The Phantom Of Manhattan (1999) Page 11

  He seemed to feel my eyes upon him, for he turned suddenly, stared all around and then glanced up. The tilted observation mirror revealed him to me and me to him. The hair was as black as his coat and his face as white as his shirt. It was the wretch who called himself Malta. Two blazing eyes fixed me for a second, then he was off, speeding through the corridors that others found so baffling. I came down from the booth at once in an attempt to stop him, let myself out and hastened round the building. He was well ahead of me, having escaped through his secret exit, and haring for the gate. In my great clumsy extra-long Funmaster’s boots, running was out of the question.

  So I could only watch. There was a second carriage parked near the gate, a closed calash, and it was to this that the speeding figure ran, jumping inside then slamming the door as the carriage took off. It was evidently a private rig for such are not for public hire on Coney Island.

  But before he reached it, he had to run past two people. The nearest to the Hall of Mirrors was the young reporter and as the figure in the frock-coat raced past he let out a sort of shout which I could not catch, the sound being borne away on the sea wind. The reporter looked up in surprise but made no move to stop the man.

  Just before the gateway was the figure of the priest, who had taken the boy Pierre back to the coach, closed him inside and was walking back to find his employer. I saw the refugee stop dead for a second and stare at the priest, who stared back at him, then run on towards his rig.

  By now my nerves were in a complete jangle. The odd search among the performing monkeys for a tune that none of them was able to play, the even odder behaviour of the man who called himself Malta in his interrogation of the harmless child, the hate-filled confrontation between Malta and the Catholic priest, and then the catastrophe of the Hall of Mirrors, with all the levers out of my control, the terrible confessions I had heard from the prima donna and a man who had clearly once been her lover and the father of her child, and finally the sight of Malta eavesdropping on them both … It was all too much. In my perplexity I completely forgot that poor Mme de Chagny was still trapped inside the maze of mirrored walls.

  When I remembered this, I rushed back to liberate her. All the controls were miraculously working again and soon she emerged, deathly pale and quiet, as well she might be. But she thanked me most politely for all my trouble, left a generous gratuity and boarded her brougham with the reporter, the priest and her son. I escorted her as far as the gate.

  When I returned to the Hall of Mirrors for the last time I received the shock of my life. Standing in the lee of the building, staring after the carriage that bore away his son, was the man. I came round the corner of the building and there he was. No doubt about it; the swirling black cloak gave him away. The other player in the weird events that had taken place inside the maze. But it was his face that set my blood running cold. A ravaged face, three-quarters covered by a pale mask and behind the mask burned eyes that blazed with anger. This was a man who had been thwarted, a man not accustomed to being crossed and who had become dangerous. He did not seem to hear me for he muttered something in a low growl. ‘Five years,’ I heard him say, ‘five years. Never. He’s mine and I will have him with me.’

  He turned and was gone, twisting between two stalls and a shuttered roundabout. Later I found a point in the fence on to Surf Avenue where three palisades had been removed. I never saw him after that, and I never saw the eavesdropper again.

  I deliberated later if there was anything I should do. Should I alert the vicomtesse that the strange man seemed to have no intention of waiting five years for his son? Or would he calm down when his anger cooled? Whatever I had heard was a family matter and would no doubt be resolved. So I sought to tell myself. But there was not Celtic blood in my veins for nothing, and even as I write all those things that I saw and heard here yesterday, there hangs over me a sense of terrible foreboding.

  13

  THE ECSTASY AND PRAYER OF JOSEPH KILFOYLE

  ST PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, NEW YORK CITY, 2 DECEMBER 1906

  ‘LORD HAVE MERCY, CHRIST HAVE MERCY. MANY times I have called upon You. More times than I can recall. In the heat of the sun and in the darkness of the night. In the high mass in Your house and in the privacy of my room. Sometimes I even thought You might reply, seemed to hear Your voice, seemed to feel Your guidance. Was it all foolishness, self-delusion? Do we really, in prayer, commune with You? Or are we listening to ourselves?

  ‘Forgive my doubting, Lord. I try so hard for true faith. Hear me now, I beg You. For I am bewildered and frightened. It is not the scholar but the Irish farm-boy that I was born. Please listen and help me.’

  ‘I am here, Joseph. What disturbs your peace of mind?’

  ‘Lord, for the first time I think I am really frightened. I am afraid but I do not know why.’

  ‘Fear? That is something of which I have personal knowledge.’

  ‘You, Lord? Surely not.’

  ‘On the contrary. What do you think I felt when they tied my wrists above me to the flogging ring in the temple wall?’

  ‘I just did not imagine that you could feel fear.’

  ‘I was a man then, Joseph. With all a man’s weaknesses and flaws. That was the whole point. And a man can feel great fear. So when they showed me the scourge, with its knotted thongs set with fragments of iron and lead, and told me what it would do, I cried from fear.’

  ‘I never thought of it that way, Lord. It was never reported.’

  ‘A small mercy. Why are you afraid?’

  ‘I feel there is something going on around me in this fearsome city that I cannot understand.’

  ‘Then I sympathize. The fear of what you can understand is bad enough, but it has its limits. The other fear is worse. What do you want of me?’

  ‘I need your fortitude, your strength.’

  ‘You already have them, Joseph. You inherited them when you took my vows and wore my cloth.’

  ‘Then surely I cannot be worthy of them, Lord, for they escape me now. I fear you chose a poor vessel when you picked the farm-boy from Mullingar.’

  ‘In fact, you chose me. But no matter. Has my vessel cracked and let me down so far?’

  ‘I have sinned, of course.’

  ‘Of course. Who does not? You have lusted after Christine de Chagny.’

  ‘She is a beautiful woman, Lord, and I am also a man.’

  ‘I know. I was, once. It can be very hard. You confessed and were forgiven?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, thoughts are thoughts. You did nothing more?’

  ‘No, Lord. Just thoughts.’

  ‘Well then, perhaps I may retain confidence in my farm-boy a mite longer. What of your unexplained fears?’

  ‘There is a man in this city, a strange man. The day we arrived I looked up from the quayside and saw a figure on the roof of a warehouse, staring down. He wore a mask. Yesterday we went to Coney Island; Christine, young Pierre, a local reporter and myself. Christine went into a part of the funfair known as the Hall of Mirrors. Last night she asked for confession and told me …’

  ‘I think you are allowed to tell me, as I am inside your own head. Go on.’

  ‘That she had met him inside. She described him. He must have been the same man, the one she knew years ago in Paris, a badly disfigured man, now become rich and powerful here in New York.’

  ‘I know him. His name is Erik. He has not had an easy life. Now he worships another god.’

  ‘There are no other gods, Lord.’

  ‘Nice idea, but there are many. Man-made gods.’

  ‘Ah. And his?’

  ‘He is the servant of Mammon, the god of greed and gold.’

  ‘I would dearly love to bring him back. To you.’

  ‘Most commendable. And why?’

  ‘It seems he has enormous wealth, riches beyond normal dreams.’

  ‘Joseph, you are supposed to be in the business of souls, not gold. Do you lust after his fortune?’

  ‘
Not for myself, Lord. For something else.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘While I have been here I wandered by night through the Lower East Side district of this city, but a few miles from this very cathedral. It is an appalling place, an inferno on earth. There is grinding poverty, squalor, filth, stench and despair. Out of these come every vice and crime. Children are used as prostitutes, boys and girls …’

  ‘Do I hear a hint of rebuke, Joseph, that I should allow these things?’

  ‘I could not rebuke you, Lord.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be too modest. It happens every day.’

  ‘But I cannot understand it.’

  ‘Let me try to explain. I never gave Man a guarantee of perfection, only the chance of it. That was the whole point of it all. Man has the choice and the chance but never the coercion. I have left his freedom to choose inviolate. Some choose to try to follow the path I pointed out; most prefer their pleasures now, here. For many that means inflicting pain on others for their own amusement or enrichment. It is noted, of course, but is not to be changed.’

  ‘But why, Lord, can Man not be a better creature?’

  ‘Look, Joseph, if I reached down and touched him on the forehead and made him perfect, what would life on earth be like? No sadness, so no joy. No tears, no smiles. No pain, no relief. No bondage, no freedom. No failure, no triumph. No rudeness, no courtesy. No bigotry, no tolerance. No despair, no exultation. No sins and certainly no redemption. I would simply create a paradise of featureless bliss here on earth, which would make my heavenly kingdom somewhat redundant. And that is not the point of it all. So, Man must have his choice, until I call him home.’

  ‘I suppose so, Lord. But I would dearly like to bring this Erik and all his riches to a better service.’

  ‘Perhaps you will.’

  ‘But there must be a key.’

  ‘Of course, there is always a key.’

  ‘But I cannot see it, Lord.’

  ‘You have read my words. Have you taken nothing in?’

  ‘Too little, Lord. Help me. Please.’

  ‘The key is love, Joseph. The key is always love.’

  ‘But he loves Christine de Chagny.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Am I to encourage her to break her marriage vows?’

  ‘I did not say that.’

  ‘Then I do not understand.’

  ‘You will, Joseph, you will. Sometimes it takes a little patience. So, this Erik frightens you?’

  ‘No, Lord, not he. When I saw him on the roof and later saw his figure fleeing from the Hall of Mirrors, I felt there was something about him: a feeling of rage, of despair, of pain. But not of evil. It was the other one.’

  ‘Tell me about the other one.’

  ‘When we arrived at the Coney Island funfair, Christine and Pierre went into the toyshop with the Funmaster. I stayed outside to walk by the sea for a while. When I rejoined them in the shop, Pierre was with a young man who was showing him round and whispering in his ear. A face as white as bone, black eyes and hair, a black frock-coat. I thought he was the manager of the shop, but the Funmaster told me later he had never seen him before that morning.’

  ‘And you did not like him, Joseph?’

  ‘Liking was not the point, Lord. There was something about him, a chill colder than the sea. Was it just my Hibernian imagination? There was an aura of evil about him that caused me to make Your sign, just instinctively. I took the boy away from him and he stared at me with a dark loathing. That was the first time I saw him that day.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘I was walking back from the coach where I had put the boy. About half an hour later. I knew Christine had gone with the Funmaster to examine a sideshow called the Hall of Mirrors. A small door in the side of the building opened, and he came running out. He went past a newspaper reporter who was ahead of me and as he came past me to throw himself into a small coach and disappear, he stopped and stared at me again. It was the same as the first time; I felt the day, already cold, had dropped another ten degrees. I shivered. Who was he? What does he want?’

  ‘I think you mean Darius. Do you wish to redeem him too?’

  ‘I do not think I could.’

  ‘You are right. He has sold his soul to Mammon, he is the god of gold’s eternal servant, until he comes to me. It was he who brought Erik to his own god. But Darius has no love. That is the difference.’

  ‘But he loves gold, Lord.’

  ‘No, he worships gold. There is a difference. Erik worships gold also, but somewhere deep inside his tortured soul he once knew love, and could again.’

  ‘Then I might yet win him?’

  ‘Joseph, no man who can know pure love, excepting only love of self, is beyond redemption.’

  ‘But like Darius, this Erik loves only gold, himself and another’s wife. Lord, I do not understand.’

  ‘You are wrong, Joseph. He cherishes gold, he hates himself and he loves a woman he knows he cannot have. I must go.’

  ‘Stay with me, Lord. A little longer.’

  ‘I cannot. There is a vicious war in the Balkans. There will be many souls to receive tonight.’

  ‘Then where shall I find this key? The key beyond gold, self and a woman he cannot have?’

  ‘I told you, Joseph. Look for another and a greater love.’

  14

  THE REVIEW OF GAYLORD SPRIGGS

  NEW YORK TIMES, 4 DECEMBER 1906

  WELL, MR OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN’S MUCH-VAUNTED new Manhattan Opera House was inaugurated last night in what can only be fairly described as an unmitigated triumph. If ever another civil war was going to start again in our dear country, it must have come in the fight for seats as all New York was rocked on its heels by the spectacle we saw before us.

  Exactly how much some of the great financial and cultural dynasties of our city paid for their boxes and even seats in the stalls can only be conjectured, but certainly the prices must have left the official charges out of sight.

  The Manhattan, as we must now call it to differentiate from the Metropolitan across town, is a truly sumptuous building, richly ornate, with a reception area inside the doors to put to shame the rather crowded pre-auditorium public space afforded by the Met. And here in the half-hour before the curtain rose I saw names known only as legends across all America milling like schoolchildren as the lucky few were escorted to their private boxes.

  There were Mellons, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Goulds, Whitneys and the Pierpont Morgans themselves. Present among them, genial host to us all, was the man who staked a huge fortune and limitless drive and energy to create the Manhattan against all the odds, cigar czar Oscar Hammerstein. Rumor still persists that backing Mr H. is another and even richer tycoon, the phantom financier whom no-one has ever seen, but if such a one exists he was nowhere in evidence.

  The opulence of the sweeping portico and the lushness of the reception area were impressive, as was also the gilt, crimson and plum ornateness of the surprisingly small and intimate auditorium. But what of the quality of the new opera and of the singing that we had all come to hear? Both were of an artistic and emotional level that I cannot recall in thirty years.

  Readers of this poor column will know that but seven weeks ago Mr Hammerstein took the extraordinary decision to cast aside the Bellini masterpiece I Puritani for his inaugural offering and instead undertake the frightening risk of introducing a completely new opera in the modern style by an unknown (and amazingly still anonymous) American composer. What an enormous gamble. Did it pay off? One thousand per cent.

  Firstly, The Angel of Shiloh secured the presence of Vicomtesse Christine de Chagny of Paris, a beauty with a voice that last night eclipsed any in my memory, and I believe I have heard the best in the world over these past thirty years. Secondly, the work itself is a masterpiece of simplicity and emotion that left not a dry eye in the house.

  The story is set in our own Civil War of only forty years ago and is therefore of immediate s
ignificance to any American of North or South. In Act One we meet the dashing young Connecticut lawyer Miles Regan, hopelessly in love with Eugenie Delarue, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy plantation-owner of Virginia. The former role was taken by rising American tenor David Melrose until something most strange occurred - but more of this anon. The couple duly plight their troth and exchange golden rings. As the Southern belle Mme de Chagny was magnificent and her simple girlish pleasure at the proposal of the man she loves, expressed in the aria ‘With this ring for ever’, communicated that delight to the whole audience.

  The neighboring plantation-owner, Joshua Howard, magnificently sung by Alessandro Gonci, has also been the suitor for her hand in marriage but accepts his rejection and heartbreak like the gentleman he is. But the clouds of war are looming and at the end of the act the first guns fire on Fort Sumter, and the Union is at war with the Confederacy. The young lovers have to part. Regan explains that he has no choice but to return to Connecticut and fight for the North. Miss Delarue knows she must stay with her family, all dedicated to the South. The act ends with one heart-rending duet as the lovers part, not knowing if they will ever meet again.

  For Act Two, two years have passed and Eugenie Delarue has volunteered as a nurse in a hospital just after the bloody battle of Shiloh. We see her selfless devotion to the terribly injured young men in the uniforms of both sides as they are brought in, a formerly sheltered plantation belle now exposed to all the filth and pain of a front-line hospital. In a single and utterly moving aria she asks ‘Why must these young men die?’