Masque

by Bethany Pope

  I paced the floor for fifteen minutes, thinking about everything that I knew. The Comte’s elder brother ran the opera house and kept La Sorelli as his whore. She bedded him and, because of this, had the honour of being the prima ballerina in the company, in spite of her drinking, while toothless Little Meg (the better dancer) held a secondary role.

  I am the best singer in the company. My master is training me to be the best in the world. If I deny the boy, Raoul, I will continue my training. He cannot affect the quality of my work. He can, however, affect whether anyone hears me singing. I shuddered at the thought of years spent wasting my talent on the most minor of roles. Oh, how I hate politics!

  I had to force my hands to unclench and break from fists before my nails pierced my own thin flesh.

  I knew that my master would help me as much as he could, but how much influence could he have in the larger, more visible world where money means power? If I could endure the day, return to Paris safely, without being pushed into making a formal commitment, I would learn the answer to that question. It might even prove to be a satisfactory reply. Until then, I must simply endure.

  Raoul, why couldn’t you be happy with friendship? I liked you well enough, when we were children. Why couldn’t you leave it at that?

  I had my father’s rosary in a box at the bottom of my bag. The beads were carved from sandalwood and had a wonderful, calming smell that deepened as they drew warmth from my hands. I wound the necklace twice around my wrist and brought the onyx crucifix to my lips to draw strength from the hanging body of Our Lord. This was as close to traditional prayer as I ever seemed to get (my singing was much more like the thing itself, no matter the words) and the feel of it caused something deep inside my heart to relax.

  I dressed in a hurry, regretfully eyeing my untouched breakfast as I used the bedpost to draw in my stays, tying the ribbons to the pole and leaning forward until my waist was reduced enough to constrict my breathing. This is one of the benefits of opera; when I perform I am allowed, and expected, to have a natural waist. Once I was presentable, I headed for the door.

  Raoul was waiting for me at the gate, he must have hurried to meet me, although you’d never know it to look at him: not one hair was out of place, his hat was freshly brushed, his shoes were shined, even his moustache was perfectly trimmed. If I were an ordinary girl, with the usual goals – marriage, money, multiple babies – I should have found him quite charming. I admit, he was more than a little attractive, and although he acted much younger than he was (I am convinced that immaturity arises out of ease) we were of an age, ready for whatever love we were made for. It was, after all, springtime.

  I had been annoyed by his presumption at coming to see me against my explicit wishes; I worried about his motives and wondered how I could possibly rebuff them without consequences, but now that he was actually here beside me he was utterly charming. He did not press his company on me, beyond the fact of his presence. He was content to walk beside me in silence, beneath the blooming fruit trees (such foul smells, such bright colours!) occasionally tapping me on the arm in the annoying, commanding way men have when they are setting the pace.

  The path through the tree-filled churchyard was a field of emerald sewn with buttercups, the gravestones rose, white and black, like shadows and the only spectres were the heaped pile of skulls, a sprawling pyramid, propped against the rough stone wall.

  We entered together, but Raoul did not break propriety by demanding to be seated beside me, taking his seat on the right with the few other men who came up from the village to breakfast on God. I sat with the women, elderly peasants (most wore white headscarves) and tried to pray in the conventional fashion while the priest sang the mass dedicated to the memory of my father. It was so good to know that there was at least one room full of people, at least, who would remember him in prayer. When he lifted his arms to raise the blessed Host, the loose brown sleeves sliding past his hairy elbows, he said my father’s name as a part of the blessing and my spirit was filled with a beautiful calm; all my worries vanished.

  I was lucky enough to have two Fathers, one in heaven watching over my spirit, one to care for my body on earth. Nothing could harm me, not even this over-eager young man. I was perfectly safe, protected, and would remain so.

  When the time came, I approached the rail to take the Body on my tongue. The priest placed it in my mouth whispering, ‘The body of Christ, broken for you’. Raoul and I had been seated in parallel rows. He had come up with me to the altar. As I chewed, swallowed, I happened to glance beside me. The boy was glaring at the priest, like a husband at a rival lover! There was so much hatred in his look, such pale rage directed at a kind old man who had touched me only in blessing, that I was filled with fear so great I nearly choked.

  I swallowed as carefully as I could and rose, taking hold of the rail for balance – my hands gripping wood polished by centuries of prayers and entreaties. I made my way back to my seat.

  After the service I stuck close to the priest, thanking him over and over again for the service he gave. He must have sensed some animosity from my ‘friend’ because when Raoul attempted to interpose his body between us, offering to escort me back to the hotel and then to the train station, the old man interjected that I might prefer to spend some time alone near the tomb of the Christian that I had come all this way to see.

  I thanked him, agreeing, and Raoul took the hint, saying as he left, ‘Well, I suppose that I will see you again in Paris. After all, you still owe me a dinner. I will pick you up tomorrow, after your rehearsal.’

  I agreed to join him then, to give me freedom today. I was seething beneath my calm.

  I spent several hours there, sitting in the grass with my father. The crimson petals of the roses I’d left were already wilting on the green. I returned to the hotel in the late-morning, to pack my bag and buy a sandwich. By the time the sun set again I was on the train, speeding towards Paris.

  ERIK

  7.

  There is a vast, oceanic difference between ugliness and deformity. Ugliness is human, a distortion of what is commonly perceived as the natural. An ugly face gives no pleasure to the fishwife passing in the street, but neither does it disgust her. Deformity, especially of the face, causes repugnance to rise like vomit in the breast. It goes against that which we like to call the kindness of God. I have never known my face to give pleasure to the world; it is exceedingly difficult for me to imagine that it could. I am not used to thinking of myself as human. Perhaps if all the faces in Paris were marred by the pox I could walk about maskless. In such a situation, with everyone about me, from the fairest maid to the most destitute prostitute blinded or riddled with pustules I would find my status raised. I would wake to find myself no longer a monster, a mere ugly man, one among many.

  Since this is so, it is understandable that I was slow to comprehend what was really developing between Christine and myself. I had never thought of myself as a possible object of love. I know what I am. After seven years with that carnival it would be impossible for me not to be aware of my place in nature. I honestly believed that I saw her as a student, at most a daughter. God knows she was happy enough to see me as a stand-in for the father she had lost.

  Though ‘see’ is the wrong word. Before our sojourn underground she had only met me once in the flesh, and at that time I was wearing mask, wig, and gloves.

  Sitting here, alone in darkness, looking back across the gulf that separates ‘then’ from ‘now’, I can watch the tragedy unfold clearly, without the blinding fog of confused passions which engulfed me at the time. Writing it down in this book that (I suspect) will be read only by myself enables me to examine our motives, as though through a mirror. I see the flaws that I was blind to, then. I see myself, a great ragged bird, displaying my courtship feathers.

  When I started giving her lessons I was enamoured only with the potential that I saw in her voice, her potential for genius. Our lessons progressed for quite some time without interfe
rence or interruption from external or internal forces. It was a delicate balance. True, when we were meeting on the scaffolding high above the stage (the one sure place we had for privacy before she earned the privilege of a room of her own) I made the space as comfortable as I could for her, sweeping out the filth that Bouquet left behind while he lived (that was one body that they never found, as far as I know he is still hanging from that beam in the basement, above the corpses of the architects, unless the rope rotted, or his neck). The man was a pig and his sprinkled food wrappers had attracted many rats. How could she have focused on her work in such a place?

  So yes, I decorated. Laid down carpet, a few pillows, I added some light. And yes, I gave her gifts when she did well, small motivational treasures when she began to be cast in singing roles. That tortoise shell comb, the music box, roses (in season), toys. I never questioned why I did it. It only seemed right.

  And oh, how her face lit up when she found them! Oh, how she smiled, reading the letters I wrote in my unpleasant hand!

  In retrospect, I can see how the problem began. If that boy had not thrust himself in our path, brought himself to my attention, brought my love to my attention by threatening its loss, we could have continued as we were, for years, happily dedicated to art, or should I say the great work of the spirit, without getting our filthy bodies involved. I would be the last person to choose to be bogged in the flesh. These mobile bags of rot ruin everything.

  A beautiful dream, but it was not to happen. When Christine returned from her impromptu visit to the grave of her father she was agitated, red-cheeked, pacing her room in exactly the same manner that I paced my cage in the early years of my captivity.

  I hid in my usual place, the crawlspace between her wall and the secondary rehearsal room; a space I designed for adequate passage. I spoke to her, throwing my voice in reply to her questions so that my answers seemed to spring from one or another of the gaslight fixtures. I had rigged them, by this time, to flare at the push of a button, for emphasis. I could see her through a crack I’d made in the wall, a fissure as thin as two sheets of good paper. She was pacing so quickly that her shadow made the light seem to shutter: the dark of her body, the bright white light. She was more beautiful than I had ever seen her. In rage, her voice was like warm, wet silk drawn against a frigid cheek.

  ‘And then, when I specifically asked him to stay away, what did he do? He showed up! At the very hotel where I was staying. He came with me to my father’s grave!’ She stopped long enough to twist her rosary through her fingers, wrapping the beads tightly enough to restrict her circulation. She continued, sotto voice, ‘If all he wanted was an affair, I could do it. It would be a sin, but a lesser one than sacrificing my voice, my one contact with God.’

  When she said that my bowels clenched, a sensation I ascribed at the time to a meal that I had improperly cooked.

  She spoke again in a louder voice, pacing once more. Her small feet were wearing a thin path in the fine pile of my carpet. ‘But it is so much worse than that. When I returned home, the Countess said that there was a letter waiting for me. I opened it, thinking perhaps that it was somehow from you. It was from him. He wants to marry me. He wants me to stop singing in public, like a good bride and “save your songs only for me”. The selfish, spoiled pig! If it were anyone else on earth, I could say no and be done with it. But his brother owns the theatre, his brother Philippe who is keeping Annie as head dancer, even though she is a drunkard. In the end, the rich get everything. He will give the boy what he wants!’

  The boy, she called him! As though she were older; she was little more than a girl herself.

  I spoke to her then from the candle on her dresser, behind her left shoulder. I kept my voice as calm as I could manage, ‘He cannot, would not, make you lose your place if you refused him. The Opera Ghost would threaten them, and would follow through on those threats. The stage would be slick with spilled blood.’

  She stared into the flame until her eyes were sockets filled with gold, ‘True, but no amount of threats could make them give me decent parts. And I would rather die than bow and spend my life as something less than I could have been.’

  We were silent then. In that instant I knew that I loved. It felt like a death.

  She broke the silence, looking up from the candle, her eyes meeting the nearly invisible gap in the pine-board wall, the place where I hid from her. She spoke, ‘There is something else we can try. I know that you are there. I feel your eyes on me, wherever I go, wherever your voice seems to spring from. I feel your eyes on me, and they burn.’

  She dropped her gaze, and it was a mercy.

  ‘I also know that you are no ghost. You are a man. You love me for what I do, and you wish to protect me.’

  I could not speak. How could I answer? I rested my masked forehead on a splintery lathe, my hands gripping each other. Though I had washed, the rotten stench of my body filled the small space where I hid like a dead rat wedged between floorboards.

  She approached the wall, turned, rested her spine against the rough boards. Her voice was so soft. ‘Please, please don’t leave me. I did not mean to frighten you. I need your help.’ Her hands pressed behind her, palm down on the wood, her small fingers curled. ‘Tell me you’re there.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was all that I could manage. I did not throw my voice. The sound was right behind her. Nothing but a half-inch of wood kept our corpses apart.

  Her head drooped. I could see her hair, smell it, but I was blind to her expression. Her voice was so soft, a perfect instrument. ‘If you are a man you must live somewhere. You have been a father to me. I could visit.’

  Instantly a plan formed, it flared like a Lucifer stick. I could breathe again. My fingers unclenched. When my lungs were filled, I spoke to her, whispering, my near-lipless mouth mere inches from her perfect ears.

  ‘Christine, listen to me. You must agree to marry him.’

  She gasped, ‘No!’

  I continued over her protestations, ‘I said agree, not “do”. You will not have to go through with it. Agree to be his bride, accept his ring – if he is foolish enough to give it. But make the following conditions. First, that you will not be with him physically, you will not be alone with him, until the wedding has occurred.’

  She turned her face to the crack, her dark lips smiling. I had never been so close to her before. When she spoke I could taste her sweet breath. ‘How very proper! Keeping the lily white for the wedding. He will like that! It will appeal to his hypocrisy.’

  I laughed, continued, ‘Yes. I thought he might. But let me go on. Second, you must convince him to wait until the end of the season, say that you will not be able to break your contract. I expect that since his brother owns the theatre he will try to convince you otherwise, but hold firm in your resolve. At least convince him to allow you to sing the role of Marguerite at the debut of Faust. If he balks, say that you will marry him before the second show and that tuneless harpy La Carlotta will reprise the role from that point onward. Look into his eyes and tell him that your heart longs for one more moment on the stage, before you give it up forever and settle to your life in his shadow.’

  Her left eye was seeking to penetrate the crack I hid behind. I could see her straining to see me and though I wore my mask I was glad that the light in her room prevented her from comprehending my darkness.

  ‘On the night of the show you will sing even better than usual (you and I will work very hard from tomorrow). You will have to work the whole script through. I will wait for the appropriate moment and at that time I will come and take you away. I cannot tell you when, exactly. In order for this to work your shock must seem real. I will keep you safe for a few weeks, long enough for the mystery to grow and the rumours to spread, but never fear the scandal will blow over and the time will pass in a flurry. We will have plenty of work to keep us busy. The boy is a problem, yes, and he has too much power. He is young, and impatient. But be assured that by the time you return to the surface a
nd reclaim your throne he will have discovered another goddess to worship. I will see to it. It will be a gentle ending to the trouble he has caused.’

  ‘I trust you, Master. I will do what you say. Immediately. But…’ She took her well-formed bottom lip between her teeth and bit. Suddenly she was a child again, how my heart yearned to comfort her, ‘how will you make me vanish? Where will we go?’

  I answered very gently, ‘It is better that you do not know that yet. You are a phenomenal operatic actress, Christine, but if this is to work it must be completely spontaneous. It must look like a real abduction. You must be frightened. Go now, daughter. Do your work and leave me to mine.’

  I left before she could answer, following my hidden trails, winding my way through the bowels of the Opera House, until I arrived at my home.

  8.

  I built my subterranean home while the siege suffocated the city above my head and my Opera House stood empty, unfinished; the ruins of what never was. There are few things in this world more depressing than unfulfilled potential. Well, never mind. My building was completed, and if it is not exactly as I would wish it at least it stands, as perfect a creation as the world would allow to exist.

  Christine would not be ruined on my watch. Her voice was very good and getting better all the time. Soon she would be ready to bring the final, the best, plan of my life to blazing completion. I was attracted to her genius, yes, but at first only because it was a complement to mine. She could sing and act like no other. She could take even the poorest of scores and imbue it with life – soon she would overtake the masters of her craft. When her voice reached the final level of purity possible for the human voice to attain she would need to have something to sing, a composition worthy of her skills.

  If my face could never be presented to the world, my music would be. Christine would be my mask. The opera that I was writing for her would prove to be my opus and unlike the Palais Garnier this design would bear my name. At least, that was my hope.