Phantom (9 page)

The dog was growing old and obese, entering that period of rapid decline which besets so many canines around their tenth year. Erik carried her patiently up and down the steep stairs that were now beyond her, bathed her rheumy eyes, and sometimes sat for an hour at a time feeding her by hand. But I was not convinced he understood that the inevitable moment of parting might be close at hand. And since it was not a thing I could comfortably discuss with him, I asked Father Mansart to raise the subject instead.

Their quiet voices were only just audible to me in the next room, where 1 sat sewing. Yes, said Erik calmly, he knew that Sasha was old and would not live forever, might not perhaps live beyond the next year or so. But he understood that God would take her to live in heaven and they would not be separated forever.

I felt, rather than heard, the priest's quick intake of breath, the breath he had taken to correct his pupil's childish but unacceptable error in doctrine. He asked Erik to understand that, though God had compassion for all His creatures, it was to man alone that He had granted an afterlife. Animals, said Father Mansart solemnly, have no souls…

There was a heartbeat of silence and then, without warning, a scream of indescribable grief and rage, which seemed to rip my head apart. I rushed into the drawing room in time to see Erik seize the clock from the mantelpiece and smash it in the hearth. And then, to my absolute horror, he picked up the coal tongs and lashed out at the priest, shrieking terrible obscenities, words I did not even think he knew. When I tried to get between them, the tongs caught me with full force on my shoulder, slicing clean through the velvet into the flesh.

The priest dragged me back, out of the range of the wildly flailing weapon which was hacking indiscriminately at everything in its path.

"My God!" I breathed. "He will wreck the entire room! Let me stop him—"

Father Mansart's answer was to pull me through the door, shutting it hastily behind him. A savage barrage of blows struck the panels in our wake and the door began to splinter. But as I caught at the handle, the priest snatched my hand away.

"You must not approach him… he does not know you."

I stared at him in disbelief. The sounds of frenzied destruction continued in the room beyond and the priest's face was deathly pale, his lips set in a gray line of pain and grief.

"I have failed," he muttered wearily. "I have failed him and I have failed God."

"I don't understand you," I gasped. "Are you telling me he is mad?"

The priest shook his head grimly. "This is not madness, child—this is possession! If you go to him now I think he will kill you. We must wait until whatever demon now has him in its grip grows tired of its sport and departs."

I looked at the blood soaking steadily into my sleeve. "Will—will it happen again?" I stammered uncertainly.

The priest sighed. "Once a suitable host presents itself to the forces of darkness…" he spread his hands in a helpless gesture, before continuing.

"Tomorrow I will perform a ceremony of exorcism," he said unhappily.

Exorcism…

Blackness closed in around me and Father Mansart caught me as I swayed.

"Exorcism!" said Etienne, in disgust. "That priest is a stupid meddler who properly belongs in the Middle Ages. This is not a case for the Church, but for a medical institution."

"An asylum," I muttered. "You mean an asylum for the insane!"

Etienne sighed. "I wish you would not resort to such emotive terms. The child appears to suffer from a degree of mental disturbance, which under the circumstances is really no more than what I would expect to find. There are few things more hazardous to the equilibrium of the human mind than the freakish genius you have described to me." He placed one hand upon my arm before adding quietly, "My darling, you really must begin to give serious thought to the question of an institution."

"But… they are terrible places, are they not? One hears such dreadful tales of cruelty."

"By no means," replied Etienne calmly. "Some are better than others, I won't deny that, but I happen to know of an excellent place where he could be kept out of harm's way. He could have his books and his music… he'd be quite happy… or at least as happy as he's ever likely to be on this earth."

Etienne leaned back on the riverbank and watched the Seine flow past through half-closed eyes. He had a brisk, uncompromising manner of dealing with emotion, a manner that negated both passion and sentiment. His boundless optimism was capable of cloaking the most unpleasant proposals in a respectable, acceptable garb. A quick decision, a signature upon the committal papers, and all my problems would be over. He made it sound so easy and so right.

Leaning over, he pressed me back against the tussocky grass, and I was glad to surrender to his insistent lips. It meant that I did not have to think, to argue with myself. For a few blissful moments there was only physical delight and spiritual release and I pulled him closer, fearing the moment when he would draw away.

Ten years ago, I do not believe that I would have loved him, for ten years ago I could not have borne to be told what to think and what to do in such a cavalier fashion. Now there was nothing I wanted so much as to be safely locked in his arms and sheltered from the ugliness of reality. We were lovers in all but the fullest sense, for he was too logical, too rational, too sensible, to take the risk of ruining me. He craved a respectable existence, in keeping with the dignity of his profession, and I knew that these hole-in-the-corner assignations were likely to pale in time. Not unreasonably, he wanted some promise of a future.

But what future could there be when I dared not even invite him for dinner for fear of provoking Erik's violent rage?

knew this state of affairs could not continue indefinitely; and already there was a soft-footed intruder, whispering with insidious determination at the back of my mind, telling me now what I think I had known from that very first moment in the nave of the church.

This man would marry you, if you were free.

If I were free of my misbegotten child.

If I put him in an institution for the violently insane…

I was very quiet as we walked back along the riverbank, and long before we came in sight of the village I suggested it would be wiser for me to continue alone.

"People are beginning to talk. In your position you cannot afford a scandal."

He put one arm around my shoulders and tilted my face up to his.

"Madeleine," he said gently, "there doesn't have to be a scandal… you know that, don't you? All I am asking is that you let me examine the boy and give you my professional judgment on his mental state.''

But I knew that that judgment had already been made, and desperate as I was, 1 was not yet ready to play Judas.

"You will think about what I have said?" he insisted.

"Yes," I said dully, "I will think about it."

But I knew that I would not.

Etienne was right about the exorcism; it was a thing I should never have permitted. If Erik was not possessed before the ceremony took place, he most certainly behaved as though he was once it was over.

His respectful attachment to the priest was gone for good. He refused to continue the vocal training that had given them both such delight; but, worse than that, he refused to hear Mass or to have a crucifix in his bedroom. I did not dare to insist, for he had begun to behave so strangely that I found myself growing truly afraid of him. Curious things began to happen in the house when he was near. Articles disappeared, almost before my very eyes, only to return again once I had ceased to search for them. I knew he was responsible, but when I challenged him, he only shrugged and laughed and told me that we must have a ghost.

Then one day, when a cup had leapt from its saucer and smashed itself in the grate, I discovered a finely pared length of thread attached to the broken handle, and I turned on him in fury.

"You did that, didn't you! You made it happen!"

"No!" He backed away from me in sudden fear. "How could I have done that? I wasn't even near it! It was the ghost!"

"There is no ghost!" I shouted. "There is no ghost— only you, with your infernal threads of silk! Look at it! You haven't been so clever this time, have you? This is one trick I can see straight through."

He was silent, glaring at the gossamer thread as though his own incompetence angered him. I could almost hear his furious determination that next time there would be nothing to betray his hand.

"There will not be a next time," I said calmly, and saw his head jerk up in alarm that I should have read his thoughts with such ease. "This wickedness is to cease right away, do you hear me?"

"It isn't me," he repeated with childish stubbornness. "It's the ghost. The ghost that Father Mansart tried to send away."

I shook him wildly by the shoulders, until the mask dislodged itself and fell to the floor between us.

"Stop this madness!" I shrieked. "Stop it at once! If you don't I shall do what Doctor Barye advises and send you away to a terrible place for mad people.
Yes
! That frightens you, doesn't it? Well, I'm glad! I'm glad it frightens you, because perhaps it will make you stop this insane behavior. I promise you, Erik, if I send you away to an asylum you will never come back—never! They will tie your hands behind your back and shut you away in a dark place until you die and you will never, never see me again! Now, will you stop?
Will you
?"

I let go of him abruptly and stood back, panting for breath, while he knelt on the carpet at my feet and replaced the mask hastily, with shaking hands. I could feel his terror, it was like a physical force, but for once I felt no guilt or remorse at my harshness. The two of us were approaching a dangerous precipice and I knew that if I did not take control of him now, we would both finish in an asylum.

"What would you do," he whispered softly, not looking at me, "if I were no longer here?"

"I would marry Doctor Barye," I said, goaded to the lie by sheer desperation. "He has already asked me and you are all that prevents the marriage taking place. So, you see— you had better take care and do as I say. Now, look at me! Look at me and promise there will be no more of these— these happenings."

He continued to kneel on the floor, winding the thread of silk tightly around one skeletal finger until the white tip turned blue where he had cut off the circulation of blood.

"Erik!"

Quick as a grasshopper he leapt out of reach of my hand and ran to the door, where he paused to look back at me defiantly.

"There is a ghost," he told me steadily. "There is a ghost here, Mother. And it's going to stay with you forever and ever!"

I stood looking after him, one hand against my throat and the other outstretched to him in a hopeless gesture of supplication.

I suddenly felt very cold.

That night I heard the voice for the first time. A voice that was familiar and yet strangely altered, singing so low and soft that at first I was barely aware of its sweet hypnotic tone.

The voice was close beside me, so close that it seemed if I stretched out a hand I should surely touch it. But as I stood up curiously and moved toward it, the voice retreated before me.

I stopped and stared at Erik, who was grooming Sasha on the mat before the fire. He seemed absorbed in the task and quite unaware of my agitation.

The voice was curiously muted, a distant eerie breath which seemed to beckon me out of the room and up the staircase. I followed with helpless fascination, and as I entered my bedroom, the wordless melody seemed to gather strength and center itself upon the statue of a shepherd boy which stood on my marble-topped chest of drawers.

I drew closer and now it was unmistakably clear to me that the statue itself was responsible for the humming. I gazed at it in amazement and as I did so, I became aware that I was no longer alone in the room. Erik was suddenly beside me, watching me watch the statue. He had removed the mask and his lips were set in a grim line of silence.

And then I knew.

I drew back my hand very slowly and deliberately, letting him see my intent; but he did not even blink and the soft, seductive humming never faltered.

When I struck him across the mouth, it seemed to me that it was the statue that cried out in pain.

I understood now how he had employed those long dismal hours of solitude; I recognized the new achievement that he had added to his curious misarray of talents. I remembered the present which Marie had brought him on his fifth birthday; a present which had remained unopened and which I had later locked away in my bureau as totally unsuitable.

An antique copy of
Le Ventriloque ou L 'Engastrimythe
.

"I thought it would interest him," she had explained, when I took her to task for her stupidity. "I only wanted to amuse him. But if you think it best that he should not have it, then of course you must keep it from him."

I should have known that nothing could be kept from Erik once his curiosity was aroused. How could I have been stupid enough to think that he would not remember the only birthday present he ever received, or that a simple lock would be sufficient to keep him out of my bureaus? The book was never missing whenever I had cause to open the cabinet, but of course he was too clever and secretive to have made a mistake as elementary as that. If he wished to keep something to himself there was no one more adroit at covering his own tracks than this curious child, part cat, part fox… part nightingale.

The shepherd boy continued to sing to me, and though I understood the secret of this illusion, I found myself compelled to listen to its haunting beauty. At first I listened against my will, swearing each time that I would destroy the wretched figure as soon as it was silent. On several occasions I lifted my hand to dash it to the floor, but each time I was restrained by some unseen force which seemed to emanate from deep inside my own body.

And then, little by little, I began to abandon my senses to its growing power; I became unable to distinguish between illusion and reality. The voice not only sang now, it talked, and I soon found myself acceding to its numerous little requests. I humored it when it told me it was cold by the window, and moved it to the table beside my bed; and when it sulked like a child and told me it would not sing unless I kissed it, I bent obediently and laid my lips against its cool, lifeless cheek.