“I know…” he gave a small smile, and Jenna saw a tenderness in his eyes that made her tummy flutter. “And you should, for all of the boorish, uncouth, ungentlemanly ways in which I've treated you. But you've never vilified me, or ridiculed me like the others. You've always just accepted me as I am, and for that, I want you to know…” he paused briefly, uncertain how to continue. “That I…”
Jenna recalled the words from her dream as she gazed into the brown and blue eyes that never failed to captivate her. She couldn't help but lean in closer to him, wishing desperately to feel the kiss of which he had deprived her earlier. His lids fluttered closed, and Jenna waited, her lips slightly parted, each moment taking a century to elapse. Just when she thought her body would scream from the tension of the moment, his eyes opened once more and he met her gaze and said, “Thank you.”
Jenna was slightly taken aback by his words, as she realized that she had not been breathing. She took a deep breath and nodded, smiling at him sweetly, before she heard him sigh and say, “But, Jenna, it changes nothing.”
“What?” she blinked at him, not certain she was really hearing what he had just said.
“Jenna,” he began, looking down at their hands still joined together. “You say I killed in self-defense. You say I murdered because of the influence of the drugs. I am still not wholly convinced that either is true, but even if it were true, the world would still view me as a monster.” He lifted his eyes to meet her gaze. “You know now why I wear the mask, Jenna. I was born with a face so hideous, so deformed, that it looks as if it were crafted by the devil himself. My own mother could not look at me without horror.”
“Your mother,” Jenna interjected, anger once again filling her tone, “sounds like a disgusting, sick, and abhorrent woman. She was at fault for the way she treated you, Erik, not you. It is in a mother's nature to love her child.”
“And she did love me, Jenna,” he countered, “until she had to look at me. And then her love turned to fear and h
atred for the monster she had borne. That is why Christine can never know I am anything other than an angel.”
Christine. Jenna thought. Of course. They were back to Christine. “But Erik,” Jenna argued, her mind sobering a bit at the mention of the ingénue. It made sense that, in his mind, this was still all about Christine. She had been a fool to ever hope otherwise. And though Jenna longed to tell him how she was beginning to feel about him, she knew that was preposterous. If she wanted to help him, she needed to help him get what he wanted, not what her heart desired. “If you give her a chance…”
“She would run from me, and I would lose even the opportunity to shape her voice and mold her for the greatness she deserves. Don't you yet understand, Jenna?” Erik gave her an incredulous stare. “No one can look at me and see anything other than a malformed, horrific freak of nature.”
“I can,” she said simply, eyes burning with conviction. “And I do.”
Erik looked away from her. “You have not seen the real me,” he scoffed.
“So show me.” Her words were once again direct and without drama. She gazed at him calmly with certainty in her eyes.
“Jenna…” he began to shake his head.
“You said yourself, Erik,” she pressed, sure that this was what he needed if he was ever going to get past his self-doubt, “that I have always accepted you, never ridiculing you or vilifying you like the others.”
“Yes, but in this…” he continued to shake his head, not able to meet her eyes.
“I would be no different than I've always been,” she promised him. “You told me that you murdered, that you killed, and I did not reject you.”
“But my face…”
“What makes you think a face is so important? I have seen your eyes, Erik—and through them, I can see your soul. Your face could not possibly be ugly enough to mar the greatness I have glimpsed inside you.”
Erik looked at her then, uncertainty still obvious in his gaze. “You do not know what you ask,” he said, softly.
“I want to know,” she asserted.
“Please,” he implored simply, once again on the verge of tears, “do not run.”
Jenna let loose a little chuckle at that. “Erik, where would I go?”
Erik closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Perhaps, after all this time thinking differently, she truly was insane. Or if she had not been when she'd first arrived, his presence had driven her to such a state. She wanted to see his face. She had to be mad! But if she was mad, then so was he, because he was going to show her! He needed to show her—he needed to know if it were possible that he could be looked upon with anything other than revulsion. So he felt his fingers, as if of their own accord, reach up and find the ties that secured the covering to his face. Slowly he undid the knots loosening the disguise to which he was constantly confined.
He lowered the article of equal protection and torment slowly from his face, thinking to himself that perhaps the Persian would continue to look after Jenna until he found a way to send her home. Surely, despite what she said, despite what she professed, his face would drive her from him, bereaving him of the only friend he'd ever had. For as much as she swore she would not run, no friendship could be strong enough to withstand the hideousness of his unholy visage.
When his mask was completely separated from his face, he was certain he would hear a gasp, and a scramble for the door. Instead, the unthinkable happened. Starting with the impossibly sunken section of his forehead, tentative fingers began to trace the channels of his ruined flesh, grazing the ridges of his malformed nose, probing each crevice of his folded skin, until they rested on his puffy, bloated lips. Erik's eyes popped open at the contact, to see tears welling in Jenna's eyes. He opened his mouth to talk, but before he could say anything, he heard Jenna whisper, “Thank you. Thank you for showing yourself to me.”
The sentiment in her words—her gratitude toward him, when she had in fact just gifted him the greatest treasure anyone had ever bestowed on him—completely overwhelmed Erik, and without further thought, he threw his arms around her and hugged her to him, burying his head in her shoulder.
Jenna held Erik tight, whispering to him again and again, “I'm here, Erik. I'm still here.” And she knew, without a doubt, that despite his feelings for Christine, if he but said the word, she would never, ever let him go.
24 WARMTH
Erik's head remained buried in Jenna's shoulder, her arms wrapped tightly around him. Her fingers were trailing lazily in his hair, and her soft, honeyed words did much to calm his tempestuous spirit. He had battled an army of his greatest fears this night, exposing both the blackness of his soul and depravity of his face. He had been so sure he would hear her screams, her cries of terror as she fled from the room. It would not matter that she could not go far; she would run regardless, as far as she could, to be away from his accursed visage. He had been certain, as he'd loosed the ties that secured the mask that she would tremble and quake, as he made plain his shame to her eyes.
But once again, Jenna had bought him up short. She had shocked him by staying. She did not flinch from his hideousness; rather she continued to accept him with open arms—quite literally, in fact, since he was still enclosed within them. It was a new feeling for Erik—one that was both strange and wonderful. He had never known the tenderness of a caress or the shelter of an embrace, yet now Jenna gave him both, and it stirred…something…deep inside. She was just a girl with so many problems of her own—and she looked to him to help her solve them. And yet somehow, here she was, saving him—helping him feel more secure than he ever had. He knew if he lived another hundred years, he would never be able to fully express his gratitude for her kindness in that moment—when he'd removed his mask and revealed his sorrow.
When at last he felt strong enough to raise his head from her shoulder, he lifted his gaze to hers. He looked at her face which he had seen express so many varied emotions—confusion, elation, mischief, fear—it seemed as if in their short time together, he had witnessed every one. But this night, as he gazed into her crystalline aqua eyes, he saw something there that he had never seen before. There was compassion, to be sure—and happiness. Yes, she did seem to be happy. But there was something other, something new, and despite his genius, despite his learned nature, he could not, for the life of him, give that emotion a name. It seemed to light her eyes and warm her smile and he thought to himself in amazement that he could stare at her like this for the rest of his days, never tiring of that sweet new expression he had found on her face. Urged on by this new feeling that was radiating inside him, Erik raised his hand and trailed his fingers down her cheek, a smile washing over his features.
He felt Jenna shiver then, and asked, “Are you cold?”
No, Erik, she thought to herself as she continued to gaze at the man before her. No, I'm not cold at all. In fact, she desperately hoped he had not noticed the flush in her cheeks, or the heat that radiated throughout her body. Hearing his story had broken her heart, but holding him so close, feeling his soft hair under her fingers, his whispered breath on her neck—that had ignited a flame, and right now, her insides were smoldering. His smile. She had finally seen him smile—without the mask to block the view.
He was not a handsome man—that she could not deny. He was malformed and grotesquely disfigured, just as he had warned. His paper-thin skin was all wrinkles and scars, translucent in some places so that she could clearly see the veins that ran underneath. His skull was sunken in, forming a wide depression on the right side of his forehead. His eye, the blue one, sat in a dark, recessed hollow, and the nasal cavity was devoid of structure, appearing more like a hole than a nose. His lips were bloated, swollen, distending unnaturally toward both the nostril and the chin. No, Erik was not a handsome man—and yet the beauty of his soul lit his features from within, and with that smile—that full, beautiful smile—Jenna found he took her breath away.
She almost told him how she felt—that her shiver was not from cold, but f
rom desire; that the only thing that could soothe her now was his touch…his arms…his kiss. But then she remembered how this whole thing began. Christine. Erik wanted Christine. And so, desiring to help—not to hinder—she simply nodded, and said, “A little.”
Erik rose from the bed, extending his hand to her. “Come, Jenna,” he said, with another little smile, and she had no choice but to heed his command. He led her to the settee, bidding her rest, as he stoked the fires in the hearth. “There,” he said, when the flames had risen brightly, “that should help.” He excused himself to the kitchen, and set on a kettle for tea.
Once deprived of her presence, Erik realized how cold it really was. Funny, even frigid temperatures had never seemed to bother him before, yet after the warmth of Jenna's arms, the cold seemed biting, and he longed for the comfort the contact had provided. Had he so quickly grown accustomed to her embrace, that he grieved now at its absence? How ridiculous, he scoffed, as he willed the kettle to boil faster, eager to present her with the warming liquid that should dispel the chills that plagued them both.
Jenna stared at the flames, flickering in the hearth in an impassioned tarantella, and imagined herself spinning, dancing in his arms. With a twist and a whirl, he would lead her in a melodious rhythm, a dizzying waltz that would intoxicate them both. And then, only then, he would gaze into her eyes, and their lips would entangle and their souls would kiss.
Oh Jenna! She scolded as she heard the logs pop and the fire hiss. What have you gotten yourself into? For she knew that despite her burgeoning desires and her fiery dreams, Erik wanted Christine. Jenna knew he cared for her—that much was clear. But she had seen the way he looked at the young soprano—the adoration and the reverence in his eyes. He had never looked at her in quite that way.