Reality Issues
Three:
A Talk With Husband #1
Her
eyes opened suddenly. Above her leaned her husband… Raoul. He did not look
happy.
"Christine,
what are you doing?"
"I
was working, dear, and then this headache came on and…oh!" she lied,
groaning in fictitious pain. Well, perhaps it wasn’t a total lie. In her dream
she was sick, so maybe, subconsciously, she was sick in real life. Maybe.
Raoul’s
face transformed from that of an angry husband to one of a concerned lover.
"Oh darling," he said, "I’m sorry! Forgive me… Here, you stay
lying down and I will go cook dinner. How does salmon sound?"
Sounds like the same thing we eat every night. "Very good,"
she said aloud. "Thank you, Raoul." He gave her a weary smile, kissed
her forehead and left the room. Just then, Christine felt very selfish; after
all, Raoul had been working all day and needed rest much more than she, who had
been sleeping all day. Not only that, but she had lied to her husband. It was a
sickening feeling; once she acknowledged it, her stomach knotted and churned.
It burned like…like the sensation of stage fright. Christine realized then that
she had once again placed herself in the position of the actress. Not a
liar, an actress, she thought. And I will perform.
Christine
slowly descended the stairs, gripping the railing to steady herself; she was
afraid the fierce pain in her stomach would knock her over. Yet within every
step the pain decreased. She imagined herself at the Opera House once again,
walking towards the great stage. And she felt the part from the vision;
instinctively her back straightened and her chin roes, not in egotistical
superiority, but in dignity.
When
she turned the sharp corner at the bottom of the stairs, her back slouched once
again and her chin sunk into her chest. She regained the appearance of the
migraine-stricken peasant.
Raoul’s
back was turned to her as she entered the kitchen. "Raoul," she
asked, "do you need any help?"
He
turned around, knife in hand. "No, darling, I’m just finishing. Sit
down."
Christine
slid into a chair and began to massage her temples. The pain had trenched
upwards by then to her head, its headquarters located right behind her eyes.
This pain was real; unlike her previous opinion it was not just an effect of
her imagination, nor the result of lying to her husband. She really did feel
faint. All she wanted to do was climb into bed and…what, sleep? For she knew
that sleep would bring not rest, but Erik.
Well,
no. Not exactly Erik. More of a brain-altered Erik where there was no Raoul and
no Phantom, just the two of them and love. A dream Erik who was content and
married, practically perfect in every way. The Erik she had known was tortured,
anguished and hardly happy.
The
mystery of the dream still remained. Where was Raoul through all of this? How
did she end up married to Erik? She was so bewildered and the confusion only
made her head pound harder.
Raoul
sat down and placed a plate in front of her. Fish, Christine thought,
sighing, something new and different. She stared at the small plate and
slowly broke up the salmon with her fork. She lifted it to her mouth but
couldn’t bear to eat it. So she hid it in her napkin and proceeded to push the
pieces of fish around her plate. Eventually, Raoul noticed.
"Darling,"
he asked, "why aren’t you eating? What are you thinking about?"
"Christine
looked up and met his eyes. "Erik," she said bluntly, refusing to lie
again just to spare his feelings. "I was thinking about Erik."
But
the moment she said it, she regretted it. Raoul’s face burned a bright red, his
teeth clenched together and his brow knotted fiercely in a scowl.
"Oh," he said, obviously hurt and trying to control his temper. He
did not like to be reminded of Erik. "Why have you been thinking
of…him?"
Perhaps
she should have spared his feelings. Now she had to be careful and tread
lightly to make sure she did not cause the volcanic eruption of Mt. de Chagny.
"No reason, really," she replied, hoping the subject would be
dropped. Of course, it was a false hope.
"Now
don’t do that, Christine!" Raoul yelled suddenly, slamming the table with
his fist and causing Christine’s bones to jump out of her skin. "You
brought him up and you will talk about it. I’ve been through enough torture
concerning that demon for you no to talk about it." Every muscle was
tensed under the scarlet skin of his face.
Yet
Christine was defiant and rose to meet his eye. "Perhaps it isn’t your
business, like you seem to think. Perhaps I miss Paris and all that it means
for me. Perhaps I miss a friend, whom I…"
"Friend!"
Raoul interrupted. "A friend? A fiend is more like it! Christine, he was a
madman! Do you remember how it was? How you wept in my arms for fear of being
taken down to his dark home and never returning?"
But
the truth was, Christine did not remember it. She could recall the events, knew
exactly what had happened, but she was unable to feel the emotions she knew she
once had felt. Perhaps her mind was too filled with thoughts of that wonderful
Erik who waited for her in sleep to remember that terrifying Erik who really
existed. And yet…that side of Erik—the side from her dream—it must have come
from somewhere. And he had been so tender with her sometimes, so loving… Could
it be that Erik was formed of both sides within him…and it only took a little
kindness to bring out the good?
Christine
slammed her palms against her ears in a useless attempt to block the thoughts
from her head. She didn’t want to think about her mistakes, about what she
could have done. She just wished…she just wanted…
Her
mind was suddenly clear and she looked at Raoul once again, her eyes glistening
with tears. "I just want to know how he is. That’s all. I want to know if
I killed him."
She
hung her head in shame and let the tears fall. Raoul slowly walked around the
table, his shoes hitting the wooden floor hard. When he reached his wife, he
gently laid a hand on her back and she leaned into his chest, taking comfort in
that simple physical expression. After her tears had died down, he lowered his
face to kiss her and she let him. He was entitled to that, at least. But as they
kissed, Christine realized that he couldn’t offer her everything she needed.
She was bored here; her dream was precisely what it was—a dream, the thing that
her heart yearned for. She loved Raoul, but not the way he deserved and not to
the extent that she knew she was able to love.
But
perhaps this was her punishment. Wrong choice, right choice, did it matter? She
had harmed another human being, maybe even killed one, and she had made her
choice. She now had to stick with it, for better or for worse. It wasn’t even a
punishment, for she did enjoy Raoul’s company and wanted to be with him… But
their souls were different. Raoul, even with his high society upbringing, was
content to simply be settled down and busy. Christine was different.
Twenty-three years old and no longer meek and scared, she needed to soar and
experience thrills and vary her days. Enclosed and cramped, she feared she
would fade like the final flickers of a flame. She needed her freedom; she
wanted the stage…
Thoughts
like these continued to pour into her head as her lips still pressed against
Raoul’s. She pulled away as she choked on a sob. Raoul stepped back, trying to
be sympathetic.
"Christine,"
he said softly, "what do you want?"
"What
do I want?" she repeated, her bottom lip trembling. "I want…" Excitement
and Paris. I want things I can’t have. I want… "to sleep," she
finished. "I’m just over-tired." Raoul nodded his head in agreement.
She rubbed her eyes harshly and flung the tears away before she moved go
upstairs.
"Christine,"
Raoul said, just before she passed him. She looked up at him through her tears,
which didn’t seem able to stop forming. "Everything will be alright,"
he continued in an attempt to comfort her. "He’s gone. He can’t come back
to get you." Christine nodded and left quickly, not letting him see the
tears start to fall again. He had meant well, and she knew that, but it just
made her sadder.
She
climbed into bed, wanting merely to sleep and drift into oblivion for a little
while. Yet she forgot in that moment what she hadn’t forgotten in all her
waking hours: that sleep would bring Erik.
Chapter Four, Teacher,
Husband… Killer?
Chapter Two, An Odd
Occurrence