Masque

by Bethany Pope

  Immediately, she began helping me to plan my escape, her blue eyes blazing in her glorious Nordic ruin of a face. She poured the strong tea she favoured into a cup of delicate red porcelain saying, ‘Well, my dear, where to begin? You have no funds of your own, I expect. I shall hire the lawyer.’ She laughed, ‘After this is over I shall finally be able to write you back into my will.’

  I flinched at that. She leaned forward, patted my knee, ‘No offence my dear, but had I died he would have inherited, and I could not have borne knowing that one day, while my corpse was rotting, that idiot boy would be trampling my carpets and selling off my land.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he was counting on doing just that. The forest you own in Britany would have been sold to a shipyard.’

  She laughed, ‘Of course he was! Why do you think he would risk attempting to clip the wings of an artist, unless the risk would pay him.’ She refilled my cup. ‘Enough of that. In six months or so you will be a free woman.’

  Her eyes glittered. ‘I have very good lawyers. Now is the time to discuss your future. You are still young, my pet, the whole world before you. What is it you want?’

  I had to laugh with her. It had been so long since anyone had asked me that. I took her warm hand, said, ‘I want to sing.’

  She squeezed back, ‘Then you shall. The Opera House has new managers, of a progressive political bent. Once you are free you will have two points of leverage; your marvellous voice – no one could take that from you – and the score you brought back from the pit.’ She paused, ‘Unless you left it at that idiot’s house. If you have, I could get it. Claim that you did not own it when you brought it. We’ll have to have it if it is as good as you said it was, it will help with contract negotiations. I’ll find proof somewhere of a previous claim….’

  I interrupted her, ‘No, no Maman,’ it was her turn to startle, I’d never called her by that name before. She had been afraid to ask me. ‘The score is in this very house. In the desk, in my bedroom.’

  She smiled with relief, ‘So that is that.’

  And so it was. While the papers were filed and my status shifted from married to separated and on to divorced, I practised every day, returning my voice almost to the height of its lustre, though there was a new veil across my lower register that added a sense of sorrow to whatever I sang as a mezzo. I had finally learned to sing for myself, wearing the roles I chose and no other. It was difficult, satisfying work, returning to myself. I was happier than I had been in years and, for a while, I stopped dreaming of the face I saw, once, deep below the surface of the earth.

  In the end my guardian was right about everything. The new managers had heard about the quality of my voice, and they were indeed progressive – if that term means that they were willing to see profit in scandal. They paid me more than double my usual salary, triple if you include the fee I negotiated for the rights to my opera. And as for the scandal, the newspaper headlines shouting, ‘Divorced Diva Dares the Stage!’ filled them with pride. The right kind of scandal can stuff a lot of gold into coffers. My divorce was considered exceptionally daring; they milked it for all that it was worth.

  I played the role of Carmen exclusively for a full five years, to a packed house. There is nothing quite so exciting to a certain type of audience as a fallen woman, dressed in crimson, displaying her beautiful sorrow before all the world.

  By the time I finally got to debut Don Juan Triumphant I was thoroughly sick of playing the Gypsy. My opera was greeted with lukewarm reviews; I was even then a little too old to be playing a fresh-faced maiden like Ana, and besides, I couldn’t give credit where it was properly due. The critics believed that it had been written by a woman and they judged it accordingly.

  In spite of that, possibly because of that, the crowds clamoured for it. I performed two encores at every showing. The seats were always sold. The intake was enormous. It still packs the house in its once-yearly revival show. Whoever the invisible theatre-owner was, he must have been pleased by the revenue. I never met him. He never wrote me any notes or contacted me in any way, save through his managers. I assumed that he enjoyed the hypocrisy of gaining profit from a source whose morality he disapproved of. In nearly fifteen years he never so much as sent flowers to my room.

  But Monsieur Reynard is gone now, whoever he was. He has sold his stock to the company of Andre and Reichmann. And I am growing tired of singing the same damned roles. I do not know how long I will continue to endure it.

  Sitting before my mirror now, my ageing face garbed round with plaster angels whose beauty never fades, or changes, I strip off the wig I wore on stage and let down my own sweat-dampened tresses. I am ready for a change that goes beyond a coat of grease-paint and a flattering wardrobe. The paint is terrible for the skin, in any case. A mask is no good if it cakes in my wrinkles.

  In a moment I will have to dress again, don my fancy party clothes to flirt and preen with my new managers, earning my keep. I dab my neck with more of Monsieur Andre’s wonderful, outrageous perfume and, God knows why, I start singing an excerpt from the redemption scene that takes place when Don Juan and Doña Ana are reunited in heaven at the very end of the play.

  It is a musically complicated verse, ‘Between two worlds life hovers like a star, ’twixt night and the morn, upon the horizon’s verge.’ Somewhere, somehow, the music has swung again, away from comedy. But it isn’t a tragedy any more, not the way I’m singing it now. If I didn’t know any better, listening to myself, I would have to say that my spirit was rejoicing.

  I finish, hitting all of the high tones, ‘How little do we know that which we are!’

  As the last note dies, I hear a knock at my door. I shout, ‘Come!’

  It isn’t the girl I expected, the little foul-toothed rat who has been serving as my dresser, coming to say that the managers are ready for me to charm investors in the foyer. It’s Madame Giry, dressed in her usual ratty black crepe, leaning on the man’s walking stick she uses to keep the box-boys in line. There is a letter in her hand, a thick envelope, written on expensive linen paper. She smiles at me inscrutably as I take it.

  My name, my old name, is written across the front in handwriting I know.

  ERIK

  13.

  I climbed from the bed where I’d buried Christine to save her from the fumes of the Lethe and the fire from the guns. Her would-be lover had forced himself through the fog; either passion or an incredible lung capacity had rescued him from the same sleep his minions had succumbed to. I did not notice him at first. I had no time to count the numbers of the rescue party. There were nine men on the floor.

  I gave the big blond a kick to test the effectiveness of my drug; the black toe of my brogue landed between his armpit and his hip. He flinched reflexively. Good, I thought. He will recover in every capacity. Christine will be pleased.

  I called to her, ‘Christine! All is well. You can come out now!’

  And that was when the boy attacked me. He had stalked me from the shadows, hiding behind a pillar or perhaps the large wardrobe. He shouted, ‘Monster!’ and fired his gun at the same instant that I turned to face him. If his hand had not been shaking there is no doubt that I would have been dead; he was standing less than three feet behind me. Luckily, the bullet flew into the door of the cabinet, piercing a dress.

  I leaped forward, striking at the gun with my foot. The sharp heel of my shoe collided with his wrist and I had the satisfaction of seeing the gun clatter to the floor. I had disarmed him, but it wasn’t enough. I was, I am, more than fifteen years older than he is. The difference in prowess between a boy of twenty and a man at the edge of his prime is surprisingly vast. I was quick on my feet; I’d had some experience fighting. He was faster, and poisoned by wrath. It acted on his blood like a compound of coca leaf.

  The boy leaped at me, pinning me face down on the tiles at the edge of the pool. His knees were digging into my kidneys. He was binding my wrists with a length of rough rope that he must have had on his person
. I scanned the room, seeking another gun, a knife, anything I could use as a weapon. I could see a revolver still clutched in the hand of the nearest attacker; he looked like an out-of-luck soldier that the boy had hired for the evening like a suit. There was no hope of reaching it, my bonds were too tight; the reach was too far.

  I couldn’t think. My head was swimming with anxiety. I hadn’t been this close to another man since I left Monsieur Garnier. I was frightened, also, for Christine.

  I saw her head, her dear dark eyes, appear over the lip of the pool that I had furnished for her bed. She looked terrified. My lungs were compressed, but I had enough power to throw my voice in her direction. I gave her a message, ‘No Christine, no. Remain perfectly still. Do nothing. I love you too well to see your life ruined.’ Brave girl, she obeyed, sinking back beneath the blankets, but Raoul must have seen her because he dragged me to my feet and hauled me towards the nearest pillar, stretching upwards until he hung me like a scarecrow from the brass light fixture. My shoulders screamed in protest at this treatment; my head swam with blinding pain. He struck me in the stomach several times for good measure, so hard that my diaphragm spasmed. I could not speak. The metal was so hot that it burnt my wrists.

  Leaving me there, he ran back to the pool and fetched out my darling. She was pale, shivering, unable to stand. To his credit, he handled her delicately – as though she were composed of china. He settled her into a chair, tucking a blanket around her limbs. When he loosened the scarf that served as an air-filter her poor teeth started chattering. It was probably shock.

  The boy was not finished. Part of me rather hoped that he would take her and leave, returning later with help to rescue his friends. If he had done so, I am certain that I would have been able to work the ropes against the bar until they frayed and I freed myself. I would run, as fast as I could, to one of my more hidden bunkers, well stocked with food, medicine, and mental stimulation. After a few weeks, when the furore had died down, I would emerge again and rescue Christine.

  It wasn’t to be. The little Comte wasn’t finished. He left her sitting in the chair, facing me. Our eyes met. Hers were wide, too wide, and filled with terror. I would have given anything to calm her. I could only stare.

  The boy was limping a little now. Good, I exhausted him. I would have been disgusted with myself if I had not managed at least that. He bent beside the man that I had kicked – I recognised him now as his own elder brother, the one in love with the dancer, La Sorelli; now deceased. Raoul pried the gun from his hand and slouched back to me.

  Christine, thank God, could not see the way that the maniac was grinning; his smile split from ear to ear as though he were telling himself a good dirty joke. He stood beside me, breathing almost into my ear, raising the gun until the black barrel penetrated the eye socket of my mask nearly touching my eyeball.

  For the first time in nearly twenty years, since my time in the nunnery, I said a prayer to Our Lord.

  He withdrew the barrel. I thought it was mercy.

  Then he turned to Christine and said, ‘Do you not wish to look upon the face of your abductor?’

  I knew I was damned.

  He tore off my mask, my wig in one smooth motion, revealing my face which is so much like the skull of a corpse.

  Christine saw me. Her face contorted with fear and repugnance; she vomited onto the floor.

  By the time that he shot me I knew which was mercy; I would rather have died then, than live with the memory of her disgust. Unconsciousness claimed me.

  I spent a long time in a darkness that I mistook for hell. I saw hideous visions. My mother, screaming at me when I tried to kiss her; the face of the old nun who told me terror tales night after night in the dark; the villagers who toured the carnival that purchased me, their twisted faces leering as they threw their rotten fruit. If Hell is any worse than that, we are right to fear it.

  When I awoke I found that I was alone in utter darkness, buried beneath soft layers of carpet, blankets, a few scattered stuffed animals. I panicked, until the sharp stab of pain in my side recalled the past to me and provided my mind with a modicum of focus.

  I have no idea how long I slept, and I have no way of finding out. By the time I hauled myself, with much agony, from the bed that I had been placed in I had enough energy to light a nearly full-length taper from a candelabrum that I groped from her dresser, before collapsing to the floor again, blacking out.

  By the time I resurfaced, the candle had burnt down to a stub a half-inch in length and the brass stand had been glued to the floor in a puddle of wax. The first thing I saw was the crushed remnant of my mask, smashed into splinters at the foot of a pillar that had been bathed in my blood.

  I gave myself a thorough examination and found that I had two small holes above my left hip; an entrance and an exit. They had been washed and bound with Christine’s white scarf, now crusted, stinking with blood and infection. I smiled, my mouth flooding with bitterness. It was she who saved me, then, despite her disgust.

  The candle was guttering. I reached into the pocket of my coat, seeking another Lucifer, and instead my hand withdrew with a folded sheet of stationery. I gave up my search for the matches, using the rest of the light to locate another candlestick that I ignited from the source just before the last of the flame turned blue and guttered out.

  I opened the note. It was her handwriting. Ten words:

  Erik, I love you. Forgive me. I’ll lie to him.

  She left me. She wrote that after she had seen my face. It almost made the trouble worth it. I could live the rest of my life on the memory.

  I blacked out again after reading it, rising several hours later, the note in my hand, the candle extinguished.

  It took me the better part of the day to return to my chambers, hauling my carcass across the floor in the darkness. By the time I made it I was delirious with infection and dehydration. My arms felt as though they had been half-wrenched from their sockets. Thankfully, I had set aside supply of laudanum, alcohol, and a powder made of white willow bark to quell the infection. I had a good supply of preserved food in my cache. Even if I had not been severely injured I would have needed those stores to save me – three months into my recovery I discovered that the managers had treated their Opera Ghost problem with the same level of ingenuity that the rest of Paris applied to disposing of rats; they had sealed me in, blocked every entrance and exit I’d made with hardened cement.

  For nine months I battled against a dangerous blood infection. I spent the following four months burrowing out of the basement like an escaping prisoner. Towards the end of my time, before I escaped into moonlight, I was reduced to catching sewer rats in traps and roasting them on fires that I built by burning first the doors, and then the furniture. Luckily, I had a good supply of chairs left over from the construction of the theatre – my original plans had called for nearly double the seats as were finally installed. None of this saved me from madness. Every night I dreamed again of the cage, my humiliation, my filth, their flung garbage.

  Occasionally I saw her face in sleep again and, in spite of her note, I relived her disgust.

  Over a year passed before I saw the moon again. I had a well; I had water, so I washed my body and my clothes. I dressed in suit, in hat, in cloak, and emerged through a crack in the wall like a ghost. I spent all of that first night out-of-doors, walking the park, touching the bark of the trees with my bare fingers. It was beautiful; a sensation I’d forgotten. Living wood is so much different in feel from furniture.

  I sat beneath a laurel tree and thought. By the time that I had reached my conclusions the dew had fallen. My bare face was wet with it. I had barely enough time before rosy-fingered dawn drew back her curtain to purchase supplies at the river market. My bare face allowed me to make my selections without harassment – and in some cases, without making payment. I found that there were hidden benefits to the honesty of terror. I wondered why I had not tried this before.

  On my return to my home I sa
w that the opera house was still under reconstruction. I would have time to rebuild my passages, not that I expected that I would need to use them – Christine would be married by now, forbidden from singing – but they were familiar to me, it would be comforting to have the option of the occasional free show. Who knows, I thought, she might sell the rights to Don Juan. I could see a production.

  Time passed. I set down to work. I played music. I tried to forget her. Eventually, when records became available in the riverside market (about six months after they turned up in the homes of the wealthy), I purchased a gramophone. I never did use those corridors I’d spent three years rebuilding.

  And then, one night, I read in the paper that the Palais Garnier was failing; Comte Phillipe was dead, Andre and Firmin were on the edge of bankruptcy. I could not allow it to close; it seemed like every hope I’d ever treasured had been buried in its walls. I could not let it fall into ruin again. Luckily, I retained a few old contacts from my days as an architect; though, it is true, they did not know me by face or even my true name. I wrote a letter which I posted at midnight, using the new boxes the government had conveniently installed almost under every lamp post.

  Eventually, a response came. I read it, and felt myself return to life.

  14.

  When periods of happiness are described in books they are almost always insufferably boring. Nothing exciting seems to happen, and when it does it is entirely internal, growing like a disease beneath the skin of the world. This is why fairy tales are so fond of that classical summary, ‘and they lived happily ever after’. If we heard the day-to-day minutiae of the Prince and Princess’s marital bliss we would be tempted to murder. On the other end of the scale, I am sorry to report that protracted misery comes across to the reader in much the same fashion. Nothing seems to happen, nothing seems to change. Every day becomes the same miserable slog, the same stasis. And it is true, nothing does change; externally.