Masque

by Bethany Pope

  I cannot forget the stricken look on her face as I left her, standing there in the middle of her bright room, holding my empty glove.

  By the time that I returned that afternoon she had cleaned up the mess I’d made of her breakfast, washed the plates in her small sink and reordered the chairs around the trolley. My glove was lying on my seat, as though it were waiting for me. And as for Christine, she was waiting for me. She had changed into the shirtwaist that I had expressed a preference for and when I entered, bearing her lunch tray, she rose and apologised, ‘for being so forward’.

  I forgave her, of course. She could not help her reaction. After a few moments of awkwardness she ate the meal I served her, helped me clear away the dishes, then we both resumed our work.

  12.

  I have never been so close to happiness as I was then, that brief time twenty years ago when I lived with a woman who loved me and who shared in both my genius and the adoration of our work. We had three weeks together; a far cry from the six months that I had originally intended. Luckily the work moved very quickly – Don Juan was written by the time that we ended. She made her ascension after all, her glorious resurrection from the pit of the damned. It is not her fault if it did not go exactly as we planned.

  Sitting here now, in the rooms that I have inhabited for nearly a third of a century, a chamber that might be a macrocosm of myself, among my papers, my books, and my new imported gramophone (I can listen to her voice whenever I wish, singing my songs. It’s like having a captive ghost) it’s almost possible to pretend that the past is really over, and that I have survived it.

  As I get older I find myself turning for comfort to the stories of my childhood. Fairy tales that my mother never read to me, but which I consoled myself with over the long cold evenings in the cellar of the granite house my father built. I had a tattered copy of La Belle et la Bête my mother found in one of the rooms, left behind by a tenant. She had considered selling it, but in the end gave it to me in a gesture of strained love, or guilt. It was, for a time, my greatest treasure. I found hope inside its pages.

  Reading it again now, a newer edition in buttery green-leather binding, I am struck by the way the myth reflects my story. All those nights that the Beast spent sitting across from the maiden, asking his questions and being rebuffed, only to win through in the end. I chose the word reflection carefully. Mirrors invert. His story is my story, subtly reversed.

  We had our table with one place setting. The monster was there, and so was the maiden: the single red rose. But it was the maiden who asked for intimacy, over and over again, even when I begged her to cease. It was the Beast who refused transformation. It was the monster who, though strong enough to murder, turned and ran as fast as he could from the possibility of romance.

  And so here I am, settled in the same leather armchair, growing older while my organ stands with the cover closed, the keys slowly shifting out of true as the wood decomposes, shrouded in a muslin tarpaulin. I rise, as thin as ever, maskless (I never bother with wearing it now) and set my recording of Don Juan Triumphant on the turntable.

  Christine’s voice rises up from the black wax grooves, her miraculous voice singing, ‘Love is vanity, selfish in its beginning as its end, except where ’tis a mere insanity.’ And I see her again, as fresh as the summer, a beautiful girl who sat by my side in her white dress, helping me to fit the music to the form.

  We had been working in my rooms all morning; I had brought a second chair to place beside my desk. Christine was wearing Marguerite’s white dress; the costume had become a part of her wardrobe, and in truth it was exceptionally fetching, revealing the soft tops of her breasts and pale, gently muscled lengths of forearm. Books of poetry were open all around us. We were finishing the libretto for the final scene – the libertine who seduced Doña Ana was about to be dragged into Hell by the vengeful ghost of the poor maid’s father.

  Christine had developed a taste for the English poet Byron and she wanted to invert lines from the satire to serve our more serious purposes.

  ‘What do you think of this?’ she asked, tilting her head so that her curls spilled from her shoulders into her soft cleavage, ‘“The sun set, and up rose the yellow moon: The devil’s in the moon for mischief”, I was thinking that the servant Gato could sing that to the maid before the meal begins. It fits in well with the rhythm of the piece, and the image is certainly ominous enough.’

  I nodded, ‘Yes. And it foreshadows the ending of the story.’ I sang the line, adopting a baritone based on the voice of the actor I hanged on her last night on the surface. Monsieur Jordan.

  She laughed, clapping her hands like a child, and copied the words on to the composition paper. If you ever get a chance to examine the original score, I believe that it is currently housed in the Musée de la Musique, you will see a strange thing. The score seems to have been written in two different hands. One elegantly sets down the actual musical notation (the orders for Timpani, or Allegretto are rather spidery) the other, a strong, almost masculine calligraphy, transcribed the words. The styles are very different, and yet they exist in a state of absolute sympathy. To read the score for this Don Juan is to observe the perfect mingling of twinned spirits. It is beautiful to see.

  Unfortunately the bound reproduction I have displays none of that. Printed, the genius of the piece, its passion, its experimental nature, shines through clearly, but it reads as though it were the product of one mind only; the twinned parts merge. Our wonderful unity is utterly masked.

  We had only one full scene left to write; the aria that Doña Ana sings professing her love to the Don before he murders her father in the final act. We were having some difficulty capturing the spirit of the piece, transcribing the sense of what she felt, hopelessly waiting for the libertine to return her love. We read for a while, paging through my books in silence, when suddenly Christine’s eyes lit up as though her spirit and her brain were blazing.

  She stood before my chair, her hands clasped before her, and opened her mouth, singing, ‘Give me the waters of Lethe that numb the heart, if they exist, I will still not have the power to forget you.’

  For a moment I could not speak. It was so right for the scene. ‘What was that?’

  She looked at me, triumphant, her cheeks flushed, ‘I found it in Ovid. The Metamorphosis.’

  I stood on my uncertain feet, quite badly shaken. I took her hand. ‘Close your eyes, Christine.’

  Her body stiffened when I took hold of her arm, her fine face paled, but she did what I asked. ‘Didn’t you like it?’

  I lifted my mask and kissed her, once, on her downy cheek. The pale flesh flared crimson where I had touched her, her full lips smiled. That is a sight that I will treasure for the rest of my life. Against every desire of my body, I drew back from her, once more lowering my false waxen face over the true. ‘It was absolutely perfect.’

  She opened her eyes; her look was languid, the pupils dilated, so that she seemed like a woman waking from a deep, sweet slumber. She stepped close to me and took both of my hands. Her voice had found a lower register, ‘Erik…

  And that was when we heard the crashing, the brittle crack of splintered wood and powdered plaster, the shouting of ten men battering through my false wall and clamouring down the narrow corridor towards the traps I’d set up between there and here. In that moment any possibility of our future happiness was shattered.

  RAOUL

  10.

  I arrived at the Giry house at a little after midnight. My brother did not try to hinder me from pursuing my suspicions. He was too broken by his own loss. When the managers made their misguided attempt to bring me to reason, offering a dose of laudanum and a carriage ride to my own bed, my brother poured himself another brandy, leaned across the bar and said, ‘I hope that you never have cause to test this, gentlemen, but believe me when I say that sometimes tilting at windmills can be the best balm for grief.’

  His face was pouched beneath the eyes, his large nose red and cl
ogged with tears; he looked so much older that I was suddenly struck by the resemblance he bore to our ancient father. He said, ‘Give him the address; let him speak to the women. At worst, he will question them and learn nothing. At best he will thrash them with his words when what they tell him brings the sad truth home. Either way, he will heal all the faster.’ Philippe shot the whole contents of the glass down his throat, sank into his chair and said in a quiet voice, ‘God knows that I wish I had someone to scream at right now, someone to blame. As it stands, I cannot even truthfully slander myself.’

  He buried his face in his hands.

  Monsieur Andre opened a drawer in his desk, rifled through file cards. He copied down the address he found in a hand that shook and spattered the scrap he wrote upon with black drops of ink that resembled burnt gunpowder.

  Few carriages remained outside the theatre. This was unsurprising considering the wreckage of the night. I passed the slow moving, exhausted groups of hospital wagons that, at this late hour, carried only the dead. A few firemen sat on the steps of the entrance sipping from a shared brown bottle, one child, splendidly dressed and as yet unclaimed by his surviving relatives, wept into his hands beneath the cart which bore the tank of water which finally extinguished the flames.

  I clenched my jaws and walked even faster, considering the mind that could justify such waste. He did it all for the sake of pillage and capture. My will resolved itself. I owed a service to the world; I would track and slay the man who did this, even if I found that I had been mistaken about the identity of the headless corpse, even if Christine had died beneath the rubble. Someone, after all, had planted the bombs and planned the detonations. Someone had hanged the heavy baritone and taken the head off of an innocent girl, leaving her nameless.

  And if, in the end, I found my love alive but ruined I resolved to swallow my disgust without ever showing her that I resented her for being spoiled. I would marry her in spite of it, if she still breathed, no matter what followed I would bring her home.

  This was one promise I kept. I never knew that foulness could come wearing more than one form. I did not know that promises could be kept and broken all at once.

  The neighbourhood that the Girys haunted was rough, there were prostitutes about, beer halls, and no cabbies, but it was not nearly as decrepit as I’d expected. The shops were all filled with merchandise; no windows were broken. The houses were small, but most had been recently painted. Rubbish was in barrels, not scattered on the streets, and not even the few urchins I saw were picking through the bins for meals.

  The slate steps for number 227 had been recently swept, the pot planted with daisies was watered, well-tended. Even in my rage, this residence was nothing like the one I would have imagined for the dwelling of a former convict.

  I knew that, if my plan were to go forward, I could not reveal my conjectures to the women. I must approach this conversation as though I were honestly appealing to them for information, not accusing them of participating in the plot.

  I found myself staring into the open face of a flower, suddenly supremely exhausted, focusing my energy on that golden glow as though I could fortify my soul with a fragment of beauty. I knocked on the door. Waited a moment hearing nothing but silence. I knocked again, harder.

  After a few seconds I heard the clatter of feet rushing to the door.

  ‘Who is it?’ A rough girl’s voice, a slight lisp, ‘Don’t you know it’s after midnight?’

  Little Meg. It had to be. So much for her supposed twisted ankle.

  I answered in my most commanding tone, ‘Madame, it is the Vis Comte de Changy. Open the door. I will speak to your mother.’

  I heard the metallic clank of a drawn lock, the door drew open a few inches and the girl’s dark, puckered face peered out. She examined me a moment, observed the street behind me, and drew the door closed long enough to unfasten the security chain. It must have been mounted fairly high on the beam, because the motion was accompanied with a series of acrobatic grunts and the sound of long-nailed fingers scrabbling on wood.

  When she opened it again her face was flushed, she smiled at me through closed lips and stood aside for me to pass her, entering the hallway.

  ‘It is a little late for visitors,’ she said, leading me to the parlour to wait for her mother to make herself presentable. The girl was wearing a loose, flowered dress that flowed down to her ankles, her hands held tight together inside the deep pockets that pouched out the front of her pinafore. It was strange to see this tiny dancer dressed for sleep and not the stage. She looked so reduced, seen outside of her context.

  ‘We can wait for her in here.’ Keeping her hands where they were, she backed into the lip of the scrappy yellow sofa and hopped on to it, sliding her small bottom back onto the cushions in a motion that was obscene because it was so childish. ‘Is this about the fire, then?’

  I took the seat she offered, a rickety armchair that had obviously been rather a fine one, not so very long ago. ‘You’ve heard about the fire then? You were very lucky to miss it.’

  Her face snapped closed like a purse. ‘I was unwell.’

  I leaned forward into the stink of her breath. ‘Then how did you come to hear of it?’

  The girl was opening her ungodly mouth, ready to reply, when her mother answered for her. I had not heard her approach.

  ‘La Carlotta was sitting in the audience when it happened.’ The older woman was standing in the doorway, fully dressed in her usual shabby black. ‘She had not yet recovered her voice, but wished to see the show. About an hour ago she sent a boy with a note. Didn’t you wonder why we answered the door at this late hour? We were upstairs, in great turmoil, only just beginning to undress again for sleep.’

  The woman was tough; her hard face never flickered into smile or gained a softer expression. She sat on the couch besides her small daughter.

  ‘Forgive me, Madame, if I say that seems uncommonly kind of her. I have never known a Diva to show such consideration for a box manager.’

  The woman laid a gnarled hand on Little Meg’s wildflower patterned knee. ‘You have not yet offered tea to our visitor.’

  The girl looked up at her, her expression blank. ‘It is very late, Mother.’

  I interjected, glad for a chance to get rid of the girl. She was very like a terrier. I addressed the mother. ‘Tea would be lovely.’

  She flicked her ringless finger towards the door. ‘Go.’

  The girl slid forward off of the sofa, her hands still hidden I wondered how she was planning to bear out the tray with her fingers shoved into her pockets.

  The old woman sat silently for a few seconds, examining me. Finally she came to her decision and signalled with a smile that she was ready to talk.

  ‘I am certain you know by now that I was a prostitute. Do not look so shocked, I hear all of the gossip.’

  I closed my mouth.

  She continued, ‘You also know that I was jailed for the offence, sentenced to a year or the payment of a large fine. I served three months before my darling daughter bought me out by selling her hair and teeth, her only physical beauties.’ She sighed, ‘Such a pity that only one of those gifts could ever come back to her.’

  She smiled sadly at the sour memory of love, ‘Have you never wondered, monsieur, how a woman like me could be trusted to gain a respectable position?’

  In truth I had, and this was all very interesting, but I could not, for the life of me, see how it was connected to the matter at hand. When I told her so, she laughed, saying that I needed to learn how to listen.

  She continued, ‘After my release I went back to work – this was, you recall, five years ago, near the end of the siege, but the war was still raging.

  ‘I was destitute. My daughter had begun ratting for the city ballet but there was little money in it. She earned a roof with her dancing, and when she was still a child, still growing, she learned to supplement her income by taking men into her bed.’ Her face clouded then. ‘It was very har
d to watch. Thankfully, my luck changed soon. One of my regulars was the head architect of the Opera House, Monsieur Garnier, a brilliant gentleman who, though living in severely reduced circumstances and grieving himself over the abandonment of his building and the sudden death of his son, nevertheless found room for me in his heart. I became his mistress.’

  She smiled at the recollection, a lip twitch in memory of happiness long spent, ‘He would have married me, I am sure, but for my history and the fact that my first husband, Monsieur Giry, probably remains alive somewhere, though I have not heard from him since my Little Meg was an infant at the breast.

  ‘As for my dear Charles, he died of consumption shortly after construction began again. It was lucky for me that he had many friends who respected him enough to leave aside their disgust at my past and offer me a job which paid enough in tips to allow my daughter and I to maintain our hold on the architect’s house.’

  She stood, ready to show me to the door. ‘I trust that you are satisfied that neither my daughter nor myself would wreck the last visible structure that our saviour left upon the earth?’

  I remained where I sat, unwilling to be ushered from her house. ‘Madame, I never suspected that your fingers set those bombs beneath the stage, but…’

  ‘Bombs?’ She darted forward like a serpent, taking hold of my arm. ‘There were bombs? My friend said fires only.’

  I disengaged her fingers, ‘Yes, Madame. Bombs. Dynamite. There was a tremendous explosion. Many were killed.’ I rose now, sensing that it would be wise to intimidate her with a display of my masculine advantages of strength and height, ‘There was also an abduction. My fiancée, Miss Daaé, was taken by the man who set this destruction in motion. He planned it all, as a means of capturing her.’

  Her eyes grew wide, terribly frightened. She spoke one word, ‘Erik?’ Then fell silent.