A Light in the Dark

Chapter 9

Chapter 9 Gustave's POV

I woke up, and I heard something crash against the wall in my father's room. I hopped out of bed. I was scared he had injured himself or worse. When I did, the gas lamp that remained lit on my night stand, toppled over. The sheets that I had just thrown off of the bed caught on fire. I ran into the kitchen to get water. When I had returned, the entire bed, rug, and night stand were caught completely on fire. I dropped the pan of water and ran into my father's room.

I dove onto the floor and pulled at my father's coat. In this emergency, my father's rule of never entering his room completely slipped my mind.

He leaped up from the floor and threw me out of his lap and to the side. "I thought I told you never to come here!" he yelled.

"I – I – I'm sorry."

"Leave!" He took up a bunch of black cloth up in his arms and threw it over something large and oval shaped.

"Please!"

"Leave, Gustave! You have disobeyed me!"

"Please, Papa! Please! I need your help!" This seemed to snap him out of his trance. He dropped to his knees and violently took me up in his long bony fingers.

"What is it, Gustave?" he asked.

"The gas lamp fell over in my room! I don't know what to do! I can't put it out myself!"

He stood up quickly and threw me to the side. I got up and stood behind his strong figure. The flames had made their way into our small kitchen, and one of the chairs was on fire. Papa took up the pan that I had dropped. He ran several pans of water and made his way deeper into my room.

When the flames had finally died, Father stumbled out of my room. His face was covered in soot. There was no way possible to tell the color of his skin he was so covered in ash. He was coughing into his handkerchief. He was hanging onto the doorway. He opened his big blue eyes and looked at me with sympathy, fell to his knees, and passed out onto the floor.

With my first instinct, I tried to wake him. I was now coughing from the smoke myself. I tried to drag him to the stairs. After a few tugs, I realized this effort was no good either. I darted up the stairs. There was no one in the theatre this time of night. It was almost two in the morning. I ran up another set of stairs into the upstairs dressing rooms. I pounded my fist against Madame Giry's dressing room door. As I had hoped, she answered the door. Her hair was still in its braids, but she was in a white night gown and holding up a gas lantern.

"What is it, child?" she asked with a tired tone in her voice.

I was still coughing. "It's Papa," I replied the best that I could. "There was a fire. He put it out, but now he won't get up. I'm afraid he's hurt, and I cannot help him." With that, Madame Giry asked no more questions. She followed me quickly back down to my father's quarters where we found him still lying in the floor.

"Oh, my poor Erik," she muttered. "Oh, thank God, he's still breathing. Gustave, go wet a rag for your father." I did as I was told. She put the cloth over my father's nose and mouth. "Gustave, I cannot move your father any better than you can, but perhaps, we can both move him together." I ran to him and wrapped my arms around his chest. Madame Giry, now coughing as well, grabbed him around the legs. We slowly tugged him up the stairs into the light.

He came back around in a few minutes, but he couldn't speak. The soot had overwhelmed his lungs. He was lying on the floor flat on his back. With the flick of his wrist, he beckoned me over to him. His hand wrapped around the back of my head, and he pressed my head against his chest. I wrapped my arms around him. I knew in the back of my mind that there was nothing more we could do for him until the morning, but I could not just let my father lie there in the middle of the floor in such a feeble state.

I broke the grip he had around my neck, and I ran backstage. I came back with two pillows that one of the clowns used in their act, a cape that he could use as a blanket, and I brought Madame Giry a chair in case she wanted to stay. I lifted up my father's head and slid the pillow under. I rested my head on the other pillow right there beside him and covered us both with the cape. Papa was still gasping for fresh air and still could not speak to me, but his now darkened face had streaks where tears had fallen. I wasn't sure if this was out of pain or gratefulness, but they were there all the same. His face said all of his words for him, and if that wasn't enough, he gripped my hand in his and held it to his chest the rest of the night.

Madame Giry did not stay with us. She went upstairs, got dressed, and went out to look for a doctor. She gave me specific instructions not to take my eyes off of my dear Papa. I don't think that I could have. The strongest man I ever knew was lying here in the floor crippled beside me, and it was all because I knocked over a gas lamp.