Chapter Text
“Stop the carriage!” cried Christine.
Obediently, it drew to a halt.
“What is it?” asked Marie.
“Listen,” Christine breathed.
The two women listened. Listened to the song wafting in from somewhere off to the left of the road.
“He’s a very good singer, whoever he is,” said Marie, at length.
Christine knew she couldn’t expect Marie to understand. Marie had heard Christine sing, but aside from that knew little of music other than what she’d listened to on Christine’s occasional trips to the opera. But Christine had once been an opera singer herself; she knew that this singer was the finest tenor she had ever heard.
Marie could hear the singing and pronounce it good; Christine could proclaim it as without equal.
Christine opened the carriage door and looked in the direction of the music. A commotion of circus tents, set up by the road, but from beyond the outskirts of the camp, there was no direct line of sight to the singer.
Who is he?
Christine turned to Marie. “I’m going to go and see him. Whoever that singer is.”
“I would advise against that, my lady,” called Martin from where he held the reins. “It wouldn’t be safe for you; you’re dressed too fine.”
“But I have to – I simply have to know. His voice is stunning.” What if the voice stopped and Christine had no way to trace him, whoever the singer might be? Just then, as if he’d heard her thoughts, the singer executed a particularly fine sustained note. The tenors at the Palais Garnier would have killed to be able to produce a note like that.
“I’ll go,” said Marie.
Christine turned to her. “But if it’s not safe for me then it –”
“It’ll be safe for me,” said Marie. “I’m dressed plain enough, and I’m not in livery like the footmen. Out in the circus, I’ll just be a lady’s maid on her day off. Then I can find out whoever’s singing, and you can ask for a private performance. Better to go now, though, while he’s still singing.”
Christine longed to jump down from the carriage and search herself, her finery be damned, but Marie had a point. She moved away from the door to make room for Marie, who climbed down and set off towards the circus.
*
Erik woke the same way he had for the last ten years or so; cold and uncomfortable on the wooden shelf in the caravan, the thin blanket insufficient to keep out the chill. He groped for the waterskin, found it where he’d left it last night, and took a few sips.
He sat on his shelf and ran his fingers through his hair, neatening it a little, not that it would fix anything about his situation. He still clung to a few stubborn bits of pride.
The circus folk fed him rarely, once or twice a day, and if today was a day when he’d get breakfast, they would not be in for hours yet. He kept himself occupied as he always did.
He had no pen or paper, so he wrote the music in his head. Sometimes he’d go months at a time without adding to it, other days it would be all he could do to check the new notes as they flowed through his mind. Either way, it was vital to check it over in his memory and ensure that nothing had been forgotten.
With his eyes gone, he would never write out the score of Don Juan Triumphant, nor would it ever be performed, but it was the only way to pass the time apart from his nightly performances. If one could call them performances. The audience wasn’t there for his song – the song was a feature of the act to make it seem more unique, but all the crowd really wanted was to see his face.
In Persia, he’d worn a mask. The circus folk didn’t let him have one. He had nothing to hide himself with.
At perhaps mid-morning, Erik heard his door slam open, and Valvert, the circus owner, stepped close to Erik and murmured, “Best fucking behaviour, you hear me? You’re doing a private showing, some rich lady wants to see you – real rich, real pretty, plenty of money if we can get her to come back a few times. So best behaviour, see?”
“I see,” Erik spat. I don’t see anything. That’s how you got me. “When is the showing?”
“Now.”
*
Marie had done her best to prepare Christine for what the singer looked like. She’d described it all in detail, so that Christine would not be shocked.
But she was still stunned speechless when she set eyes on him.
The circus owner had gestured herself, Marie, and one of her footmen – Le Fevre – towards the caravan with a showmanlike flick of the wrist.
Inside, the caravan was bare, unadorned wood. A lidless chest by the door held a few items of clothing. There was a half-empty waterskin discarded on the floor. A window let in light at one side through its grimy glass.
At the far end of the caravan was a wooden shelf. Based off the single ragged blanket upon it, this shelf was used as a bed. Christine would have expected more comfort for one of the circus’ most popular acts, but perhaps the Living Corpse was an eccentric who preferred a life of asceticism.
The singer sat on the shelf, facing towards the door, though of course he could not see it.
He looked dead.
His skin had an unhealthy-looking yellowish cast to it, like a mummy from a tomb. His cheekbones were pronounced, the cheeks sunken. He had no nose, and his mouth was a gash, a flat line, no lips to speak of. His hair was black, receding slightly, streaked with grey at the temples.
But his eye sockets…
Most of the singer’s face looked as if he had been born that way – no human hand could form a face like that.
The loss of his eyes had certainly been the work of human hand.
The sockets were empty, but around them were the lines of scars as if from a dagger or some other sharp implement. Christine saw the scars and understood.
He fought them. Whoever took his eyes, he fought against them. He struggled - that’s why the scars are such a mess. He struggled and struggled but it wasn’t enough.
The blind singer still sat there, waiting, facing her. He cocked his head slightly, waiting, and Christine realised he had heard herself, Marie, and Le Fevre enter and shut the door behind themselves. He knew they were there – he did not know anything else, except that a wealthy lady had asked to speak with him in private.
Christine found her voice. “Hello. What’s your name?”
*
His name. The wealthy lady had asked his name.
She had seemed… nervous. But who wouldn’t be, looking at him? Especially some sheltered woman from the upper echelons of Paris.
But why would she care enough to ask his name? Not even the circus members knew his name: none of them had ever asked. He was just the Living Corpse to them – often shortened to simply the Corpse. Erik had expected to be referred to as the Corpse until the day he died.
“My name is Erik.”
“You sing very well, M Erik.”
“Erik is my first name – I have no surname.”
“… I see.”
This was not going how he’d expected. There had been no taunting, no poking him in the face to check it was real, no invasive questions.
“Do you play any instruments?” she asked him.
“The piano, the violin, the organ, and the sitar.”
“I haven’t heard of a sitar before.”
“It’s an Indian instrument. Imagine a lute with a long neck – it isn’t much like that, but there is a vague resemblance.”
“You’ve been to India?”
Why did she care? “Yes. In my teens and into my youth I travelled throughout most of Europe, through India, and eventually into Persia. That’s where I lost my eyes.”
Perhaps referring to his eyes would get things back on track. She would begin to properly gawp at Erik’s hideous face, this meeting would be over with, and Erik could get back to the empty monotony of his existence.
“I’m sorry.”
Nobody had ever told him they were sorry for his injury, not since the daroga had bandaged him up and told him to stop screaming, to stop crying out, because they needed Erik to be silent if they were going to escape Mazenderan alive.
Erik realised he had been silent too long to thank her for her sympathy. If it truly was sympathy. There was still time for this woman to turn nasty. His visitors always did, in the end.
The lady spoke again. “I would like to offer you a job.”
Erik’s head snapped round. He’d been facing her general direction – the direction of the door – but now he was facing the exact direction of her voice. “What?”
“As my resident musician. At my home, I have a grand piano in the music room and an upright piano in the drawing room. Both of them are fine instruments. I can also provide you with a violin. I am Dowager Vicomtesse de Chagny – I have plenty of money. Whatever you earn here at the circus, I can more than match it. Bed and board, too.”
Erik barked a laugh. “They don’t pay me here.”
He sensed more than heard them hesitate. “But my maid, she was in the crowd last night, watching you. She said there were hundreds of people…”
“They don’t pay me because they don’t have to,” Erik told the vicomtesse. “You may notice that my caravan does not have a lock on the door. It doesn’t need one. I have nowhere to go, and, blind, penniless, no means of getting there if I did. Beyond these four walls and the boards of the stage where I perform, I could not find my way. No, Dowager Vicomtesse, they do not pay me.”
“You’re a prisoner.”
“Indeed.”
Erik heard footsteps, the rustle of clothing. He heard Christine ask someone named Marie to move a little, for there was a gap in the doorframe and she wanted to see where the circus owner stood outside the caravan.
“He’s about twenty feet away,” said Christine. “Le Fevre, Marie, you both take a look. Do you think we could make it, if we ran to the carriage?”
More creaks and rustling.
“I’m not sure,” said Marie. “The manager might get to us first.”
“Not if I run right at him while you three run to the carriage,” said a man’s voice – Le Fevre, presumably. “One clean kick between the legs, he’d be down and we’d be away. No – a punch to the jaw. Keep him quiet.”
“Right then,” said the Vicomtesse. “Erik, if I took your hand to guide you, would you be able to run?”
Erik had not run anywhere in about ten years. He had a singer’s lungs, but no idea if his legs would hold up. He did not even know if the Vicomtesse was truthful in her offer to help him escape.
At worst this woman was one of the circus folk playing a trick on him. He’d earn himself a beating for lack of loyalty. At best, she was freedom.
Yet how much worse could his life truly get? He’d taken beatings before.
“I can run,” Erik told her.
“Good.”
A slender gloved hand slid into his and led him forwards, to where he knew the door of the caravan to be.
“We move on three,” the Vicomtesse told him.
She counted down, then he heard the door to the caravan slam open and he was being led down the caravan’s steps at speed. They were running, sprinting across the field where the circus was camped. Behind him, Erik heard a thud of impact and a muffled cry, followed by pounding footsteps.
His legs were burning and he had no idea where he was being led, but he did not slow, not until the Vicomtesse slowed. He heard a door open in front of him, and the Vicomtesse placed his hand on what turned out to be the open doorway of a carriage.
“Climb in,” she said.
Erik took the steps cautiously, having to feel out each one, unsure of the height, until he was fully inside. He groped around and found a seat. The cushions were plush – the fabric felt expensive. Erik knew his clothes didn’t smell – or didn’t smell much, at least – but he wasn’t sure how clean they were. He might be dirtying the Vicomtesse’s cushions.
Well, she had been the one to tell him to get in.
Erik heard the Vicomtesse sit down opposite him, and heard someone else sit beside her, presumably Marie, who he thought was probably a lady’s companion or maid.
“Le Fevre got the circus manager very properly,” Marie said approvingly. “Right on the chin. And what can they do about it? Complain that we helped a man escape when they’d kept him prisoner? They wouldn’t dare.”
The carriage began to move. It was better sprung than his caravan had been, and took the bumps of the road with ease.
Erik wanted to thank the Vicomtesse and her servants, but he didn’t know how. He also wondered if it was too soon – if these people were really as kind as they seemed.
Instead, he said, “Do you have anything I could use to cover my face? If we are going to your house, then I imagine it is in some fashionable part of Paris. It would not do for my face to be seen there.” Erik had been spared his own reflection for the past decade, but he imagined that the scarred sockets of his eyes had not improved his looks.
“You can have my scarf,” said the Vicomtesse.
She pressed it into his hands.
The scarf was wool, finely woven, ridiculously soft. Erik imagined some rich, expensive dye had gone into making it.
When he wrapped it carefully around his face, he found that he was breathing in the Vicomtesse’s perfume.