Page 25 of Angel's Mask

“You are mad!” Julianne exclaimed between guffaws. “She’ll kill you when she finds out you lied. Or at least fire you.”

“She doesn’t even know my name,” Christine replied with a shrug. “And, like Jammes said, I do have the only patron that matters.” Christine smiled at the thought. It made something warm and brazen dance within her. A she waited for Julianne to make another bawdy comment.

Her friend remained silent and dubious, leaving Christine to the train of thought: of what the mortal patrons demanded in exchange for their aid and protection. And how the thought of bestowing such gifts on her own protector filled her not with fear or shame, but with simmering, breathless...curiosity.

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“E se, non ho chi m’oda, e se non ho chi m’oda...Parlo d’amor con me, con me...Parlo d’amor con me!”Erik wanted to rise to applaud as Christine finished Cherubino’s sparkling aria of youthful infatuation. She was in the finest form he’d heard from her yet, and the ease with which she took on the mezzo piece, after sparkling earlier in the lesson in her highest range, was astounding.

“Wonderful,” he told her, trying to keep his praise contained. “You’re in a very good mood.”

“Well, it was a very exciting day,” she said with a mischievous smirk.

“What have you been up to?”

“I...may have tricked Carlotta into missing rehearsal?” Christine confessed, barely pretending at shame. “And sent her off to a fake fitting at some dress salon instead?”

“Did you really?” Erik asked, ready once more to applaud her.

“Well, she did call me a scab,” Christine shrugged. “And I’m sure the rehearsal was easier.”

“I’m sure it was. And you weren’t afraid of her retaliating?”

“Not with you on my side,” she said with a truly genuine smile and faith that took his breath away. The extent to which his girl trusted him was only comparable to the lengths he would go to keep that trust. “Shall I go through the aria again?” she asked brightly.

“Rest now, you’ve sung enough, and it’s getting late,” Erik said and knew she could hear the regret in his voice. He wanted to stay too. “There will be more Mozart tomorrow.”

“Here at least,” Christine sighed. “I do wish they would perform more of it in Paris.”

“As do I, but the managers are set in their ways,” Erik replied, as sad as her. “They want opera in French, so no one has to think too much, and they want their ballets and bombastic spectacles like Meyerbeer. At least Massenet and Gounod have some merit.”

“And Verdi doesn’t mind his work being translated. Still...it would be nice ifthisopera honored the greatest composer in history with more than a bust for pigeons to perch on.”

Erik smiled in the shadow. “Why is it you love Mozart so?”

“Well, it’s perfect,” Christine smiled. “I think it’s because there’s so muchlightin his music. I can’t quite explain it.”

“Many composers know how to write music with the sound of tears and death, but Mozart...” Erik mused. “He could also write laughter. And desire and joy. His music sparkles like no one else’s.”

Christine smiled again, and gods above, Erik could savor that smile forever. “And no one dies in his operas,” she added, wistful. “Every woman in every opera written in the last half-century dies. Violetta, Gilda, Juliette, Lucia, Carmen, even Marguerite...all dead by the end.”

Erik felt a pang of guilt he’d never thought of it that way. “Don Giovanni dies.”

“Yes, but everyone wants that; it’s a good thing when he dies,” Christine countered with a playful scowl. Erik bristled.

“Is it? I always found it ambiguous. He dies defiant to the end, refusing propriety, opposing men in power...a libertine unrepentant,” he mused, his thoughts turning to a very different tale of Don Juan, hidden deep beneath the Opera, meant for a much darker end.

Christine’s expression was suspicious and confused. “He’s a seducer,” she said carefully.

“But he’s dragged to hell for murder and defiance, not that.” Again, he could not read her face. “Quite the opposite of Marguerite lifted to heaven, I guess. But still dead.”

“Still, if I could choose, I’d rather the Contessa, singing of love and hope, living on, than Marguerite blazing for a moment, only to be taken by death.”

Erik smiled at that. “I should like that for you too, my dear. But you may have to die, just a little, until we can convince our managers to mountFigaro.”

“As long as I can sing for you and with you,” Christine said, her voice warm and gentle. “I would die a hundred times.”

The way she said it made a thrill rush through his body. He clenched his hands into fists above the piano keys, willing himself not to feel it. He had to do that often lately, with her. Each night he drifted closer to her when he sang for her, and even closer when she slept. Each day she became more of anidée fixe, intruding on his thoughts at all times. Every composition had begun to sound like her voice, each machination for the management only mattered because of her career. He was barely in control as it was, but when she said things like that...that thin cord binding him to some semblance of sanity frayed a little more.

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