During many years I have always been dreaming the same terrifying nightmare waking up screaming after my mother. In these dreams I always saw the same disfigured face, the same for loving begging but being disappointed eyes - and I thought that this will never come to an end. I worked very hard on becoming a prima ballerina and this somehow helped me to suppress the fear I felt inside after this fateful visit at the gypsies' fair.
I had the fervent wish not to hear again from this human monster - as I called him in my youthful innocence and ignorance - in my whole lifetime, but not because I was only afraid of his face (no, cherished Meg, it was not that simple)... no, I also felt guilty for all human kind that was responsible for turning an innocent, exceptional child into a cruel, unscrupulous monster. I do not want to excuse all the cruelties and murders he committed but I also know that he acted just right in that way as the people expected him to react.
He wanted to make a virtue of necessity, to use his disfigurement for his purposes, but knowing deep down inside that he will finally fail in accepting his looking. His unbridled hate turned him steadily into an unscrupulous murderer and his only escape from becoming totally mad were his music and his architecture. Both hate and love found their places in his works where his genius and his human nature were honestly and beautifully expressed.
At the end when I thought that everything was plain I still wondered about one thing. Why this mysterious box 5? Why did it have to be number 5 to watch upon his opera house and his Christine? First I thought that it would be the best place to overview everything that would happen down there on the stage, but then I got to know that box no. 5 was not the only box with the same excellent view. So I went on considering.
I have never believed in the magic of numbers (I have always been very realistic, dear Meg...), but with the very little I know about numerology I could probably explain the line of thoughts which lead him to choose box 5.
You know, my love, number 3 represents the human kind, number 4 everything divine and both together, so number 7, stand for the perfect relationship between earth and heaven, human beings and God. But number 6, the incomplete - not 4 anymore, and not 7 either - represents everything bad, the number of devil.
He decided on choosing number 5, not divine and not devilish, no, something in-between it. He was torn between his heavenly music and his diabolic desire for murder, between love and hate, between heaven and hell and God and Devil...
Oh Meg, perhaps it is only gossip of an old, clearly disturbed woman who cannot get over this unutterable sad tragedy that has ruled her whole life. I am sighing from the bottom of my heart right now... it is probably the last chance to stop telling you the whole truth, beloved Meg.
If you fear that this truth will change your life, your whole memories of your time at Garnier's opera house in Paris in a way which you would never have expected in your gloomiest nightmares, then I beg you to stop reading!
This, my dear, is certainly not the truth of an eternal romance, no, this is the story of dreadful hate, of star-crossed love and of forever unfulfilled dreams. But if you want to hear the truth of your lovely friend Christine, of her inner strength and of the way how the whole story of the phantom of the opera found its end, then go on reading...
Now the time has come to tell you something about your mother, my darling Meg, and about the crucial role she played in this drama.
With only 17 years I was a shining, highly acclaimed prima ballerina dancing on the stage all around the world. People applauded delighted, and at the end of any performance the stages were regularly covered with red roses.
Yes, my little girl, your mother, your old, bitter, secluded mother was a celebrated star many, many years ago. (Oh Lord, writing down this lines I feel ardent desire for those days that had passed too quickly... only once again being young, feeling my ballet shoes on my feet dancing as if there is no tomorrow - but I am still lying here feeling the pain that age is causing...)
I loved the life although being a prima ballerina was a hard, strenuous job, no doubt. I enjoyed being admired and celebrated, and those days where certainly the best and most glorious days of my life.
It was the easiest thing in the world for me to dance the most difficult figures, and during the following five years I truly thought that nothing, absolutely nothing could destroy my little perfect world - up to this one moment when the bottom fell out of this perfect world.
It happened at a gala performance. Famous men and women came to see me dancing and expecting to watch one of the world's most loved prima ballerinas, and I knew that I had the ability to make them being amazed and fascinated. But then it happened - the moment that changed my whole life, the moment that turned a promising, radiant young girl into a disheartened careworn woman.
I suddenly stumbled - oh dear Meg, this was the only time I stumbled! -, slipped, could not catch myself and fell down on earth... this was concurrently the fall from my own private heaven into a dark endless gap. Never again anyone would see me dancing on stage with my unique charming ease.
It was a very complicated fracture from which I would never totally recover again. (Now you know, my dearest Meg, why I have never made a single step without my stick... I could not tell it to you earlier, but I can do it now in my death.)
Dancing was my life then, and when the doctor came to tell me that I will never be again able to put on my ballet shoes and to do some arabesques or even some impeccable grands plies he destroyed my whole future with one sentence. I cried all day and all night, wanted to be left alone, I did not eat, could not sleep and screamed hysterically when somebody mentioned the word ballet or dancing.
During those times I realised with great regret the beauty of my life before this ill-fated accident had happened and I learnt that we never appreciate what we have got until we lose it. And I recognised that deepest grief and the greatest happiness are the elements of our existence - one could never be without the other, and only when you could experience the dark side of life you will be able to appreciate the pleasant things in life. (My dearest Meg, I never, never wish you to get to know all these bad experiences that I had to conquer, and I beg you not to think contemptuously of what you have achieved!)
For weeks I was drowning in self-pity, but finally my loving father reacted. I thank God for his proposal although I first did not want to hear anything of it. He invited a friend of him, a director of an opera house somewhere in the South of France who was looking for new employees. When he (sweet Meg, listen carefully to his name, his wonderful, gorgeous name: Jules Giry - you understand, my sweet darling? Jules Giry, my beloved husband and your loving father) heard about my unfortunate accident he did not hesitate a single moment and offered me the job as his ballet-mistress in his opera.
He said that I have been the best of all prima ballerinas with an expression beyond anybody's reach, and it would be a great honour for him if I would train his ballet-dancers. But I - oh me silly! -, I was far away from being delighted, and I screamed infuriated that I did not need any pity.
Superfluously to tell that I declined to take the job. But Jules did not give in - he never did, my little daughter (and this is one more thing where you both are incredibly similar...).
He came every day, no matter if he had a strenuous day, he visited us each single day, brought roses and asked me again and again to start as a ballet-mistress. It was nearly some kind of ritual.
He asked:
"Would you work for me, ma chère Mademoiselle Beatrice?"
And I always answered angrily:
"I will never, Monsieur. I don't need any of your sorrow!"
After four weeks of this theatre he suddenly did not arrive one evening. I was surprised - and felt some kind of concern. You know, after those days I got somehow used to his visits, and - well, I must admit that I began to enjoy them.
He was a wonderful man, I have never before and never afterwards met such a man. He was sensitive, understanding and smart with a great sense of humour. Although he was more than 15 years older than me I felt like a carefree child when being with him. He made me laugh when I was sad, and he cheered me up when I cried. In short: He was the true, whole joy in my life.
And therefore it was not really strange that I was worried when he did not arrive this one evening. I did not hesitate very long before I called after the coach and drove to the opera. When I arrived at the reception I found a big bunch of white roses lying there with a short note:
"Chère Mademoiselle, when you read these lines you know that you have right now accepted to be my ballet-mistress."
Yes, my heart, my Meg, since then I knew that I could not resist him any longer - and in fact, I did not want to resist him...
On the next day I started with my new work, one year later we got married and three years later you, my sunshine, were born. I think with your birth I found my life perfectly right. I have never again mourned for past times, I was just happy with the way as things were, and I thought to have found my own happiness for eternity.
But Meg, this eternity did not last very long... (I know, my only child, you are crying right now, crying for the father you have not known properly and crying that your mother has not told you anything about our past. I beg you to forgive me, you were my only worry, lovely daughter. I wanted you to live a life as light-hearted as I used to do at your age. So tell me: Could this intention be wrong?)
You were only five years old, sweet five years, a lovely, little innocent girl full of sunshine, brightness and beauty inside, when Jules had this cruel, awful, damned accident that took away your loving father and my beloved husband. And this time I knew for sure that one of my two greatest loves has gone away forever.
He was the first man I have loved in that selfless, eternal, true way and there has never again been a man I loved that much. Now we both were left alone, and the only thing that kept me alive was you, my dearest Meg, my second greatest love in the world. You has got his eyes, his divine smile and his honest, cheerful personality that could put me always in a good mood.
After organising the funeral I sold our house, ensured that his opera house will get a dignified successor, packed everything we owned, and then I fled with you in the south to Nice where I hid myself away from the outside world. Now I was able to cry, mourn for my greatest love and show all the feelings that I had had to hide before. I tried to be strong for you, my honey, but finally I could not be strong any longer.
Thank goodness a good friend of mine took care of us both during this time then. We stayed at her house in Nice for weeks, and while she kept you busy I stayed in bed all the time and cried the whole day.
It was somehow curious that my nightmares came back at the same time. (Call it a prediction or just a syndrome caused by all the pain, but in fact I dreamt of meeting the deformed boy from the gypsies' fair again. I was a woman of 31, but in these dreams I was still the young frightened girl of only seven years...)
You were the only reason why I woke up every day, Meg, my darling, only you could make me laugh again, although it took me a very long time to get out of my bed and to start living again.
In the following years I did several different jobs just to forget the sad things that had happened, and moreover I needed money, too. I wanted you to visit the best school I could afford and I dearly wished to make all your dreams come true.
You were so incredibly fond of dancing that I was able to surmount all the barricades I had built between the ballet and myself to send you to a ballet-school. It was not easy at all to get along with the little money I earned but this meant nothing, really nothing, to me when I saw the happiness in your eyes as you slipped into your cute ballet-shoes.
We were living in Nice for quite a long time but a vague feeling told me that this would not be the end of it all although I felt like it. I was happy just watching you growing up, turning into a smart, young teenage girl with this irrepressible charm that I'm still admiring. (You have never lost that enchanting smile in your eyes, no matter what you have had to go through, and I beg you to keep this unique trait forever on, my dear!)
But as soon as my true friend told me that she heard of a new opera-house up there in Paris looking for a ballet-mistress I knew all of a sudden that my own private turning point has now finally arrived.
Sure, I could have stayed here in Nice forever more but nobody can escape from fate, and I was certain that it will catch up with me some time in the future. And moreover I thought to be able to make it possible for you to obtain a better ballet-education there in Paris.
Therefore, after ten years living in Nice, my secret hiding-place from the cruelties in the world outside, it was only a question of time until I finally decided to pack and to head for Paris again.
On to Part IV
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