The Phantom of Manhattan (9 page)

So I call up a pal on the Commercial Desk at the
American
and catch him just before he goes home. Who owns Steeplechase Park? Fellow called George Tilyou, along with a sleeping and very secret financial partner. Yes, he’s getting pretty elderly and no longer lives on the island but in a big house in the City of Brooklyn. But he still owns Steeplechase Park and has done since he opened it nine years ago. Does he have a telephone, by any chance? By any chance, he does. So I get the number and place a call. It takes a while, but it comes through and I am talking with Mr Tilyou personally. I explain everything to him, hinting of the importance to Mayor McClellan that New York should extend every hospitality to Mme de Chagny … well, you know, a good old-fashioned spiel. Anyway, he says he’ll call back.

We wait. An hour. He calls. Different mood entirely, like he had consulted with someone. Yes, he will organize that the gates be opened for one private party. The toyshop will be staffed and the Funmaster personally will be in attendance at all times. Not possible for the next morning, but the one after.

Well, that means tomorrow, right? So yours truly is going to escort Mme de Chagny personally down to Coney Island. In fact I would say I am now her private guide to New York itself. And no, guys, there’s no point in you all turning up because no-one gets to go in but her, me and her personal party. So for one dirty cape I get scoop after scoop. Didn’t I tell you this was the best job in the world?

There was only one problem - my exclusive interview, for which I had gone to the hotel in the first place. Did I get it? I did not. The singer lady was so distressed that she rushed back to her bedroom and declined to come out again. Meg the maid offered me her thanks for arranging the trip to Coney Island but said the prima donna was now too tired to continue. So I had to leave. Disappointing, but no matter. I’ll get my exclusive tomorrow. And yes, you can get me another pint of the golden brew.

10

THE EXULTATION OF ERIK MUHLHEIM

ROOFTOP TERRACE, E.M. TOWER, MANHATTAN, 29 NOVEMBER 1906

I SAW HER. AFTER ALL THESE YEARS I SAW HER AGAIN and my heart made as if to burst inside me. I stood atop the warehouse near the dock and looked down and there she was, on the quay. Until I caught the glitter of light on the lens of a telescope and had to slip away.

So I went down to the crowd below and fortunately there was such a chill in the air that no-one thought anything of a man with his head swathed in a woolly muffler. Thus I was able to approach the brougham, to see her lovely face just a few yards away and to slip my old cloak into the hands of a fool reporter lusting only for his interview.

She was as beautiful as ever: the tiny waist, the tumbling hair tucked up beneath her Cossack hat, the face and smile to break a block of granite clean in two.

Was I right? Was I right to open all the old wounds again, to force myself to bleed again as in that cellar twelve long years ago? Have I been a fool to bring her here when eight score of months had almost cured the pain?

I loved her then, in those fearful hunted years in Paris, more than life itself. The first, and the last, and the only love I shall ever have or know. When she rejected me in that cellar for her young vicomte I almost killed them both. The great rage came over me again, that anger that has always been my only companion, my true friend who has never let me down, that rage against God and all His angels that He could not even give me a human face like others, like Raoul de Chagny. A face to smile and please. Instead He gave me this molten mask of horror, a life sentence of isolation and rejection.

And yet I thought, foolish stupid wretch, that she could even love me just a little, after what had happened between us in that hour of madness while the avenging mob came down to lynch me.

When I knew my fate, I let them live, and glad that I did. But why have I done this now? Surely it can only bring me more pain and rejection, disgust, contempt and repugnance yet again. It is the letter, of course.

Oh, Mme Giry, what am I to think of you now? You were the only person who ever showed me kindness, the only one who did not spit upon me or run screaming from my face. Why did you wait so long? Am I to thank you that in the final hours you sent me the news to change my life again, or to blame you for keeping it from me these past twelve years? I could be dead and gone, and would never have known. But I am not, and now I know. So I take this crazy risk.

To bring her here, to see her again, to suffer again, to ask again, to plead yet again … and be rejected yet again? Most probably, most likely. And yet, and yet …

I have it here, memorized already word for word; read and reread in dizzy disbelief until the pages are spoiled with finger sweat and crumpled by trembling hands. Dated in Paris, late in September, just before you died …

My dear Erik,

By the time you receive this letter, if you ever do, I shall be gone from the earth and to another place. I wrestled long and hard before deciding to write these lines and only did so because I felt that you, who have known so much misery, should learn the truth at last; and that I could not easily meet my Maker knowing that to the end I had deceived you.

Whether the news contained herein will bring you joy or yet again give only anguish, I cannot tell. But here is the truth of events that were once very close to you and yet of which you could then and since know nothing. Only I, Christine de Chagny and her husband Raoul are aware of this truth and I must beg you to handle it with gentleness and care …

Three years after I found a poor wretch of sixteen chained in a cage at Neuilly I met the second of those young men I later came to call my boys. It was by accident, and a dreadful tragic accident it was.

It was late at night in the winter of 1885. The opera had finally finished, the girls had gone to their quarters, the great building had closed its doors and I was walking home alone through the darkened streets towards my apartment. It was a short cut, narrow, cobbled and black. Unknown to me, there were other people in that alley. Ahead a serving maid, late-dismissed from a house near by, was trotting fearfully through the dark towards the brighter boulevard ahead. In a doorway a young man whom I later learned to be no more than sixteen was saying farewell to the friends with whom he had spent the evening.

Out of the shadows came a ruffian, a footpad such as haunted the back streets looking for a pedestrian to rob of his wallet. Why he picked the little serving girl I shall never know. She could not have had more than five sous on her person. But I saw the rogue run out of the shadows and throw his arms around her throat to stop her screaming while he went for her purse. I yelled, ‘Leave her alone, brute.
Au secours!
’

The sound of racing male boots went past me, I caught the glimpse of a uniform and a young man had thrown himself on the footpad, carrying him to the ground. The midinette screamed and ran headlong for the lights of the boulevard. I never saw her again. The footpad tore himself loose from the young officer, got to his feet and began to run. The officer rose and went after him. Then I saw the ruffian turn, draw something from his pocket and point it at his pursuer. There was a bang and a flash as he fired. Then he ran through an arch to disappear in the courtyards behind.

I went over to the fallen man and saw that he was little more than a boy, a brave and gallant child, in the uniform of an officer cadet from the Ecole Militaire. His handsome face was white as marble and he was bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in the lower stomach. I tore strips from my petticoat to staunch the bleeding and screamed until a householder looked out from above and asked what was the matter. I urged him to run to the boulevard and hail a cab urgently, which he did in his nightshirt.

It was too far to the Hotel-Dieu, much closer to the Hopital St Lazare, so that was where we went. There was one young doctor on duty but when he saw the nature of the wound and learned the identity of the cadet, scion of a most noble family from Normandy, he sent a porter running for a senior surgeon who lived near by. There was nothing more I could do for the lad, so I went home.

But I prayed that he would live and in the morning, it being a Sunday and no work for me at the Opera, I went back to the hospital. The authorities had already sent for the family from Normandy and, seeing me approach, the senior surgeon on duty must have taken me for the cadet’s mother when I asked for him by name. His face was a mask of gravity and he invited me to come to his private office. There he told me the dreadful news.

The patient would live, he said, but the damage caused by the bullet and its removal had been terrible. Major blood vessels in the upper groin and lower stomach had been torn beyond repair. He had had no choice but to suture them. Still I did not understand. Then I realized what he meant, and asked in plain language. He nodded solemnly. ‘I am devastated,’ he said. ‘Such a young life, such a handsome boy, and now alas only half a man. I fear he will never be able to have a child of his own.’

‘You mean’, I asked, ‘that the bullet has emasculated him?’ The surgeon shook his head. ‘Even that might have been a mercy, for then he might have felt no desire for a woman. No, he will feel all the passion, the love, the desire that any young man may feel. But the destruction of those vital blood vessels means that …’

‘I am no child myself, M’sieur le Docteur,’ I said, wishing to spare his embarrassment though I knew with awful dread what was coming.

‘Then, madame, I must tell you that he will never be able to consummate any union with a woman and thus create a child of his own.’

‘So he can now never marry?’ I asked. The surgeon shrugged.

‘It would be a strange and saintly woman, or one with a powerful other motive, who could accept such a union with no physical dimension,’ he said. ‘I am truly sorry. I did what I could to save his life from the haemorrhage.’

I could hardly keep from weeping at the tragedy of it. That such a foul fiend could inflict so dreadful a wound on a boy on the threshold of life seemed impossible. But I went to see him anyway. He was pale and weak, but awake. He had not been told. He thanked me prettily for helping him in the alley, insisting that I had saved his life. When I heard his family arriving hotfoot from the Rouen train I left.

I never thought to see my young aristocrat again but I was wrong. Eight years later, grown handsome as a Greek god, he began to frequent the Opera night after night, hoping for a word and a smile from a certain understudy. Later, finding her with child, good, kind and decent man that he was, he confessed all to her and with her agreement married her, giving her his name, his title and a wedding band. And for twelve years he has given to the son all the love a real father could ever give.

So there you have the truth my poor Erik. Try to be kind and gentle.

From one who tried to help you in your pain,

A dying kiss,

Antoinette Giry.

I will see her tomorrow. She must know it by now. The message to the hotel was plain enough. She would know that musical monkey anywhere. The place of my choosing, of course; the hour of my selection. Will she be frightened of me still? I suppose so. Yet she will not know how fearful I will be of her; of her power to deny me again some tiny measure of the happiness most men can take for granted.

But even if I am to be repulsed yet again, everything has changed. I can look down from this high eyrie onto the heads of that human race I so loathe, but now I can say: you can spit on me, defile me; jeer at me, revile me; but nothing you can do will hurt me now. Through the filth and through the rain, through the tears and through the pain, my life’s not been in vain; I HAVE A SON.

11

THE PRIVATE DIARY OF MEG GIRY

WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, MANHATTAN, 29 NOVEMBER 1906

DEAR DIARY, AT LAST I AM ABLE TO SIT DOWN IN peace and confide to you my inner thoughts and worries, for it is now the small hours of the morning and everyone is abed.

Pierre is fast asleep, quiet as a lamb, for I peeped in ten minutes ago. Father Joe I can hear snoring away in his cot next to where I am sitting and even the thick walls of this hotel do not deny his farm-boy snorts. And Madame is at last asleep also with a cachet to help her find rest. For in twelve years I have never seen her so distressed.

It all had to do with that toy monkey that some anonymous donor sent to Pierre here in the suite. There was a reporter here also, very nice and helpful (and who flirted with his eyes at me) but that was not what upset Madame so badly. It was the toy monkey.

When she had heard it play its second tune - the sounds of which came straight through the open door into the boudoir where I was brushing her hair - she became like one possessed. She insisted on finding out from where it came, and when the reporter M. Bloom had traced it and arranged a visit, she insisted that she be left alone. I had to ask the young man to leave, and get Pierre protesting into bed.

After that, I found her at her dressing-table, staring at the mirror but making no attempt to complete her toilette. So I cancelled dinner in the restaurant with Mr Hammerstein also.

Only when we were alone could I ask her what was going on. For this journey to New York, which started so well and saw such a fine reception at the quay earlier in the day, had turned to something dark and sinister.

Of course, I too recognized the strange monkey-doll and the haunting tune it played, and it brought back a tidal wave of frightening memories. Thirteen years … that was what she kept repeating as we talked, and truly it has been thirteen years since those strange events that culminated in the terrible descent to the lowest and darkest cellar beneath the Paris Opera. But though I was there that night, and have tried to question Madame since, she has always kept her silence and I never did learn the details of the relationship between her and the frightening figure we chorus girls used to refer to simply as the Phantom.

Until this night when at last she told me more. Thirteen years ago she was involved in a truly remarkable scandal at the Paris Opera when she was abducted right from the centre of the stage during the performance of a new opera,
Don Juan Triumphant
, which has never been repeated since.

I was myself in the
corps de ballet
that night, though I was not on stage at the moment the lights fused out and she disappeared. Her abductor carried her from the stage down to the deepest cellars of the Opera, where she was later rescued by the gendarmes and the rest of the cast, headed by the Commissaire de Police who happened to be in the audience.

I was there too, trembling with fear as we all came down with burning torches, through cellar after cellar until we reached the lowest catacomb by the underground lake. We expected to find at last the dreaded Phantom but all we and the gendarmes found was Madame, alone and shaking like a leaf, and later Raoul de Chagny who had come ahead of us and seen the Phantom face to face.

There was a chair, with a cloak thrown over it, and we thought the monster might be hiding underneath. But no. Just a monkey-toy, with cymbals and a musical box inside. The police took it away as evidence and I never saw such a one again, until this night.

That was the time she was being daily courted by the young Vicomte Raoul de Chagny and all the girls were so envious of her. Had it not been for her beautiful nature she might well have invited hostility too, for her looks, her sudden leap to stardom and the love of the most eligible bachelor in Paris. But no-one hated her; we all loved her and were delighted to see her restored to us. But though we became closer over the years, she never mentioned what happened to her in the hours that she was missing, and her only explanation was that ‘Raoul rescued me.’ So what was the significance of the toy monkey?

This night I knew better than to ask her directly, so I fussed about and brought her a little food, which she refused to eat. When I had persuaded her to take her sleeping-draught she became drowsy and let slip for the first time a few details of those bizarre events.

She told me there had been another man, a strange elusive creature who frightened, fascinated, overawed and helped her, but who had an obsessional love for her that she could not repay. Even as a chorus girl I had heard tales of a strange phantom who haunted the lower cellars of the Opera and had amazing powers, being able to come and go unseen and inflict his will on the management by threats of retribution if they did not obey him. The man and his legend frightened us all, but I never knew he loved my mistress of today in such a manner. I asked about the monkey that played a haunting tune.

She said she had only seen such a creature once before, and I am sure that it must have been during those hours in the cellars with the monster, the same one I myself found on the empty chair.

As the sleep came over her, she kept repeating that ‘he’ must be back: alive and close, moving behind the scenes as ever, a terrifying genius of a man, fearsomely ugly as her Raoul was handsome, the one she had rejected and who had now lured her to New York to confront her again.

I will do everything I can to protect her, for she is my friend as well as my employer and she is good and kind. But now I am frightened, for there is something or someone out there in the night and I fear for all of us: for me, for Father Joe, for Pierre and most of all for her, Madame.

The last thing she said to me before she slipped away into sleep was that for the sake of Pierre and of Raoul she must find the strength to refuse him again, for she is convinced that soon he will at last appear and demand her again. I pray that she has that strength and I pray that these next ten days will hurry past so that we may all return safely to the security of Paris and away from this place of monkeys that play long-ago tunes and the unseen presence of the Phantom.