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Portrait of the Soul	By : sirenofsaturn Category: M through R > The Phantom of the Opera > Het Views: 2723 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Phantom of the Opera, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Hi out there! I’m sorry I haven’t updated in a while….but…the truth is…/Starts sobbing uncontrollably/ I don’t want my story to end/Blows nose loudly on Erik’s cravat/
Erik/Grossed out beyond words/ Sigh…there will be other works…
What did you do after you finished Don Juan Triumphant?
Erik: …I died…
Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Erik: She owns nothing; just get on with the bloody chapter!
I couldn’t believe nine months had passed so quickly. True now as I stood here in all my old years my life, though painful during its most parts, seemed to be a blink of an eye. A small dark shadow on the incredible euphoria I now lived in with my wife.
My wife.
All that I had ever desired, all that I had ever hoped for, prayed for was upon me. Now here I pace back and forth across the upstairs hall Nadir’s eyes following me like the mad man he knows I am. The damnable smirk hasn’t left his face since I first informed him that Mia was with child…My child…Our child.
“I should be in there!”
“It isn’t right, Erik. Besides the mid-wife knows what to do.”
“The hell she does. I who have studied the human body know all the occurrences of what happens during labor. To her bloody Christian ignorance the placenta is merely the bulk of evil-of sin being spewed out! Mid-wives have no knowledge of the human body’s actual functions and purpose!”
“No need to be so graphic my friend. It’s just nerves.”
Oh it was nerves! I had convinced myself I had every right to be nervous! How could I have been so careless to conceive a child when I have this damnable curse to pass down to it! Things had occurred so fast. It only seemed that this very house was being built last month.
Less than a week after Mia had accepted my offer to build her home, and my proposal, we were wed. The ceremony had been, in understatement, small Daroga our only witness. I did not care if a priest or a rabbi married us. I had no identity and had to forge a certificate of marriage to make our union as legal as possible. I respected Mia’s wishes and modern thinking and offered her the chance to keep her own maiden name.
“Do you not have a surname Erik?”
“My dear the choice to keep your name is yours. I would understand and respect your decision to keep it.”
She gave me the same smile she first gave me when I volunteered to take her to Russia. “I respect you. I want to be your wife Erik. I want to belong to you, in all ways.”
That week she stood under a small canopy and became Mia Destler. My mother had done her best to isolate me from anything outside of our home, but I shall not forget the day I found a letter addressing her as Madeline Destler. I learned my surname at five years old. I kept it a secret for forty-seven.
The week after our marriage I left for Rouen to begin work on our home. Even though I trusted the contractors I once worked with I did not want her plans in anyone’s creative hands but my own. Just as I had worked on the Garnier, I worked liked a madman. I came to the construction site at dawn and was there till well past midnight. I still feel regret that I was barely by my wife the first months of our marriage. I would flee to Paris every few Sundays or when a new production was finished. Together we sat in box five for the final times and I was still marveled by her set work.
It wasn’t until the end of opening night of ‘The Magic Flute’ that I first noticed the problem. Returning to her opera dorm I watched her lips set in a frown as she began to undress.
“Are you angry with me?” That was always my first question in these situations. The last thing I wanted was to assume she was upset at something, when she was upset with me. I had previously learned that always made her mood worse.
“Why would I be?” Her brow rose. Sighing softly she sat next to me on the small bed. “As much as I am looking forward to living in Rouen there is no opera house there. I can not very well make the trip from Rouen to Paris every day. I just began to realize recently that my days of set designing are almost over…I’ll miss it.” She smiled softly.
I was at loss for words. All I could offer her was my embrace. I was ashamed to admit the idea of her career being over had never crossed my mind. I had been ignorant and pig-headed to assume she would be delighted to perform normal duties as a wife. Maybe sketching for entertainment beside me as I played or composed, all I could do was put it in the back of my mind. I would not have an answer for her problem for another month.
I had been working on the roof when Jules called me to come down saying someone had come to talk with me about the house.
He was a plump balding man with an aging face. Jules must have explained to him that I wore a mask, because his shock seemed mild. He reminded me of the clients I used to work for when I built ordinary houses for ordinary men. In fact, that was the reason he wished to speak with me. He wanted to know if he could over bid whoever had purchased the home I was working on.
I explained it was a gift for my wife and not for sale.
“Are you the architect that designed it then?”
“I am an architect, but the credit for the design and planning goes to my wife Monsieur.”
“A woman, eh? I’ve never seen anything like it. The structure is so unique.”
“So is my wife, Monsieur.”
“Does she by any chance design for a living?…Because I would be willing to pay a great deal to live in a home similar to this style.”
If I had eyebrows I would have raised one.
After speaking with him I asked him about a time frame. He was surprisingly patient, and understood construction and designing took time.
“You two were married recently? I would understand that she would want to be settled before she picked up on a new career.”
“On the contrary. She would be delighted to start as soon as the last stick of furniture is in place.”
I visited Mia in person to inform her of Monsieur Dumas’ offer. She was to put it lightly, ecstatic about the idea of her first commission. She thanked me in ways common decency forbids me to record…but her thankfulness is important for my memory. I believe it was this night that our title as a family was be bestowed.
Two months later we were living in Rouen trying our best to live as normal life as husband and wife live. I was satisfied enough with my work as a contractor. I kept the plans just as they had been only adding the slightest details for structural purposes. It was a two-story, not to large, home. Quaint to us on the inside, by fascinating details outwards that frequently got us offers. I left business to Mia; it was her time to shine. I only helped her mathematically wise. Helping her develop accurate structures in blueprints and helping her to decide what was a poor price and what was beyond extraordinary.
Although I did not have very much use for money now, the phantom part of me was disappointed on just how fare Mia accepted offers.
“A few thousand francs more would not have hurt.”
“I do not design for money. The last few commissions and what we’ve saved from our salaries get us by more than well.”
As ludicrous as it sounded I understood. There is no true price for an artist’s work.
Only three weeks after we were settled was when I began to notice changes in Mia’s demeanor. Her sleep habits were the first to change. She started retiring an hour earlier than normal and sleeping considerably late into the day. Her eating habits were also becoming incredibly lacking.
“You can go ahead and have the rest darling…I don’t have much of an appetite.”
I accepted her words each day with disbelieving nods. It wasn’t until she vomited one morning that I realized she was truly ill. I assumed it was merely a small virus and not something along the lines of tuberculosis or anything fatal. I wouldn’t allow myself to think such thoughts. If it were I would only pray it was contagious. If she died I would follow her immediately.
I prepared a small infusion with peppermint to help calm her stomach, which she surprisingly refused.
“My dear, I assure you it will help cure anything. Just a basic health remedy you see.”
“I don’t think that will cure me Erik.” She sighed taking a seat on the velvet sofa.
“You do not trust in my abilities of the health field?” I demanded surprised.
“Why is it when I refuse or deny something you put words into my mouth and jump to conclusions. What happened to the Erik who was always so self competent.”
“He married a woman who had no faith in him.”
“I have faith in you to be a lot of things Erik.”
From her tone, she had not just paid me a compliment. I believe I growled in frustration, we had been having these quarrels over the past few days. “Why are you acting like this?” I demanded. “You are acting irrationally towards me no matter what I do. Why are you acting this way?”
Her eyes filled with tears, and even though she sobbed out her answer her voice remained clear and strong. “Because Erik, that is how a woman with child tends to act.”
I don’t know how long I stood there. I remember my mouth opening and closing trying to form words. Now matter how much I tried, however, I could not seem to make contact with my larynx. Eventually Mia left and headed for our bedroom. A place I assumed I was not invited to for the night.
Instead I spent the night as I had many before. Underground. Although from ground level up the house followed Mia’s plans. Below in the cellar was the evidence of my own. It was a simple basement cellar that the contractors have assumed was for wine. Although we did keep our spirits there my organ also occupied that room. I lost myself in music, all the while reflecting on what had transpired.
True Mia was still in childbearing years, and I, as a man, could go on creating children for the rest of my days. The idea, though, had never occurred to me. We occasionally used French Letters when reason had not completely given way to passion. Passion though did always tend to out weigh thought when it came to our intimacy. I must have played through the night, though I barely noticed.
The clock said noon when Mia came down the cellar stairs and sat next to me on the organ bench. “Do you plan to spend the rest of my pregnancy down here? Because if you do, you might want to bring down a loaf of bread and a bit of cheese.”
“My dear how can you expect me to be capable of words in such a time?”
“You just spoke.”
“Mia…”
“Erik…”
“Please forgive me.” I begged.
“For your actions last night…or for what grows in my womb.” Mia whispered.
I swallowed, fearing what I knew was her regret. She didn’t want the child…it made perfect since. “You don’t want the child.”
“…You would…not wish for me…to have it?” Her voice dropped a few staff lines. Her eyes widened and tone was hushed.
“That is what you are saying.” I tried to clarify. “It makes perfect since you would not want my cursed seed in your belly.”
“No more than you would want a decent soprano to sing the lead in ‘Faust’!”
I released the breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. “You wish to have it…to keep it?”
“What did you think?”
“That you would wish to dispose of something that could resemble me in any way.” I motioned to my naked face.
“I will never understand the part of you that goes on in self loathing. I don’t think I ever can…I don’t want to. I don’t want to understand how the man I love with all his talents can still feel so afraid and inconfident over such a small matter as his face.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she stopped me.
“Or how he could even conceive the idea that his own wife does not want the child he has given her, because it may resemble him.”
That was the end of that. I was too ashamed to admit that every second I was left to ponder the child, I would ponder on who it would resemble.
Now here I was nearly seven months after our conversation in the cellar. Mia had been in our bedroom with the mid-wife for nearly six hours. I was going mad. It wasn’t until this last month that I even considered the affect the birth would be on her. I was beyond ill with worry. What if she didn’t make it through the birth, and I was left to raise the child alone? What if they both didn’t make it and I was left alone with nothing. No blood-link. No heir. No love.
Just as I was drowning in the ocean of my thoughts a cry pulled me back. The cry of a child…and the cry of a woman, I lost care of tradition and modesty as I ran into the room.
The mid-wife stared at my masked face eyes widened with fear. I walked over to the screaming lump of blankets on the bed and pulled back the first layer.
I now understand the grief that had fallen upon my mother when she first gazed at me. No amount of meditation or effort could have prepared me for such a sight I knew was worse than my own.
There was no face! Not even a thin layer of skin pulled tightly of the skull. I watched the child wither and scream. I watched the blood vessels leak the crimson liquid onto our bed with no epithelial tissue born to hold the liquid back. The cartilage was so transparent around her cheeks with every pulsation I could see veins running beneath the tissue.
The anguish was too much and I cried out so loud my voice went horse. I looked at Mia, my sunken eyes as wide as they could stretch with grief. What have I done? What have I done to make a child so cursed as I? Why do You keep on punishing me? Did You not redeem me with love enough, oh God in heaven that You would send me a cursed child to remind me were I stand! Would You punish my wife as well! Is this her punishment for bedding a monster such as I?
That is when fully took in Mia for the first time since the birth. Her skin remained white and wet. Her breath barely hitched out of her lungs as I flew to her side. “Mia!”
All I could hear was the baby continuing to scream behind us. She coughed, and turned to me, my heart stopped at the sight of the blood dripping from her lips. Her eyes took me in one last time before rolling back into her head.
I was enveloped in darkness the child’s cry fading in the background; the only clear sound was my voice calling out for her.
Review and I promise not to make you all wait to long for the second and final part. Hope you all enjoyed and were shocked beyond belief. But I promise its not over completely. Please review.
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Portrait of the Soul