The stark white shirt was so well pressed that the buttons were a challenge to fasten. When you conducted before a crowd, he supposed, you needed to look the part. He polished the fingerprints and smudges from his mask until it gleamed, then gathered his papers.

The public reception of Beethoven's Choral Symphony in 1826 Vienna was rapturously enthusiastic. That said, nothing brilliant and novel escapes the shit and shade of detractors. Giuseppi Verdi himself, though he praised the first movements of the work, had sharply criticized the vocal portions for their heavy handedness and lack of bel canto orientation.

He straightened his bow tie with a grimace. Never mind that Beethoven was the first to drop a chorus into a full symphony. You could hardly expect anything less than a critical reception from Verdi, old Joe Green, the Italian opera composer. It took nearly a hundred choral singers to balance the orchestra at the first performance.

What a stupid idea. An over the top, flamboyant, stupid idea. Yet, it has been performed thousands of times for millions of people. It was the anthem of the western world; a work of such rapture that the composer had to have known suffering in equal measure. To love so deeply comes from a place of equal pain, for love buttresses life against horror.

The absence of one renders the other incomprehensible.

A few other critics of the Ninth claimed that the piece built beautifully from the first to the third movements, but fell apart into an unrelated jumble of noise, as if the last movements belonged elsewhere. Again, a superficial take, born of different expectations. Not understanding something does not render it incomprehensible.

Erik rubbed his temples and adjusted the mask, preparing to add his own version to the list. His choir was nearly the size of Beethoven's and boasted nearly a dozen kids who were probably picking their noses and wiping the trailings on their shirts. They bowed to him when he strode out, and he bowed neatly in return.

What a stupid idea. An over the top, stupid idea. Wait... an idea. He'd had one- just recently.

The soloists bowed. Carlotta wore bright red and Ubaldo's bow tie and corsage matched. Christine wore dark green and a wrap of shimmering gold. She'd spent a day shopping to find the right dress for a soloist and settled on the lovely sheath. She'd been singing her parts as she dressed, settling the satin as she sang of kisses for the world in German. Now, with her eyes shining, she mouthed I love you as he took the podium, covered his heart with his hand, and bowed to the chorus and orchestra in turn.

She'd loved preparing for this. For weeks she'd sung little else, even murmuring phrases of the poetry in her sleep, commanding joy even from her subconscious.

Oh yes…

In his conceit and vocal snobbery, what Verdi and other critics missed was that it was the meter, not the vocals, that tied the music together. So many parts, seemingly discordant, unconnected, unrelated, were undeniably tied by the thrum and pulse of downbeats, drumbeats, heartbeats.

Heartbeats and love. Always love, sung in ordinary time.

Erik smiled behind his mask, raised his baton, and knew little else but the rhythms that tied the symphony together. The lyrics and the beauty of it all. The idea of love.

And he remembered.

…

December 23, 201-

A -ville CultureMap Special Feature- Holiday Concerts and Exhibits

… and we expect the exhibit to extend its stay beyond the holiday season due to renewed enthusiasm for the new palette of paint colors available, and organizers hope you all have a chance to use the pinkest pink and blackest black sometime soon.

The season also welcomed musical works like the perennially popular Hallelujah Chorus by Haydn and the beloved carol sing-a-long staged by the -ville Baroque Orchestra and Chorus. This year, there was a special treat presented by the Orpheus School of Music's own Dr. Erik Brodeur. For readers unfamiliar, Dr. Brodeur (pictured below at left) is best known for his reputation as a composer and conductor with a flair for the extreme. Some may recall his concert in 201- where a third of the seating in the university concert hall was removed to make space for an expanded orchestra to perform his pastiche of Berlioz and Led Zeppelin. This last weekend, however, Dr. Brodeur, or Dr. B to many of his students, assembled an orchestra and choir of more than one hundred and forty and led them in a sparkling performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Soloists included familiar faces Carlotta Guidacelli and Ubaldo Piangi, local opera performers, as well as Miss Christine Daae as mezzo and local favorite Brett Barnes as baritone. Children from the school sang modified refrains and chants, providing a potent and adorable backdrop to the soloists' precision.

Though there had been concerns that the concert would not take place owing to Dr. Brodeur's schedule, a recent development in a series of lawsuits related to the industrial accident that resulted in Dr. Brodeur's use of a mask (see page 12, Recovery) has moved the case forward (see cover story, Indictment).

As always, the iconic opening measures of the Choral Symphony brought chills of anticipation. The orchestra movements were thoughtfully edited to reduce the runtime but sacrificed none of the pace or motifs the work relies on to build the finale. Of particular interest was the return of Zadir Amini, virtuoso and student of Dr. Brodeur, who used a six stringed violin and modified scoring to show the instrument to best advantage. The second movement was well controlled and delivered on the precise rhythm work the score promises, in no small part due to the most excellent work by the percussionists.

The chorus was explosive, and though your correspondent does not usually enjoy tempo manipulation, Dr B used it to advantage in the first movements, translating and updating the texture of this most exquisite work, and returning to common time for the beloved chorus itself, a technique which makes the final movements stand out all the more brilliantly. As extraordinary as the performance was, the real fireworks began after the final measures were overtaken by applause.

Rumors have quietly circulated regarding the relationship between Dr. Brodeur and mezzo soloist, Christine Daae. As Dr. Brodeur took Daae and Guidacelli by the hand and presented them to the audience, those rumors were confirmed when Dr. Brodeur fell to one knee before Miss Daae. The children, who had been shredding the petals from the altar arrangements, halted their botanical carnage and began running around the altar, upending music stands and flinging their accumulated mulch at Miss Daae, who wasted no time in hauling Dr. B back to his feet for a kiss.

The assembled audience and musicians broke into renewed applause as the pair embraced tightly, and when Miss Daae made to kiss Dr. Brodeur once again, he halted her, hands visibly shaking as they raised to the mask and carefully slid it up and away. Miss Daae, visibly moved to tears, took his face (see page 3 in Health, Awareness) in her hands and kissed him again to deafening cheers, and the pair separated only when the children pelted them with whole flowers.

Apt readers may recall the lyrics from the work-

Wem der große Wurf gelungen,

Eines Freundes Freund zu sein;

Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,

Mische seinen Jubel ein!

It seems that the talented Dr. Brodeur and Miss Daae will add their joy to the world's refrains and we wish them well.

In other news, local sculpture students are presenting their works in…

Tear tracks cooled on Erik's face as his phone's screen dimmed, then darkened. The alert had awakened him in the small hours and he'd rushed clumsily to read it, nearly knocking a water glass into the papers on his nightstand.

His thumb trailed the screen where the lyrics had been, flashing the time at him now. It was stupid o' clock, and he had half a mind to email the correspondent about her work-life balance.

At his side, Christine rustled and turned toward him.

"Everything okay?"

A tear settled in his ear, and love thrummed in his veins.

"I'm great. Go back to sleep."

Christine gave a yawn, muttering faintly as she exhaled, then snuggled down, her ears tucked under the puff of the lofty duvet. The night closed in again, and Erik set his phone aside and followed suit. It would be morning in a few short hours, and he could show her the article as his first Christmas gift.

Right after a cup of coffee.

…

Enrollment had not quite doubled at the music school, but nearly so. New classes for beginning vocal, piano, and various instruments had opened and two new faculty members joined the ranks. Irritatingly, both were enthralled when they met Erik, gushing about when they could join his private lessons or hoping to assist in another large scale arrangement.

"We'll see," he had said, pulling to extricate his hand from theirs. Then he'd used hand sanitizer.

"You shouldn't be mean," Christine chastised from the kitchen that night.

Erik harrumphed and rearranged a bar on his tablet. "I'm not going to build a performance around a three-measure refrain someone dreamed up in middle school. He wants a symphony, he can damn well write it himself."

She sat on the couch and leaned back, twisting until her head was on the armrest. "I never said you should, only that I thought it was catchy. There's worse hooks out there."

"I know. We use them for pranks." Erik set aside his tablet and gazed over at Christine. They'd agreed on a brief engagement, basically until Gia could get away for a week or two to come for a wedding. So far the date was April-ish. Possibly June, depending on whether a show was extended or not. Gia was doing well in Europe.

And since the night of the Ninth Symphony, the soloists had been booked solid and were sought after for everything from weddings and black tie soirees to cameo appearances at the local opera and more. Christine's formal dancing days were over, and she'd been delighted at the prospect. Ubaldo and Carlotta had finally expanded their repertoire to include bigger, more mature pieces, and Erik had provided piano for a movie score. The movie was shit, but the music was divine.

Christine giggled. "Oh, that's a good prank. But can you get a riser full of teenage boys to all sing Rick Astley?"

Erik paced to the couch and looked down imperiously. "What makes you think I haven't already?"

"You're so devious," she said, and tugged at his leg. He was only too happy to oblige, kneeling down by the couch.

"I am no angel," he agreed, then kissed her smile. "And I am no devil."

Christine hummed into the kiss, pulling him up onto the couch. He'd gotten over the head-spinning wonder of these moments, but still kissed like it would be his last taste of her. His limbs warmed instantly, his harder edges softening until they grew keen with desire.

Between kisses, he drew back and rested on an elbow to stroke her curls from her face. He needed no words, because touch is a kind of sonata on its own. To speak might disturb the winding refrains, so he let his fingertips trace her lips, chin, and neck while hers trailed up his side to his collarbone. He shivered, and let his hand drift downward as hers cupped his bare cheek. Light fractured through the gemstone she wore now and he smiled at the blinding shards of rainbows, then kissed her again.

Blood runs hottest with anticipation, and tonight was no exception. They set aside hurry and took their time, for there was no rush. Her things took up a bit of closet space and a few drawers. The house had been overlarge anyway and if her dance gear was strewn across the guest room, what did it matter? The rest of their clothes would be strewn elsewhere soon enough and nothing was more fun than cleaning up afterwards and remembering how the house got wrecked in the first place.

Erik clutched at Christine's limbs, loving the feel of her strength wrapped around his brittle core. She pressed a scorching welcome to him and sighed at his answering shudder.

"No angel or demon," she said, and teased his ear with her teeth.

His head dropped to her shoulder. "No. Just a man." With that, he surged forward and nearly choked, for the grip on every inch of his body, from his shoulders to the base of him, tightened. Christine dragged in a harsh breath, oversensitized and already nearly spent. He'd seen to that.

"You're Erik, and you're mine," she ground out, growling and rough. In minutes they were panting in relief, dizzy and unable to walk. Christine recovered quicker and pulled the duvet over them as they cooled.

"Swear to me," she began.

"Anything," Erik said immediately between panted breaths.

Christine laughed and rolled over, her hair flopping over her shoulder and onto his lean chest. "You agreed awfully fast."

He couldn't open his eyes. "You have my bathroom cabinets. What more could you want?"

"When I have more than two brain cells, I'll have an answer for that. I was going to say, swear to tell me when you have the choir rickroll someone. I want to see it."

"I'm saving it for a rainy day. Like when Piangi was trying to prank me."

"For listening at doors?"

He must have paused for too long, for Christine sat up and frowned. At least she must have- he still hadn't quite managed to open his eyes.

"Erik? Something you want to tell me?"

"Um…"

Christine traced the outline of his hipbone and he confessed about hiding in the supplies closet and how he'd watched her sing. It took less than thirty seconds for her to break him. Lucky for him the reward was good. Later, when Christine was unable to open her eyes, she giggled and laced her fingers with his.

"You know, you harmonize with nearly everything you hear, right?"

He glanced over the pillow at her. "How's that?"

She managed to open one eye. "I totally heard you. Why do you think I elaborated the song?"

Erik spluttered, and Christine just laughed.

…

Nadir straightened his tie and watched the street signs. Midafternoon traffic was beginning to build downtown, and the old municipal buildings blended in a blur of institutional gray and beige. "Do you wish we'd gone to more of the testimony?"

Erik winced as the car took a pothole. "No," he said. He reached across the cab and took Christine's hand. Their gold bands glimmered handsomely under the overhead light. "Besides, I would have been a distraction."

As much as Nadir hated to admit it, adjusting to seeing Erik's face without the mask had taken some doing. He could not imagine what it took Erik to live without it. Then again, maybe being without it was how Erik had managed to live again.

He still leaned his head in that funny way, angling his face away and down to keep the burns in shadow. Christine had taken to standing on that side when they were out.

"And you?" Erik asked. "Any regrets?"

Nadir paused and gazed first out the window, watching the tall buildings pass. Cara shifted with a ripple of sparkles, for she loved dark blue with a little bling. "No. No regrets."

In the absence of time machines or waking up from a bad dream, no. He had no regrets.

Christine looked at her watch. "The verdict will be read soon."

Nadir leaned forward to tap the glass to get the driver's attention, but Erik snagged his coat sleeve and held up his phone.

"Good god, how old are you?" He tapped through a few screens and a live stream began. The cheap government audio sounded like it was funneled through a septic tank and then stripped of half the remaining data. The four of them leaned forward, straining to hear through shuffling paper, coughs, and distortion.

There were a lot of charges, several counts for each of the remaining two defendants left- the others had taken deals months before. The verdict was the same for everything. Nadir sagged, and even the car itself heaved a sigh of relief. He leaned forward and tapped the glass. The driver slid the panel open.

"We need to pull over for a moment, when you can."

They sat in silence. No toasts, cheers, or speeches. No celebration, only the sense that something terrible was over and could finally be set aside. The beauty was that both he and Erik had managed to move on first. If either had waited for this moment... well, time passed regardless, and standing still would not stop it, only leave you stiff when you took that first step. It was hard to say if Erik would have ever dared to call his lawyer without having Christine in his life, though. Chickens and eggs and all that.

Sometimes the people in your life are as necessary as they are unexpected.

"We should get going," Erik said. He blotted his face gently and took a deep, shaky breath. "Curtain in twenty minutes."

"They'll hardly start without you," Christine noted. "You arranged it, after all!"

Erik adjusted his bow tie and smoothed his thin hair. "I don't want to gain a reputation for being difficult."

"Perish the thought," Christine giggled and hoisted a huge bouquet into her lap.

Cara leaned forward and whispered. "Which one are we seeing again?"

Nadir kissed her cheek before answering. "Monteverdi's Return of Ulysses." He gestured towards Erik. "The maestro here has some colleagues in the show."

"I finally convinced Ubaldo and Carlotta to branch out," Erik said, his pride shining through his sarcasm.

They arrived at the stage door and were hurried in. Christine rushed off to deliver flowers to Carlotta's room while Erik was installed in the box, Nadir and Cara in tow. They settled, ordered drinks, and were rejoined by Christine just as the lights dimmed and the opening night introductions were made.

It was all so… ordinary. In spite of the cocktails and box seats, the backstage access and messages delivered to the box door throughout the performance, there was the knowledge that, afterwards, they would leave in a car and return to ordinary houses with coffee makers and showers and too many bits of paper here and a trash can to empty soon. Emails to return and morning commutes. Leftovers packed in boxes.

So ordinary and yet, a thing of such wonder that it was all Erik had sought for ten years. Maybe longer, for when Nadir first met him he was just as unsettled.

Nadir sipped his champagne and watched as his friend thumbed his wedding ring absently. He should ask Cara to marry him. Maybe his friend could recommend how to go about it, for Nadir was better at being a partner than becoming one. Either way, marriage had suited his friend far beyond his expectations.

A muffled hiss of carbonation and Erik topped off Christine's sparkling water, then he refilled Cara's champagne glass and turned back to the opera. With a curious eye, Nadir watched as Christine and Erik held hands in the dark. Then he smiled to himself, stifling a chuckle, for it seemed that married life suited Erik better that he even let on.

Erik leaned back. "What are you grinning at, old man?"

"I was just wondering when you were going to tell me."

"I told her you'd notice."

"Congratulations."

Erik turned, his grim twists softened in the low light of the box. "Thanks." Maybe good news softened him a bit, too. "We may leave early. You coming to dinner on Wednesday?"

"Are you making prime rib?"

"If you ask very nicely. And Cara makes her brussel sprouts."

Nadir laughed. "I'm sure she'll make that and more."

The everyday and routine. Dull even, to some. But in music, and perhaps in life as well, the common and ordinary are useful and lovely rhythms. They only seem dull when you've never seen the alternative, but set against a life of pain and unpredictable fortune, a bit of ordinary is paradise.

Cara tapped her champagne flute against his, and brought Nadir back. "Marriage agrees with Erik, don't you think?" she asked.

Nadir drained his flute. "It does. I was wondering," he began, and twirled the stem in his fingers. "I was wondering, my dear, if it might agree with me, too."

Cara stilled, then her eyes twinkled with a smile.

The stage lights flared, casting a halo over the inhabitants of the box as the first act ended. The house lights turned up, though it failed to lift the spell. Erik whispered to Christine, and she glanced at Nadir with pink cheeks.

"So, we'll see you both Wednesday?" she asked.

While she and Cara chatted about side dishes, Nadir pulled Erik aside once more by the door. "So, my friend. Do you feel like you have your life back?"

Erik looked down, then touched his face gingerly. "No. I'll never have that again but," he glanced back fondly. Perhaps the softening in his face had nothing to do with the light. "But I think I have something better, Nadir."

Cara and Christine were laughing, congratulations being given and received, and plans constructed as only a set of conspirators could..

"I think you may be right, my friend." They shook hands, and said their goodbyes. As Erik guided Christine to the door, he warned her to watch her step, because that was what ordinary men say to their expectant wives. They take walks, commute to jobs, and invite their friends to dinner on Wednesdays. They might even compose symphonies.

It was an ordinary life, and that was not to be missed.

... The End...