A/N: This is my first fanfiction, i hope someone will read it... If anyone do and feel that they would like to review (which would make me eternally gratefull) I would only like to say that english is not my first language, and if you have anything to say about the language in here please share. Thank you and, (I hope you will) enjoy.
I could only stare at the dark shape by the mantelpiece. It had to be him! By Allah, I would have recognised that man anywhere. Something, the feeling of him had changed. But it did not matter.
"Erik?" he kept his back turned to me. I was not thinking rationally in that moment, it never occurred to me how. "Would you care for some tea?" I asked him, more in hope of getting an answer than anything else. He still said nothing, he still did not move. "I guess that's an odd question to be asked in your own home…" I was starting to ramble now. "I suppose you are wondering what's happened here, I'm sorry for the intrusion but I could not let it all be wrecked. I hope you understand that I had to clean it up…"
He slowly turned towards me and I couldn't help a sharp intake of breath. The face that now came into view was perfect, flawless, and it was young. This, I thought, must have been what Erik would have looked like if he would have been spared of his horrid disfiguration. I knew who this had to be. We just stood there, staring wide-eyed at each other. I couldn't make myself speak, apologise my mistake.
The man, the boy, he could not be older than sixteen, I thought when my mind came back to work, strode over to the large pipe organ. It was still twisted, smashed, broken, possibly beyond reparation. I had not dared to even try to fix it. I did not know much about instruments and feared that I would do more harm than help. And Erik had loved that organ, he wouldn't have wanted me to touch it.
Every one of the boy's catlike movements gave an air of Erik. Even the flourish of his hands – which fingers were just as long as Erik's, but, now I noticed, not as skeletal – when he confidently put them on the keyboard and gently caressed the ivory. A movement that I had seen Erik do many, many times, even if I not had seen him play much. He sometimes seemed to do it in the air when he spoke, and sometimes he seemed to play silent, unknown melodies in the air. The movement screamed so much of Erik that I almost started to believe that my eyes were deceiving me, that this really was him. I suddenly felt an urge to hear him speak, I needed to hear if he had inherited his father's voice.
"This is a beautiful instrument. Why is it broken?" He hadn't. It felt so wrong, that someone who in everything, except for the face, was like Erik, and looked like the boy did, did not have Erik's voice. Perhaps he had a beautiful voice, I didn't know, maybe he could sing endless operas perfectly. But it held none of the power, the beauty, or the magic of Erik's. I sat down into one of the neatly stitched and repaired armchairs. I did not even notice that I never answered the question.
He struck a chord on the organ. The once booming, haunting instrument made a desperate, whistling noise and fell silent. His tall frame seemed to shrink in pain of hearing the badly beaten organ.
"How is Christine?" I asked, I felt a need to speak, but had no real idea of what to say.
"She died a few years ago," he stared at me with surprised disbelief, how could I know his mother? And how could I know that he was her son?
"Oh," was all I managed to say. "Was she happy?" it may have seemed a strange question to ask, but I had to know. He kept staring at me.
"Yes," he said slowly. "But there was always something sad about her, it only seemed to go away those times we played with the cat in the gardens," his eyes narrowed, he probably wondered why he suddenly confided in a complete stranger. Now I noticed, and was happy, that he had not inherited his father's piercing yellow gaze and instead studied me with Christine's warm, brown eyes.
"Ayesha." I said, I had somewhat hard to believe that the Siamese monster could be capable of something as innocent as playing. But of course she would take liking in her beloved master's son. The boy nodded slowly, he still stood by the organ.
Then I remembered that I had not even introduced myself, just started to ask questions. I could almost hear Erik's voice in my mind 'Damn you and your insufferable questions Daroga!' I almost started to laugh but managed to compose myself.
"But where are my manners?" I said and rose from the comfortable chair. I made a small bow in greeting. "I am Nadir Kahn," I said, he frowned before he answered. It felt so odd to see a real face to that body!
"Charles de Chagny," he said. No bow, no nod. I was glad for that, it would have been something so un-Erik like that I probably would have started to laugh. "But I suppose you already knew that," he said it in a tone of irony that I only had heard from Erik, they were so alike it felt odd that they had never even met, never truly known of each others existence
"Your father, is he good to you?" I deliberately changed the subject, I did not wish to speak of me, but I had to know the answer, certainly the Raoul de Chagny had to know the truth.
"He loves me," the boy in front of me said. He was starting to get a threatening tone in his voice. I nodded and gestured toward the armchair opposite to the one I just left and now returned to. "And I love him too!" said Charles fiercely. I could only smile and inwards thank the once young Vicomte who had taken in a son that he knew was not his.
"Why did you at first believe me to be someone who has been dead for many years? I know he was the one who built this Opera House, why would you think I was him?" he did not know the truth about Erik after all, as I had thought when he first said that Erik had been long dead – I could see, feel, and hear that he did not know.
"An old mans foolish hopes," I answered him, "And failing eyesight," that last part was a lie. My eyesight was as good as ever but I was not sure that I wanted to tell him the truth. He nodded slowly.
"How did you get down here?" I asked him now, I was quite amazed that he had managed to pass all of Erik's traps, not only alive but also unharmed and not soaked to the bare skin in a sewer somewhere. "And why are you here," I continued, "When there is a gala going on upstairs?"
"Mother often talked about this Opera House," 'But never about Erik,' I could not help to think. His tone had softened. Charles' voice still made me uncomfortable, every time he opened his mouth it felt like I would hear his father's voice, but of course I never did. "So when I and Father came to Paris for the summer and watched the opera, I had to explore," he said. "And I don't like parties very much, though these are better than those in England where everyone knows who I am, here only a few recognise me. I swear, sometimes I feel like people come to hear me play just so they can gawk at me. Though of course, most are coming to listen to my music," the last he said with a small smile. Allah! Erik's son was a well recognised musician! If he only knew how proud his father would have been.
I saw him finger at the glued score of Don Juan Triumphant that laid on the coffee table in front of him. I had saved what I could of Erik's music, most was easily overwritten to new sheets despite their earlier torn state. But this; his masterpiece; the opera he had written in ink that still held the colour of fresh blood… It would almost have been blasphemy to rewrite it. And the pieces were so small! But after many hour of careful puzzling I think I got the music right and I had carefully glued it together, there were holes and pieces missing in the papers, but as if by a miracle of God I had found every single note, every sign needed to read the scores, every single piece where a dot of red ink had fallen. I knew that he did not want anyone to read or hear His opera. But I thought, and still think that his son was worthy of that privilege, even though I did not know him.
"You may look at it," I said with a gesture to the new, black leather folder with gold coloured writing he had not dared to open. He carefully lifted it to him, almost as if he knew of what importance it was, of what importance it had been. He slowly opened the folder. The first page only said 'Don Juan Triumphant' in Erik's childishly scribbled writing. Despite of all his genius he had never managed to master plain text. There was also the signature that simply said 'Erik', the one that was found on every single piece of paper in this house, except for perhaps a very few notes signed by Christine.
Charles looked narrow-eyed at the torn and then repaired state of the paper. Then he turned the page.
First I saw his eyes widen, then his jaw slowly drop. Now he started to resemble a fish. He turned pages and his eyes filled with even more awe.
"This…" he whispered, closed the folder and gestured towards it. "I…" he had become speechless.
"You can have it," I said, even if he did not know the truth I wanted him to have something from Erik except for the huge amount of money that waited in a secret bank-account to be presented to him when he became of age. I had not believed it possible but his eyes widened even more. "On one condition. You may play this to yourself, read and perhaps learn from it, but you may never, ever, perform it. Never," when I said this I saw his eyes narrow in anger. At least he could not make his eyes disappear as Erik could, leaving an empty, dead face.
"Why?" he asked me coldly. "This is a masterpiece without its equal in this world! Why should I not perform it and show this magic to the world!?" I was almost starting to fear that he would strike me.
"Because it was Erik's wish that it should never happen. His heart, his soul perhaps even his sanity and more years of his life than you have lived he spent on that piece," I tried to stay calm, why could he not understand? He had read the music! I was not even able to and I understood. But of course. This boy did not know Erik. It seemed as if he in this moment was more childish than his father had ever been. But I suppose that living in a cage forces a boy to grow up.
"But I suppose you could not understand, there are some things that a young mind can not comprehend I guess." He looked me straight in the eyes, surprised that I said anything against him, and then he seemed a bit offended by what I had said, he obviously thought of himself as much of an adult as anyone else
"Why me?" he asked me. "Do you always give away precious possessions of an old friend to strangers?" despite his voice he sounded, in that single sentence, so much like Erik, so full of cynical irony that I had to laugh. He looked confused at me.
"Oh but monsieur de Chagny, I know who you are, I knew your parents for a short while and I know that this is what Erik would have wanted," I could not force the sad tone out of my voice. "Only that he might not have known it to begin with," I mumbled to myself, though I am quite certain that he heard me. I glanced over to the mantelpiece clock, it was getting late.
"I accept your condition," he said with a small sigh, his eyes held sadness, but not lie.
"Won't your father be looking for you?" I asked, he simply shrugged.
"Not yet," he said with his eyes narrowing, "Now, you have been asking me far more questions than I have asked you, and now I have one in return," I felt that he any moment would add 'Daroga', but he never did.
The question, it was the one I had both feared and hoped that he would ask. But I was not sure that I was the right man to tell him after sixteen years of silence from his parents. Even if I would not tell him directly, he would, even if he had, which I doubted, not inherited any of his father's genius, inevitably know the truth when I would come to the last months of which that story told.
"Who was Erik?"
Thank you all for reading!