Phantom of the Opera Don Juan Defeated

Disclaimer; Erik, Christine and anyone else you recognise belong to Gaston Leroux. I'm just playing with them. Oh - and Nadir's Susan Kay's :) 

A/N - Well, this is sort of an experiment, I've never written anything like this before ... it's horribly depressing (I didn't mean it to be this bad! It just sort of ... happened.). I promise I will try very hard to ensure this never happens again. Based largely on the series of events from the ALW musical (which I saw last week! Yay!) but, as always, characterisation stolen from Susan Kay.

Feedback to cat_midas@hotmail.com or in the review box at the bottom of the page please!!!!!!!!!

I write this in the vain hope that it will one day be read by the one person who truly matters. I do not believe that she will keep her promise to return after I am dead to bury me ... however, I entrust this letter to the former daroga of Mazenderan, Nadir Khan. I am trusting you, my one-time friend and long-time enemy, to deliver this to her ... I want her to know the truth, even if she finds she cannot understand it.

I have lived a long and largely pointless life, during which I have committed more atrocities than I care to recall. I do not say mistakes. One learns from mistakes and alters their character in accordance with them; through this comes redemption. There can be no redemption for me. 

I would love to be able to claim that from the moment I first saw Christine, I was entirely enamoured of her and unable to restrain myself from establishing a connection - however querulous - between us. The truth is, sadly, rather less romantic, and can lead only to my own self-castigation simply for having been so stupid. As it was, her voice, beautiful even without training, was simply an allure which I, as a musician, could not resist. I had no intentions that she would ever know me as anything but an angel - a remote, celestial being who remained cold and aloof behind the unyielding surface of that cruellest of materials, the mirror, while I gave her talent the encouragement it needed to make her a star. In truth, I felt somewhat sorry for the child; she had lost all that she held dear in the world, and that air of helpless vulnerability made me feel even more determined to send her to the dizzying heights for which I knew she was destined.

By the time that I realised what this bizarre and unfamiliar reluctance to leave her, this desire to stay just a few moments longer and talk with her as I had sworn never to do, to speak with her as man rather than angel meant - by the time it finally dawned on me that through my own foolishness I had surrendered to my one greatest fear, that cruellest and most lancing of all emotions, it was too late. I was too deeply attached, as they say, and leaving her was an idea so intensely painful that I could not bear to contemplate it.

It was so, through my own blinding stupidity, that I condemned us both to this hopeless quest for a love that I think I always knew, deep down, could never be.

While she believed me to be her angel, and, moreover, handsome, she would have done anything for me. I see now that I was a replacement father to her; at the time, I was too blind to see what would have been self-evident had I been a little less involved. I told myself that she loved me, and perhaps, in a way, she did - but she could never have cared for me the way I do for her.

In deceiving her this first time, I had taken the first step down the road to hell, a road which, since then, I have rapidly descended, into the flames which I now cannot escape.

When I spirited her away for the first time - such madness! - she came willingly; she allowed me to lift her from the boat, to carry her in my arms; such memories have sustained me through the loneliness of countless sleepless nights since. Does Raoul de Chagny know how lucky he is, to take her hand whenever he feels like it, to glance at her without the fear that he will catch her recoiling from him? 

But I digress.

That night was the most beautiful of my existence, when I told her through my voice that I loved her, and she allowed me to do so without even a flicker of the fear or disgust that has characterised the rest of my relationship with her. 

From that night on, it was denial all the way. I know I told myself that she loved me, but I suppose that somewhere, a deeply-buried part of me always knew that if she cared for me at all, it was as a replacement for the father she had lost, or as the friend she had never had. And to this day I believe I was a good friend to her. Less of a friend perhaps than a devoted slave, but I truly believe that she appreciated it. And perhaps ... perhaps, had I been less afraid of rejection, she might have accepted me? Could she ever have seen the man behind the mask? But I don't know. She knew how I felt, of this I am convinced, but I never told her so in so many words - if I had done, would things have been different? Would I be preparing for my wedding now, as opposed to my funeral?

What fools love makes of us! She was afraid of me ... loathed me, towards the end, and yet I can't stop thinking about her, thinking about what might, could have been. In reality, in the part of my mind which still possesses logic, I know it could never have been. She was an angel of the lighted world, I was a blackened demon who burns in hell and hides in darkness to prevent exactly this sort of situation arising.

Even in the knowledge that she did not, would never love me, I was happy simply in her company. To share an hour with her in the evening, to hear her sing one bar of a song, would sustain me for a day, and in this way I could pass the interminable hours when she was absent.

There was then but one thorn in my side; Christine's childhood sweetheart, the Vicomte de Chagny. He loved her, of that I was sure, but at the time I did not know that she returned his juvenile affections. Curse the damnable blindness that love inevitably brings!

I watched them together; watched the light in her eyes which I had only previously seen when we sang, and I saw the spark between them flare. I told myself there was no cause for concern; she always returned to me at the end of the day and was never anything more than politely courteous towards the boy. I closed my eyes to the way she looked at him, the lilt to her voice when she laughed at his jokes, the way she avoided the subject the one and only time I asked her about him. After that first futile attempt to extract the truth from her, I realised that, whatever her relationship with him really was, I didn't want to know - and so I didn't interfere. I know that if I had asked her if she loved him, she would have told me the truth - honesty is one of her greatest virtues, she has always been incapable of lying to me. 

Be that as it may, she found no such difficulties in concealing the truth from me - until the night she and Raoul fled to the roof after I had disposed of the foolish scene-shifter, Joseph Buquet. His method of defence against the Punjab lasso was ineffective to say the least ... he would never mock my face or boast that he could escape me again. That night ... a night I have no wish to repeat. To this day, I cannot talk about what occurred up on the roof, while Christine panicked and Raoul soothed, and I watched in agony. I have been told, in the past, more times than I care to remember, that I have no heart. Once I believed this to be true; on that night, however, I felt it break. 

I dropped the chandelier at her feet that night ... a childish display of fury and impotent rage I am heartily ashamed of; the thought that, had my hand slipped even an inch or two, two hundred thousand kilos of glass could have hurtled down onto Christine's head has haunted me ever since. At the time, I hardly cared - numbed with the vicious power of my white goddess morphia, I had every intention of ending this pitiful existence after causing my greatest disaster yet. Had it not been for Nadir, who had made his way to the cellars immediately after the chandelier fell (how well he knows me, that he can recognise my trademarks so accurately!) I would have done so without a second thought. I have thought, more than once, that Nadir is the one person who has ever truly understood me - that night contained not only more agony than I care to remember, it was also the first night I truly believed that someone cared whether or not I lived or died. Perhaps Nadir is the only person who ever has. 

The next six month remain a blur, gaps in my knowledge as I slid in and out of consciousness, caring little whether I lived or died. My preferences lay toward the latter, but even this was denied me. Ironic really - my death was desired by all and sundry, myself included, yet Fate saw fit to keep me alive for just a little longer. To this day, I can picture God watching the engrossing saga of my life throughout this period with amusement. Cruel irony ...

One fateful day, a Sunday, I woke up and took stock. I could continue as I was - wretched, worse than dead - or I could risk everything in one last gamble, double or nothing. Don Juan Triumphant was finally finished; I knew this would be the ace in the game of my life. Skirting the edges of death, hovering dangerously close to the precipice over which I knew I would plummet should my strategy fail, I watched rehearsals and ironed out ripples of imperfection in my last great endeavour.

I knew she was afraid. She didn't want to be a part of the plan, she didn't want to take her part in the opera ... I forced myself to remain cold and unfeeling, subduing the part of me which needed to know why. Was it because her Raoul might be hurt ... or could she still harbour some affection towards me - some dormant part of her mind that could not see me condemned? Now, of course, the answer is laughably clear, but, like a drowning man, I clung to the last shred of hope, the final straw which kept me afloat. Fool that I was ...

From the first night, at the Masquerade Ball, I watched her cry, plead with her young lover not to make her go through with it, but he remained stubborn and unyielding. Ironically enough, this was the time during which I felt the most anger towards him; I was occasionally forced to remind myself that it was I, rather than him, whom she feared; without me, they would have been childishly and happily married many months ago, and would have lived the fairy-tale adventure all children expect but only those such as Christine fulfil.

It was during this time when I first saw them argue; a brief, vicious quarrel ended with the sudden painful realisation that perhaps love doesn't conquer all ... they cried, and kissed, and hugged, and made up in moments, but the first seed of doubt was there, planted like a small, treacherous snake in the roots of their relationship. 

I had come to hate the boy with an all-encompassing loathing which was due to nothing more than his perfection. Physically flawless; with all the strength and muscular build of youth, his face still held the look of a teenager, impeccable white teeth, an attractive and utterly genuine smile ... 

Damn him!

Had he been lazy, stupid, cruel, I could have borne their acquaintance - had he just had _one_ imperfection, however slight ...

The comparison between us was unavoidable, and sharply cruel, and yet how many hours did I spend dismissing its importance?

__

It doesn't matter ... she understands ... she doesn't care about that ...

Laughable. Delusional. Refusing to face the cold reality. The last shreds of the impossible dream ... the dream I found myself unable to let go of.

All of the above. 

I can see now what I was too blind to see then; even if he had never existed, never walked jauntily into her life and swept her off her feet before she had time to think ... even then, there would still have been no place in her heart for me.

The infection, you see, lay not in him, as I had repeatedly told myself ... but in me.

I prayed that she would return of her own accord, that the final, cruel step would not be necessary ... and yet I always knew, somewhere deep inside me, where the truth has been crushed by the madness of hope, that it was never to be.

If I did not take her from him by force, then ... I would not have her at all.

Don Juan Triumphant! What can I say? It was my masterpiece, my magnum opus, my one triumph ... and yet ... such a disaster.

The music was written for her, for her voice, it was perfect ... but she sang it like a zombie. No expression, no sentiment ... afraid of what disaster might occur should she put anything more of herself into my music than she already had ... Might the monster be enraged, or perhaps be overcome with an emotion he could not control ...? 

She didn't understand! I loved her, yes ... but I would never have touched her without consent. I would have died first.

The opening night was one of the most painful experiences of my entire life, a not inconsiderable feat. It was a full house, drawn, no doubt by the rumours circulated by the irritating little corps de ballet that the "Opera Ghost" had written an opera ... so much more interesting than the dull media announcement that a "new and previously unpublished composer" had produced an opera unlike any other!

Hidden in the shadows, I watched the performance, closing my eyes to the nervous little glances she kept throwing up towards her Vicomte's box and my ears to the flatness of her voice and the painful mediocrity of her acting, remaining perfectly still, unnoticed by the silly little dancers and the busy stage hands in the hushed hive of activity that is backstage on opening night.

I held my restraint almost the entire way through, silently running over my plan in my head ... as soon as the performance was over, once the last bow was taken, the last standing ovation, she would come backstage ...

I ran my foot lightly over the lines of the trapdoor beneath my feet. She wouldn't know what had happened until she was safe, back home, with me ...

And suddenly, through the mists which were slowly settling over my mind like a thin gauze curtain and obscuring sharp lines, came a sound like a rusty electric saw, jarring in the quiet of backstage ... that blasted tenor, Piangi ... he was massacring my opera! 

My perfect tenor line ...

And then an idea occurred to me. By this time, I am sure I had quite lost my mind - my idea was so infantile, so pitifully romantic - so doomed to failure. Why should I not sing in my own opera? The costume required had a hood, no one need know ...

With a sudden rash impetuosity quite unlike my normal state of careful hesitancy, I made my swift and silent way to the closet where Piangi, Don Juan, was concealed. A queer ringing seemed to have begun in my ears, and I couldn't quite catch my breath ... my vision was blurring over and try as I might, I couldn't focus on the music, the dizzying speed of the whirling cadenza, catching me, tripping me up ...

To this day, I can't remember exactly what happened next ... I vaguely recall slipping Don Juan's robe over my head, taking care to arrange the cowl over my face ... but I don't remember entering the stage, and I don't remember my first lines. Strange ... I can look at the libretto today, and every time it has a new and wounding intensity about it, as though I truly never have seen it before.

Everything remains a vaguely shadowed blur in which I fought for breath and control ... everything until Christine's first lines. Ironic; my voice has always been my one great power, the only thing with which I can ensnare her and keep her safe with me for as long as I so desire ... I never realised up until that night that her voice had exactly the same effect on me. I would have grovelled at her feet if she had asked; I truly believe that, had she asked me for her freedom that night, I would have given it to her; caught in the angelic perfection of her voice, I was incapable of any rational thought of my own - everything appears with a painfully sharp clarity when she opens her mouth to sing.

And then her hand caught at my mask - and the world stopped. Everything in black and white slow motion - I heard myself sob, heard the horrified gasps of those around - but all I could register were her eyes - terrified, desperate ..._ pleading ..._

I lashed out and the trapdoor opened, swallowing us both into an endless black abyss of night.

She was almost hysterical by the time I carried her into the lair - any last flicker of hope withered and died at the sound of her demented terror. _What did she think I'd **do** to her ...?_

That remains to this day a question to which I should prefer not to have an answer.

It was as much to give myself time to compose myself and try to rearrange my fevered mind as anything else that I sent her back to her room to put on the wedding dress. Had I been thinking straight, I might have realised what a mistake that was; as it was, I did not realise until she stepped hesitantly back into the room and my heart stopped that I could never bear to let her go again.

I have tried to forget the things that she said to me that night; justified though they undoubtedly were, I cannot bear to think of them, or of her hating me enough to say them.

Denial continues until the final curtain.

At the time, I believed that time was on my side, that I could take as long as I needed to calm her, to explain, to try to make her _understand_ ... but the arrival of de Chagny through the lake scuppered that notion with his customary naval efficiency.

From then on, there was never any hope that the situation might swing back into my favour; I was too blindly furious that he had destroyed any dream I might once have entertained of happiness, and it was lucky for him that my hands were shaking too badly for me to have broken his neck upon entrance.

As it was, I very nearly killed him in a fit of rage when he had the effrontery - the _audacity_ - to embrace Christine in front of my very eyes. I do believe that by now I was beyond the reach of words from her; I was quite out of my mind with fury and grief, and my heart had yet again hardened itself against inevitable further cruelty from her.

It says much for Christine's presence of mind and - dare I suggest? - her understanding of me that she not only knew this, but could summon the courage to act under such circumstances.

I had never loved anyone as she loved everyone until she arrived in my life; and to this day, I love her more than I know how to express. I shall to go my grave having known her touch; and how many can claim to have been so lucky?

Her kiss had all the effect and more that she had doubtless hoped for - _if I humour the madman maybe he'll let us go, maybe he'll let Raoul go, maybe he won't hurt him_ - such dizzying emotion as I felt then could never, I know, be duplicated; those most precious moments of my life in which, for the first time, I was _hers_ ... entirely and wholly hers, and she - ever so briefly - mine.

After that, of course, there was no element of choice.

__

The writing on this sheet of paper ended at this point, halfway down the page, the paper smudged with drops of what looked like water. As though the author could not bring himself to continue on this page, the narrative continued on a separate sheet of paper, written closely through in what appeared to be less regular handwriting, the forming of the letters less consistent, the smudges more frequent. 

How I miss her now. I tried, after she left - so hard! - to recover myself, to reclaim that self control and comfortable apathy which has served me so well in the past. 

I have, however, always prided myself on my common sense - glorious attribute which I have so frequently disregarded this past year! - and even I am not so foolish as to hope that she who could give my life meaning will ever return to do so.

I am finally ready to meet my Maker; that my life has continued this long is testament only to my own cowardice in facing eternity. But now I am ready; may this document stand as my final confession - and perhaps, in whatever is to come, I may be able for a moment to forget her face, and therein to find peace.

__

Christine let the final page of the manuscript flutter to the floor, sinking to her knees as she stared with silent, disbelieving anguish at the ruin of the room which had once been Erik's.

The pipe organ smashed, sheets of handwritten music torn and left to be trampled underfoot like so many autumn leaves, the coffin displaced from its dais ...

She closed her eyes against the tears that threatened at the memory of him; the dark brooding mystery that she had never truly understood, the silent adoration he had wordlessly bestowed upon her and never voiced ... the stricken anguish in his eyes at her final, ultimate betrayal.

She looked back down at the letter, and, finally abandoning her restraint, she began to cry, tears of silent grief at the loss of the man who had been her angel, friend, and so much more ... this time forever.

"I came back, Erik ..." she wept, her voice catching on his name. "I came back ..." Her voice sounded small in the vast expanse of space - a pitiful figure, crumpled on the floor among sheets of torn music.

She covered her face with her hands as her shoulders shook with silent sorrow - remorse for the life and torture of the extraordinary man she had known, loved ... and ultimately destroyed.

Nadir stood apart from her for a long time, letting her cry, numbed by his own unexpected sense of loss as he looked upon the devastation of Erik's life.

Gradually he became aware that Christine had fallen silent, and now knelt motionless among the destruction. Slowly he made his way over to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She rose slowly, her hand still clutched around the single wilted red rose that had lain on top of the piano for her to find; as she stood up, the final dulled petals detached from the stem and drifted to the floor.

Very slowly they made their way toward the Rue Scribe door which would lead them out onto the teeming streets of Paris. Nadir opened the door, and they both looked back for one long moment into the darkened house, before Nadir gently ushered Christine out into the waiting street. 

With one final glance back into the house, he blew out his candle, and closed the door.


End file.
