The Madonna of Notre Dame (5 page)

“Hey, Gombrowicz. What do you bet Mourad didn’t do his rounds last night?”

Father Kern was going home, his head buzzing and his body weary. In the square, amid idle tourists, Eiffel Tower trinket sellers, and gypsy beggars, the woman whom guards and sacristans nicknamed Madame Pipi seemed to be dozing on a bench in the shade of Charlemagne’s equestrian statue. A little earlier that morning, she had been syphoned out as part of the general evacuation ordered by the cathedral rector. His thoughts still absorbed by the image of the dead young woman lying on the stone floor, Kern with his eyes had absentmindedly followed the eccentric old lady’s absurd, flowery hat. He’d seen it struggling to stay afloat above the noisy flood of tourists pushed toward the emergency exit, tossed about like a wisp of straw, desperately trying to swim against the current, losing a few plastic poppies on the way, and finally vanishing into the whirlwind funnel of the Portal of the Last Judgment.

When the priest walked past her, she seemed to miraculously wake up from her nap. She gave him a worried look, bordering on panic, as usual, and made an unsure gesture at him. Kern reciprocated her greeting and picked up the pace. Not today. Not now. This time she’d have to wait to tell him about her apocalyptic visions, her paranoid delirium, and the satanic attacks only she had been chosen to witness, as well as the dazzling retaliations to which only the Virgin seemed to hold the secret. Kern didn’t know what kind of chaotic path could have led Madame Pipi to that permanent chair in Notre Dame, three or four yards from the Virgin of the Pillar where, every morning, she came to lay her anguish. What could she have possibly suffered that she now came to seek, like a daily fix, the benevolent gaze of the marble Madonna? Nobody among the cathedral staff knew anything, or at least not much, about the old lady with the flowery hat. They didn’t even know her name. Very few priests had heard her confession. All that could be gathered about her
was that she’d had a youth marked by a violent father; fear was her constant traveling companion, followed by solitude, then a slow descent into a kind of mental confinement, an increasing dependence on things religious, and a more and more airtight mutism from which she always seemed about to emerge but never succeeded. In other words, she suffered from the kind of—hateful as the term may be—madness that some cathedral regulars sometimes appeared to border on.

Over the course of the eleven summers he spent neglecting his Poissy parish in order to stand in at Notre Dame during the month of August, Father Kern had had the time to get to know these cathedral strays. In that respect, it was probably not very different from the Middle Ages: the cathedral doors were open all day to those damaged by life, those who couldn’t find their place in a brutal world reserved for the strong, a world they’d been hurled into by an accident of birth, and who, in their search for a bubble of comfort or illusion, had found refuge in this huge church at the heart of Île de la Cité. There were quite a few of them, men and women, who, every morning, as soon as the cathedral opened, would go into the nave, to a chair they’d abandoned the day before, and stay there until evening, impervious to the army of tourists invading the aisles. These strays seemed to float between two worlds, staring into space or at a Virgin, a figure of Christ, or a candle, for hours on end. Nobody would ever think of moving them. Sometimes, you had to gently hush them when they entered into direct communication with God or Mary, and engaged in an overly loud conversation. And every so often, you had to take a rag and wipe up the floor under their chairs.

This time, however, Father Kern was going home and his heart would be, like the cathedral doors, exceptionally shut for a few hours.

On the suburban train taking him back to Poissy, he tried to put some order in his thoughts. First, there was the haunting image of the girl lying on the stone floor, tragic and immodest, discovered just as he was starting the
Salve Regina
in the chancel.

Then there was the irruption of this army of police, pistols at their belts, into a sanctuary, that, since the dawn of time, people had been entering in peace, having left their weapons outside. But perhaps that was mere illusion. Perhaps evil and violence had wormed their way in through the impenetrable stones of the cathedral long ago. Perhaps the battle between light and darkness had been raging within the centuries-old walls forever. And perhaps it was more intensely violent there than outside.

A little earlier that afternoon, a young investigator from the Crime Squad had questioned him, along with all the other priests and the rest of the staff. He’d had to recall the events of the previous day. The holy masses, the crowds, the noise, the procession, and the stifling heat. The hymns, the prayers, and the Ave Maria through the sound system. The moments of silent contemplation. Again, the crowds and the heat. And that provocatively beautiful young woman, so visible, so radiant, so mesmerizing, deliberately served up to the eyes of the six Knights of the Holy Sepulcher at the head of the procession. Restricted in their three-piece suits, wearing white gloves, wrapped in their cavalry capes bearing the scarlet cross of Jerusalem. Sweating under a blazing sun, staggering under the weight of a stretcher carrying the silver statue of the Virgin. Their eyes bulging, bloodshot. Was it the physical strain? Or the pain from the weight of the statue digging into their shoulders? Or the sight of this girl parading right under their noses and the inebriating clicking of her heels on the asphalt? And what about the twenty or so priests marching behind the knights? Brief, furtive side glances from surplice-wearing colleagues, sliding from top to toe and from toe to
top, to better caress with their eyes—in spite of themselves and the liturgical dress—the shape, the curve of the buttocks, the outline of the legs of this girl who was walking in very high-heeled pumps, parallel to the procession. And what about the auxiliary bishop, Monsignor Rieux Le Molay? Wedged between the knights and the troop of priests, his miter and crozier towering over the crowd, his hand stroking the air in an infinite repetition of signs of the cross, again, and again, and again. And sometimes, as his fingers would complete the gesture on the right hand side—not always, but sometimes—his eyes would veer slightly, a little beyond the imaginary cross that was already evaporating in the heat, and his gaze would caress, even just for a second, even in the midst of a circular glance, the beautiful white form, the slender ankles, the bend of the calves, the tanned thighs that disappeared under an unreasonably short skirt. The temptation of lust. A man who asks to emerge for an imperceptible instant from the heavy cope embroidered with gold thread.

After all, hadn’t the entire Île de la Cité ogled her with desire? Hadn’t the whole of Paris? And in the end, like a thunderstorm tearing through an overcharged sky, there had been this absurd fight with the blond young worshipper, who looked quietly insane and harmless, but who had suddenly given in to violence. What had happened? And who was that girl? They’d found her the following morning, dead. What was the real truth?

Naturally, the police had questioned him about the incident at the Assumption. Who was the blond boy with the pale, angelic face? Did he know his name? Had he been coming to the cathedral for long? Had he ever shown any signs of violence? Had he heard his confession?

All Father Kern could do was shrug at these questions. Yes, he knew the young man, but only by sight. No, he didn’t know his name. He’d never heard his confession. And even if he had,
a priest wasn’t expected to ask to see the ID of a sinner come to ask the Lord’s forgiveness. No, as far as he knew, the boy had never been violent. He was one of them. One of the Notre Dame strays whose immovable figure appeared every morning amid the rows of chairs.

One day—as it happens, during confession—a young woman with a slightly unhinged expression, an eight a.m. Mass regular, had opened her purse and revealed a half-rusted bread knife. “In case I get attacked by the devil,” she’d said. Father Kern had not thought it appropriate to point her out to the duty guard, since he judged a satanic attack to be highly unlikely. Had he been wrong not to? Were the Notre Dame strays crazy to the point of being dangerous?

These thoughts kept going around and around in his head until he reached his presbytery. The bell of his parish was ringing six p.m. He’d barely shut the door behind him when the phone rang.

“François? It’s Monsignor de Bracy.”

“Yes, Monsignor.”

“You got home alright?”

“Yes, Monsignor.”

“Have you also been questioned by the police?”

“Yes, Monsignor.”

“What did they ask you?”

“They’re interested in yesterday’s incident during the procession.”

“Naturally. They’re making a connection with this morning’s grisly discovery. That’s really bad publicity. And that unfortunate girl. Did you know her, François? Had you seen her in the cathedral before?”

“No, Monsignor, never. I mean not until the ceremony on August fifteenth.”

“Neither had I. To be honest, I’m not really sure what she was doing there, in that inappropriate attire.”

“Any news about when we’ll reopen?”

“I’ve just spoken to Captain Landard. He wishes to reopen from tomorrow. That’s good, even though we’ll probably have a crowd of journalists on our backs first thing.”

“Isn’t it a bit soon, Monsignor? Wouldn’t it be better to wait for the first conclusions of the inquest or the appointment of an investigating magistrate?”

“I understand where you’re coming from, François. However, I’m obliged to make a decision now. Considering the time difference with Manila, I won’t be able to reach the cardinal archbishop before midnight tonight. As for Monsignor Rieux de Molay, ever since he left for Lourdes early this morning, all I’m getting is his voice mail.”

“I see. So you’re hoping to reopen soon?”

“From my point of view, the sooner the better. The Virgin Mary’s faithful are claiming their home back. Besides, I get the impression the police want to check the old adage that a murderer always revisits the scene of his crime.”

“If the young man is guilty of anything, do you really think he’ll come back to loiter in the vicinity?”

“I don’t know, François. I don’t possess your in-depth knowledge of criminals. In any event, I simply wanted to let you know about the cathedral reopening and that I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Have a good evening, François.”

“You, too, Monsignor.”

At the very moment he was putting down the receiver, he noticed red marks on his wrists. He calmly removed his jacket, on the lapel of which a small Roman cross was pinned, and inspected his forearms. The marks went all the way up above his elbows. He knew what they meant. The disease was upon him
again. Over the days that followed, he would be the scene of a struggle, another battle to fight, to add to the countless list of crises that had attacked him since his early childhood. The treatment for them had abruptly stunted his growth and made him into that four-foot-ten, ninety-five-pound ectoplasm in priest’s clothes.

TUESDAY

K
NEELING IN FRONT OF THE LARGE, CRUCIFIED
C
HRIST NAILED
to the south wall, hands joined under his chin and lips moving silently, Gombrowicz was praying. Except that what he was hearing was in no way the voice of God. The voice speaking to him through the earpiece belonged to his superior in the Crime Squad, Captain Landard.

“Don’t overdo it, Gombrowicz. You look like a little girl in white ankle socks, taking her First Communion.”

Gombrowicz raised his hands a couple of inches and whispered into the microphone he’d pinned to the cuff of his shirtsleeve. “My knees are beginning to ache. How do they manage to stay like this for so long without moving? There’s an old woman next to me and she’s been praying non-stop for half an hour. Still as a statue.”

Landard burst out laughing. “Perhaps she’s dead, too. Give her a little nudge and see if she comes crashing down on the stone floor.”

“No chance. I can guarantee this one’s virginity is still intact. No need to recork it with wax.”

Shortly before opening time, Landard had set up his plan
of action. Besides Gombrowicz, whom he’d positioned next to the Portal of Saint Anne, and who was keeping an eye on the entrance, three young athletic-looking lieutenants, with fanny packs containing their service weapons across their chests, had been deployed in the nave, camouflaged as worshippers or low budget tourists. At regular intervals, a pickpocket caught red-handed would bear the brunt of this, to say the least, unusual concentration of police forces in this place that represented a strong temptation for the petty thieves of Paris.

Landard was settled at the helm of the cathedral audio-visual control room situated above the sacristy. Sitting at the console littered with blinking diodes, his walkie-talkie within easy reach, the captain acted like a minor monarch surveying his kingdom through cameras arranged all around the nave, which were generally used to film the great Sunday Mass for the Catholic TV channel, KTO. Mourad, whom Landard had practically requisitioned to guide him through the mosaic of plans and views of Notre Dame before him, was at his side. When the moment came, Mourad would be able—at least so Landard hoped—to point out, on one of the control room screens, the suspect’s blond head amid the crowd of anonymous tourists.