Page 116 of Our Strange Duet

“What is it that you want, Erik?” I demanded, seizing my chance to wrest back control.

When his eyes flicked up to meet mine, I felt as if I were staring straight into his very soul. I could see every hope, every dream, every dark desire and impossible longing.

He took his time, clearing his throat before he answered. “I want the world to hear you sing my music.”

I nodded. “Good.”

“And…” He frowned and swallowed back the words which had been on the tip of his tongue. “And I want…I need…you to be at your very best when it does.”

I considered this. I considered him. And then I pushed myself to standing and reached out a hand, offering to pull him up. “Then we’d better get to work.”

“Again.” Erik clapped his hands, indicating the downbeat.

“No thoughts within her head but thoughts of joy,” I began, fixing a far-off, hopeful expression on my face, even as I felt him stir behind me, pacing about the dressing room like a restless predator.

“And?”

“No dreams within her heart but dreams of love…” I held the last note lightly, like the sweet chime of a silver bell. I didn’t need to look behind me to know I’d done well. I sensed his smile, felt the nod of his head.

“Yes. Good.”

My shoulders sagged with relief.

We’d been working for hours, only just now reaching the opera’s penultimate scene. Aminta had arrived at Don Juan’s estate, believing she was to have supper with Passarino, the faithful valet. But the pair intended to trick her, with Don Juan dressing as the servant in hopes of finally seducing the one woman who had refused his advances.

I turned toward Erik. “On to the duet?”

A curious, unreadable expression clouded his features, obscuring them more than a mask ever could. He looked away. “It’s late.”

“But it’s only—” I glanced at the clock. It was late, nearly midnight. “Let me run through the lyrics, just once, at least. I can work through the end of it with Ubaldo tomorrow, but we could do the first part—”

“No.”

The word fell flat between us, landing with an ungainly thud.

“But, Erik—”

“I said no.”

I could feel the earlier version of myself start to nod, deferring to him as I so often had in our first lessons together. I straightened my neck. I was not that girl any longer.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I began, changing tactics. “Why this legend? Why Don Juan? You’d said you want to write about Joséphine. About her roses.”

He winced. “You remember that?”

“I remember everything.”

He turned from me and crossed toward the mirror’s still-empty frame. Earlier in the lesson, I’d noticed the glass had not returned, leaving behind the gaping maw of a familiar stone corridor. Another prosaic reminder that Erik was more man than he’d ever been angel. But how I’d wanted to believe otherwise.

“Don’t go,” I called to him, and he stopped short upon the lip of the threshold.

“I couldn’t see the way to end it,” he said, speaking to the passageway instead of me. “Joséphine’s story. With…with Don Juan…I knew the ending he’d get. I knew the ending he deserved.”

I briefly thought through the final scene of the opera, of the chorus of demons rising from hell to pull the tenor under. I thought of Aminta, rising with angels and the triumph of trumpets. I thought of the final chord, the sad, strange notes that lingered in the listeners’ ears long past the point of a standard button—a desperate final gasp from Don Juan, a tearing asunder of a soul, a cry for mercy that would be forever denied. I thought through it all and didn’t know what to say.

Did Erik see himself as Don Juan, a villain in need of atonement, of retribution? Or was he the chorus, come to punish the man who dared to go through life grabbing whatever he wanted, including the pure and untouched heroine? I did not know, and I couldn’t find it in myself to ask.

He glanced over his right shoulder, only offering me a sliver of his mask. “We’ll meet tomorrow, after rehearsals.”