Masque

by Bethany Pope

  Now I took hold of her, my hands on her shoulders. ‘Erik? Is that the name of the fiend?’ I was shaking her, without intending to. Her head lolled loosely on the stem of her throat. ‘Her life, her innocent life is at stake, woman! You must tell me what you know.’

  And that was when the girl, the loyal daughter, appeared in the doorway. She dropped the tray she was carrying and I turned to look at her, shocked at the sound of fracturing crockery.

  ‘Let go of my mother!’ She shrieked at me, plunging her hands into her pockets.

  I found that I could not loosen my grip on the old woman’s throat. I watched the tea mingle with the teapot shards and seeped into the floorboards, spreading like dark urine across the floor.

  Madame Giry gasped in my hands, ‘Please!’

  I ignored her, of course, much to my sorrow. The woman was obviously in deep shock and yet I shook her, striking her once or twice across the cheekbones, shouting, ‘You must tell me who did this! I know that you know!’

  Little Meg shouted at me once more, ‘Stop! You are killing her!’ and then she shot me through my centre. I heard the bullet enter before I felt any of the pain from it. I dropped the old woman and, I remember, she fell to a faint on the floor. I turned to Little Meg as I collapsed, the edges of the room darkening around me. I think that I was going to ask her a question. I noticed that she had torn the pocket of her dress when she pulled out the gun.

  I woke up several days later, in the hospital. I had been found bleeding in the gutter, robbed of my money and my watch, a few short blocks from my house. The nursing nuns told me that it was very lucky that whoever had shot me had used faulty bullets. The shells had fractured as the gun fired. I was filled with shrapnel that I would carry for the rest of my life, but none of my organs had been punctured.

  It took me nearly three weeks to recover. My brother visited often, but told me nothing about either the Girys or Christine, other than to let me know that the body that they took for hers, the headless mystery, had been given to the Countess who buried it next to the grave of the girl’s violinist father in Brittany.

  As for myself, I had almost accepted the loss of her, I had wept out my grief in an ocean of bandages brought by the nuns. It was not until I returned to the house of my brother that anyone thought to give me the letter that would change my life.

  11.

  I was unpacking the bags that Philippe had brought to comfort me in the hospital, shelving my favourite volumes of art reproductions and hanging my morning jacket on the handle of the wardrobe to be taken away and washed.

  I had to stop and massage the sealed scar besides my navel, the site where most of the lead shards sliced their way into my belly. That damned girl. I do not know what held me from reporting her to the police to be properly tried.

  No that is a lie. I knew, I know. It was pity for the mother.

  When I first woke from the surgery I felt such a surge of wrath at her, the likes of which I had never experienced before. The nursing nuns were very frightened at the violence of my incoherent shouting. Thinking that I was experiencing heart failure or succumbing to stress-induced brain fever they fetched the surgeon who spoon-fed me morphine until I slept beyond the boundaries of rage, grief, or physical agony.

  When I woke I was considerably calmer. I had dreamed about her, you see. Madame Giry. I saw her sitting in that filthy cell, trapped and weeping, while the only person left in the world who loved her mutilated herself to effect a rescue.

  I knew that I had succumbed to violence against the dancer’s mother, and that my actions were inexcusable. It must have been very frightening for Little Meg when she found us. The girl, it seemed, was protecting her still. It was almost as though their roles had been reversed; the mother was in the keeping of the daughter.

  So I let them go. I told the police that I remembered nothing of the night of the fire, and bent my will to my recovery.

  This was the first time that I had ever thought about a whore, about the misfortunes that could drag a woman to such sin. I have never forgotten it, and to this day I do not regret protecting them.

  I sat down on my bed, thrusting the thick curtains aside and fingering my belly. I had just resolved to take another swallow of laudanum and fall into a grief-dissolving dream, (a habit that I have lately resumed) when there was a knock on my door.

  ‘Come!’ I ordered.

  A servant entered, a new girl that I had never seen before. Apparently the woman she replaced had been there that night, in the pit-audience. She never emerged.

  This girl, a thin twelve-year-old in a too-large dress and a cap that slid over her eyes, curtsied once and handed me a thick letter. ‘This came for you, sir. While you were in hospital.’

  I had nothing to tip her, so I thanked her with a smile and she fled, disappointed, flouncing her skirts. I could hear her muttering against me in the hallway.

  I examined the envelope. It was made from a single sheet of paper that had been folded and glued. It was cheap foolscap made from badly processed pulp, flecks of wood were visible in the grain. There was no postal mark, it must have been delivered in person. My name, scrawled across the front in an uncertain hand, was the only identifying feature.

  I sliced it open with my fingernail, unwilling to wait long enough to search my desk for my penknife or a letter-opener.

  I found two folded sheets of that same cheap paper. They were scrawled all over, front and back, with words that were so tightly packed that they were just barely legible.

  Dear Monsieur Changy,

  I would like to apologise for the actions of my daughter, and for our treatment of you after your unfortunate accident. When Meg saw the way you handled me she was severely disturbed. You see, she has no malice in her, but rather she acted out of pure love for her mother.

  I thank you, also, for not reporting us. I know that you refrained because if you had not the police would have been here already and they have not come. You see, I have been to jail, and I know that they treat the women that land there much worse than they do the men. The police seem to see violence in men as a natural part of all their natures, an understandable lapse. They see women as something other than themselves, something delicate and pure, incapable of anger. When women act in the same way as men they must be monsters, abominations. Not at all like their wives who never even dare to speak back to them. And so we are more harshly punished.

  I was, anyway. You would not believe the beatings that I have taken.

  But enough of that. I wrote to thank you, not blather, and I wish to repay your kindness in whatever way that I can.

  When you told me that the fire was not caused by arson, but rather had been set by a series of explosions your words stirred up memories that I believed I had forgotten. I do not know if I would have told you this before, had things ended more amicably between us, but now I find myself in your debt. Luckily I can pay you with words that my darling daughter would see as a betrayal of the only father that she ever knew. But my darling Charles is dead and long-since in heaven where he can feel no woe and there can be no betrayal, for in death there are no secrets anymore.

  Do you remember what I told you that night? How, when we came together, he was grieving for two losses; his son and the Opera House? Well, as the years passed and we grew closer he told me a little more.

  The man who died was no more his natural son than Meg was his daughter, but Charles had raised him from boyhood and taught him his art. I have seen similar bonds form among dancers. The truest parent of an artist is often the one who discloses to them the secrets of creation. He had, it seems, lost the boy once before. Charles told me that the lad had been stolen from him and sold to a carnival or travelling circus. He was, apparently, quite deformed … though Charles never spoke of that. He had no images of Erik. I cannot tell you what he looks like.

  In any case, my lover said that the boy never fully recovered from the years he spent as a captive before his father found and rescued him. He had bec
ome quite violent – apparently he would strike a mason across the face for marring a brick. When he disappeared, along with the other architects who worked under him, Charles at first suspected the soldiers who at that time flooded the streets with their mischief.

  That was all I knew for many years. My Charles died, as I told you, and in pity I was given the job which now supports us.

  Almost as soon as the theatre opened there were rumours of a ghost. Letters appeared, addressed to the managers in a frightening hand like that of a demented child who learned to write with ash and splinters…

  My mind flashed back to the note I found in Christine’s chambers. The love letter sealed with the lyre of Orpheus.

  …demanding extortionate payment in return for protection against misfortune against the scenery and cast.

  The managers refused, of course. Those men like to think of themselves as reasonable men. But when the Opera House opened and entire acts were marred by tripping dancers, falling scenery, and in one instance all of the boxes had to be closed because something that looked like blood came pouring out of the walls, Firmin and Andre rethought their position.

  I am telling you all of this because I suspect that the missing son, that Erik, remains at the bottom of this. He was an architect; he had supervised the construction of buildings. He would know how to use dynamite to level foundations. I also remember something strange that happened once, when Charles was still living.

  He was taking me round the unfinished theatre – it felt like a ruin, so dusty, already haunted – we had already seen the stage, those wonderful frescoes, I saw the seats lined up against the wall, still sealed in their boxes. We were leaving through the back door, passing the rehearsal rooms, the dressing chambers that no star had ever sung in, on our way to the manager’s office when suddenly he stopped and wheeled to what appeared to be an unbroken marble panel of wall.

  He ran his hands over it, as though seeking something. Then he turned to me and said, ‘My dear, this is very perplexing. In the plans we made I remember that Erik included a doorway here, with stairs leading down to the basement. We had meant to include some more rehearsal and storage rooms, as well as a sauna and bath house for the richer clientele.’

  I was growing bored by then I said, ‘Maybe they changed it.’

  He said, ‘No, no. Erik insisted that it be included.’ He smiled at me, ‘That boy always insisted that every building have a basement as complex as the room visible on top. It was a quirk of his.’

  And with that, our tour concluded. I took him home. That same week the first spots of blood showed up on his handkerchief and I forgot all about our tour. That is, until the strange haunting began and I discovered that no one had ever seen the rooms he mentioned. In fact, hardly anyone has ever been into the basement.

  And so, Monsieur, my advice to you is to begin there. Seek out the panel he mentioned. Go down, carefully. If Erik did take your girl, that is where he fled with her. Remember that he is dangerous. Go armed, and not alone.

  There. I had a debt to you, once. I have paid it.

  My daughter and I wish nothing but the best to you, we wish you luck. Please leave us alone.

  Sincerely,

  Anne Giry

  I finished the letter, thought a moment, adjusting the pillows behind my head. I sent the servant for my brother.

  After he had finished reading, the disbelief draining from his face along with his blood, he was white with rage and as angry as I was. He agreed to my plan almost immediately. It took the rest of the evening to seek and hire enough armed men to go after the monster. We did not wish to involve the police in order that we might spare Christine the scandal and Madame Giry another cycle of the year in jail. In the end we managed it. It was fortunate that the city was filled with unemployed soldiers itching for work. We set the time of our attack for early the next evening, after the repair work had concluded for the day and the workers had departed.

  My brother contacted the managers as a courtesy. They gave their blessing, free reign of the theatre and access to tools, but they did not wish participate in the actual rescue, though they hoped that I would find my fiancée alive, well, and still fit for marriage.

  Philippe at first tried to dissuade me from joining the raid, citing my injury, but he recognised that, like him, I was burning with vengeance.

  ‘I must be the one to rescue Christine.’ I told him, raising my body from my bed. ‘She will be my bride yet!’

  He nodded once, bitterly smiling, and left me to rest.

  It took me longer than usual to fall asleep. In the end I resorted again to the laudanum. I slept well, and woke late. By mid-afternoon I was more than ready to begin.

  12.

  We had some difficulty, at first, locating the entrance to the monster’s lair. The wall seemed to be constructed from a solid sheet of marble, impeccably smooth to the touch. We had only Madame Giry’s vague instructions to begin our search and I admit that (being young) I was easily frustrated. I paced the corridor, stalking back and forth across the tiles, while the former soldiers slumped against the walls gossiping and shooting dice.

  It was Philippe’s idea to apply method to the search. Beginning directly outside of the door marked ‘Managers: Firmin & Andre’ my brother laid his ear to the wall and knocked, listening for the echo of reverberation. He repeated this every few feet until he stopped short, halfway down the corridor. He looked up, excitedly whistled; a shrill, high pitch that drew me to his side in a flurry. ‘Raoul, lay your head here.’

  I did as he said and I heard the echo of his knocks for myself. Straightening again, my hand on the handle of my revolver, I said, ‘To be sure, it is hollow, but it looks exactly like the rest of the wall. How can we be certain that there is a passage?’

  My brother smiled and guided my hand to a nearly imperceptible crack, straight as a knife-edge, that ran vertically from floor to ceiling. It was invisible to the eye, or nearly, but my touch recorded it. He said, ‘There is another exactly like it two and a half feet over. Doesn’t that sound right for a doorway?’

  I returned his grin and together we began pressing and prying at the doorway until my fingers caught on a catch, a secret lever, made to look like a flaw in the marble. When I pressed this irregular protrusion the wall slid outward an inch and a half, revealing the doorway. I hooked my hands inside the blackness and pulled.

  There was no stairway. There was no corridor.

  All I saw was lathe and plaster, a dead-end!

  I cried out in frustration, a sound which drew the soldiers from their game and caused my brother to place his restraining arm around my shoulders. I shook him off and struck the wall, belting out my rage at it until the dust flew and my sweat and saliva flowed. I was weeping without realising it, unconsciously pawing the tears from my eyes with the backs of my fists until I sank to the floor, exhausted.

  The soldiers were staring at me; eight pairs of eyes convinced that I was mad. Only my brother failed to look at me. He was examining the wall that I had attacked, wiping away flecks of blood and shattered splinters to reveal a hole that opened like an eye into the kingdom of death.

  ‘Ah, my clever friend, now we have you!’ He picked up one of the axes we had brought and struck at the lathes. Instead of the struggle we expected, the whole wall fell forward, a door-sized plug that shattered to splinters on the stairs. The soldiers raised their voices, cheering, shouldering their guns and adjusting their knives in their belts. My brother came to me where I was sitting and offered me his hand, ‘Come on, Raoul. Let’s go and rescue your bride.’

  With lit torches in hand, we plunged into the dark. It did not escape my notice that the stairs were nearly exactly the same, in materials and composition, as the grand entrance of the Opera House; albeit on a smaller scale. They were like fingers on the same hand, all of a piece. This building really was the product of a single mind – and it did not belong to Charles Garnier.

  Our torchlight danced on the walls. As we descen
ded past the typical basement brick, sinking into the bedrock, the corridor opened out until by the time the staircase ended we found ourselves inside a vast, black cavern. It was very like a cave, a natural formation. Our torches were not bright enough to light the walls, so we walked amidst a wealth of shadow. Somewhere out of sight we heard the sound of water dripping. After what felt like an hour, but must have really been only a few minutes, we came to a wall that opened up into three doors that hung with an inch or so of open space above the earth-strewn floor.

  I paused for a moment, holding up my hand. ‘We need to make a decision. A monster is in here, somewhere. We need to know which way to go.’ This was like one of the fairy tales Christine’s father told us when we were still children. A monster, a princess, a castle underground. I knew that I was being tested. I hoped so much to pass.

  One of our men, a rough-looking fellow with an eye-patch and a ragged vest, said, ‘The floor is pretty muddy. We had better look for tracks.’

  After a few minutes he found some, a single set of man-sized prints leading into the centre doorway. I moved to open it, but he hesitated, holding on to my arm. He scratched his stubbled chin and said, ‘Now wait a minute, sonny.’ He flinched, ‘I mean “Sir”. You say this fella’s pretty smart?’

  I nodded.

  He continued, ‘Well, this patch of earth has tracks in it, sure enough, nice clear ones leading you on, almost like an invitation.’

  My brother came and faced him, ‘What are you saying, Jacques?’

  He smiled, revealing two chipped front teeth stained brown by tobacco, ‘Well, you said he brought a lady with him, right? Well it stands to reason that, unless he was carrying her (and the prints aren’t sunk in deep enough for that) he must have led her by the hand. So we should be seeing two sets of prints. One walking, one set being dragged. And there aren’t any here.’

  I opened my mouth to speak my frustration. Before I could say anything another soldier, this one short, dark haired, and very broad, gave a whistle and called us over to the door on the left. When we got there he smiled and held his torch as close as he could to the earthen floor. It had been swept. The short man had a bass voice. He said, ‘It looks like someone’s been covering his tracks.’