The Paris Key

by Juliet Blackwell

She opened her uncle’s bag and took out a leather sack full of keys. Then she stretched out on the floor, belly down, and tried the first one in the lock.

  “This might take a while,” she said.

  “How many keys d’ya have there?”

  “More than a hundred.”

  He let out a silent whistle. “And you think one of them might work?”

  “It’s worth a try. My uncle loved old locks and old keys. This”—she held up the old iron key ring full of skeleton keys—“purportedly belonged to a thief back in the Victorian era.”

  “Really? That’s craic.” He came over, checked them out. When he leaned over her, she could smell him, feel his warmth in the cool damp of the basement.

  “Crack, again?” Genevieve said, trying to ignore his closeness.

  “Fun, interesting. Out of the ordinary.” He smiled down at her, holding her gaze a beat too long. When he spoke again, his voice was very low. “Like you.”

  Genevieve could feel she was blushing as she focused on the lock. “Unfortunately, the thief’s key ring doesn’t seem to be doing the trick this time. Like I said, this may take a while. You should probably go take your pictures.”

  She didn’t look up while she tried key after unsuccessful key. She could hear the soft clicks and purrs of Killian’s cameras, and she wondered what those dark eyes were finding: interesting cracks in the stone walls, a corner full of cottony spiderwebs, a discarded children’s rocking chair?

  Finally she looked up to see that he was taking pictures of her while she worked.

  “I don’t take good pictures.”

  “No worries, I’ll be taking them.”

  “I mean I’m not very photogenic. I don’t like having my picture taken.”

  “Well now, those are two different things. Sometimes they go together, most times not. People think they don’t look good in pictures because it’s not the way they see themselves. But if the photographer is gifted, he or she sees beyond the surface.”

  “And you fancy yourself that good, do you?”

  He grinned. “Ah, sure, yeah,” he said in an exaggerated Irish accent. His cheekiness made her smile despite herself. “Have you ever seen yourself when you’re focusing on a lock?”

  “No, I . . . never really thought about it, I guess.”

  “You just wait ’til you see the photos. The ones from the Love Locks Bridge turned out brilliant—I’ll show you next time you come by.”

  “Hey, that reminds me: My uncle was writing a book about antique locks and keys before he died. I was thinking of trying to finish it for him. Would you be willing to take photos of some of the pieces?”

  “I’m not sure I’d be the best photographer for a project like that, but I’ll take a look at it, at least. I’d be honored.”

  “Great, thanks.” Genevieve hadn’t decided upon finishing the book until right that moment. But now, as she lay on a cold stone basement floor, trying key after key in the lock, sensing her uncle doing just this as he installed the lock . . . perhaps Philippe was right: She had carried Dave’s ghost with her down into this basement. He was with her in the keys, the lock, the process. Her new friends were right to call her the American locksmith. She would fight the bureaucracy, use her stubbornness, and then take up her uncle’s mantle.

  “What happens if you can’t find a key to fit the lock?”

  “I’ll pick it. But I figured this was worth a try since I’ll bet my uncle put this lock on. And if I can find a key that fits, I can give it to Philippe so he can open it again—which would be much easier than me making a new one.”

  “Ah.”

  “The only thing is . . .” She leaned over as far as she could, using the flashlight to try to peer inside the keyhole of the lock. “This is a very strange lock. It looks like a standard antique Yale on the outside, but inside . . .”

  “What is it?”

  Genevieve made out edges and grooves that made no sense. And then she realized: The exterior lock plate was a decoy.

  She unscrewed it, removed the plate, and revealed the ancient mechanism within.

  “What is that?” Killian asked.

  “I don’t know what my uncle was up to, but it looks like . . .” Genevieve was struck by a crazy notion. She slipped her necklace over her head and fitted her rusty Syrian key—the one she had worn for almost twenty years—into the lock.

  Genevieve hesitated.

  “Go on, then,” said Killian in a quiet voice. “You’re not seriously afraid, are you?”

  She looked up. Met his gaze. Told the truth. “Yes.”

  He gave her a little smile, understanding shining in his eyes. “I’ll be right by your side. If this is where the bodies are buried, I’ll help you escape.”

  She gave a nervous laugh. Why had her uncle sent her mother this key? Was it merely a coincidence, or did it mean something? And why would he have disguised the lock with the wrong external plate?

  She turned the key. The bolt was difficult to slide but finally gave way with a loud snick.

  Genevieve blew out a long breath, then pulled open the door. She and Killian pointed their flashlights down into the hole.

  A rusty ladder was bolted to one wall, leading down about six feet, then meeting up with a tunnel.

  “Let me go first,” said Killian, already launching himself through the hatch.

  Genevieve put on her headlamp, slipped her necklace back on, and followed.

  Chapter Fifty

  “This is craic!” Killian exclaimed in a loud whisper.

  Genevieve felt like whispering, too, as though they were entering a sacred space. It felt primordial, the pitch-black bowels of an ancient city that predated the Paris she had come to know. L’empire de la mort, the empire of the dead.

  Tunnels led off in several directions. The air was stuffy, damp. Sepulchral.

  “Which way?” Genevieve asked.

  “Lady’s choice. Where do ya fancy?”

  She started down one passage. In about twenty feet they reached a dead end, retraced their steps, and tried a second. A big star had been scratched into the stone at the juncture: Killian and Genevieve both took note, not wanting to get lost. The dark passageways were disorienting, with no way to intuit in which direction one was walking.

  Killian snapped a few photos, but so far they had seen nothing more interesting than dark, cramped stone tunnels. They had to squeeze past a crooked column made of chunks of concrete and stone, marked with a series of letters and numbers. Killian snapped more pictures.

  “I’ve read about this: At one point buildings and roads started caving in on the tunnels, so workers braced them with columns. They left their information here, see? The codes tell which crew it was that completed the work.”

  A few feet farther down was an indentation in the wall. And a door.

  “A storage closet?” Genevieve suggested.

  “Maybe. Who knows? Could be anything. A German bunker, maybe.” He tried the knob. It was locked.

  Killian looked at Genevieve in challenge, a tiny half smile on his face.

  “You suppose you could open it?”

  “We’re not supposed to be down here at all, you know. Philippe told me the catacombs were interdits, except for the tourist part. And now you want me to break into a locked room?”

  “You’re already a criminal, you know, practicing locksmithing without a license,” he said with a tsk. “Seriously, you’re not curious? Besides, it’s directly under Philippe’s house, so it probably belongs to him. And he said you were welcome to look around, didn’t he?”

  “You’re a bad influence,” said Genevieve. “You’re like the kid my mom told me not to hang around with.”

  But even as she said it, she knelt to look at the lock. Incredibly, it looked like a match to the one on the trapdoor: an ornate antique doorplate tha
t didn’t match the inner locking mechanism.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I think it’s my uncle’s work again.”

  “There, now. Practically an invitation to open it.”

  She unscrewed the plate and, once again, used the ancient key on her necklace to open the lock.

  Killian started snapping pictures the moment the door swung open.

  Inside was a small chamber with an iron-frame cot topped by a very sad looking mattress and a blanket. A pile of folded clothes sat atop these. There was a bottle of wine, and some sort of disgusting powdery substance that looked like it used to be bread. Tins of tuna fish and peaches and pâté, plus a can opener.

  One entire wall held faint traces of a mural done in chalk: A Chagall-like painting of a man and woman floating among the stars, kissing.

  Genevieve could hear Sylviane’s voice: “like the way love is supposed to feel.”

  Killian let the camera fall on his chest and picked up a newspaper. “August 17, 1983. Front-page story of the day: the bombing of the Spanish embassy. I remember hearing about that . . . What do you suppose this place was? If it was a kids’ hangout I’d expect to find old liquor bottles and signs of smoking, but this . . . ?”

  “It looks like someone was hiding,” Genevieve said. Her voice was trembling.

  “You okay, Genevieve?”

  She nodded. “I just . . . just the willies, I guess.”

  “Do you want to go? I’ll walk you back to the entrance.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m good for a few more minutes. Finish up with your photos.”

  She wasn’t ready to share with Killian what she was only beginning to put together in her own mind. Not yet.

  Genevieve picked up a book sitting beside the stack of clothing. Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. She opened the cover and saw the stamp, in a bold, blocky script:

  DAVE MACKENZIE

  Under Lock and Key, Serrurier,

  Rue Saint-Paul, Village Saint-Paul

  Her heart started to thud loudly in her chest, the sound filling her ears. In the sepulchral quiet of the underground, she was surprised Killian couldn’t hear it. But his attention was elsewhere, on taking photos of the mural.

  Could this be where Angela and Xabier used to meet? Her (married) mother was so in love with another man that she agreed to see him here, in this stinking hole in the ground? Sweet, dutiful Angela Martin?

  So much for the City of Lights. Chagall mural or no, this was no one’s idea of a romantic getaway.

  Genevieve felt sick at the thought of it. How could she?

  “Hey,” Killian’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “I think we should get you out of here. I apologize, Genevieve. My enthusiasm for this sort of thing overcomes my good sense. I forget that not everyone shares my love of the decrepit.”

  “No, I . . . it’s fascinating. But, yes, maybe I’m feeling a little claustrophobic.”

  “C’mon, then. I’ll escort you back to the land of the living.”

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Angela, 1983

  “It’s me,” Angela manages, though her mouth is so dry she barely gets the words out. “Xabi?”

  The arm around her neck is hot, scalding.

  “Angel! I could have hurt you!” He releases her, falls back against the wall. His arm wraps around his stomach, as though holding himself in pain. “What are you doing here?”

  She realizes she is crying. She feels dizzy, displaced. Is it the drugs, or is it being down here, in this cold, stinking warren to which her lover has run for safety, like an animal.

  “I can’t believe you are here, my angel. Are you all right? Sit, sit down, mi alma.” My soul. He calls her his soul.

  He leads her to the small cot, which squeaks loudly in protest when she half sits, half reclines on the pillow. He crouches before her, concern etched on his strong, handsome features. She studies him: He has grime and soot everywhere; it has settled into the tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He is wearing the same clothes he had on when last she saw him: the pale blue chambray shirt is torn, with large sections charred. She realizes he has not been treated in a hospital; instead he must have come directly down here after dropping her off at the emergency room.

  His arm is still wrapped around his middle.

  “Are you hurt?” she says. “You need a doctor.”

  He shakes his head. “This is not possible. I am okay.”

  She looks at him a long time and starts crying again. But this time she can hear herself whimpering, a strangely muffled keening sound that surges from her core.

  “No, no, mi alma, please, don’t cry,” he whispers, leaning forward to wrap an arm around her. She can smell him; he hasn’t showered. But it doesn’t matter. The mere touch of him helps her settle; her flesh longs for his caress, for connection.

  “Don’t cry, Angel,” he continues, his voice crooning, soft. “You are okay; you will be well. Does it hurt?”

  “No, no, it’s not that,” she says into the shoulder of his shirt, her voice muffled. “What happened, Xabi? Did you really . . . ? People were hurt. Killed. Why did you do it?”

  He releases her, sits back on a tiny footstool. He moves cautiously, as though worried about hurting her—or himself. He continues to stroke her head, pushing the hair out of her eyes, studying the place where his hand touched her head as though memorizing the sight, the sensation.

  “Xabi?” she repeats, now wanting answers. Needing answers.

  How could he?

  He remains silent. He avoids her eyes, instead focusing his gaze on her mouth, her neck, the bandages on her arm.

  Angela watches him watch her. Anger surges, along with nausea. The stench of this place washes over her; the scent of stale air and unwashed human and dampness. She barely is able to turn and lean over the side of the cot before she starts to retch, losing her breakfast right on the floor.

  Par for the course, she thinks from some far-off, distant place. But she says, “Sorry, oh lord, I’m so sorry, so sorry,” as Xabi clucks and tells her it is not a problem, he will take care of it, she should be in bed, taking care of herself, getting well—and forgetting all about him.

  His voice, his velvet voice, comes from someplace distant, as though she is at the bottom of a coffee can and he is bustling about the kitchen, like the time they had apero at Philippe’s house, before going out to the cabaret, that magical night with Dave and Pasquale, Philippe and Delphine—three couples in love and health and Paris and music so joyous it would never end.

  • • •

  When Angela awakens she is in Philippe’s house. Alone.

  How did he get her up here? Xabi is injured; she is sure of that. And she is no waif of a woman; she has always been strong, substantial.

  He needs medical attention. Why hadn’t he gone to Thibeaux? Or Pablo or Cyril or Michelle or Mario? One of the people sympathetic to his cause?

  His “cause.” The word sank, heavy and laden, into her heart. Xabi had been part of this, of hurting innocent people. Of instilling terror in minds and souls. How could he?

  He had told her more about his life: His father had been imprisoned for decades. He grew up steeped in his mother’s bitterness toward Franco and her disappointment when his ouster did not change things much; his mother died of a broken heart, he said, having lost not only her husband but her eldest son to the brutality of the state. He told her again and again about cradling his brother’s bleeding form in his arms, of watching the light in his eyes fade, of the moment when Rémy had gone from beloved, overprotective older brother to . . . corpse.

  Xabi told Angela she could never understand what it was like, to grow up that way. Perhaps he was right. Her complaints are trifling in comparison: a rural background, the lack of excitement, the tedium of life on the farm.

  Images of home sweep
over her. Of Jim and Nick, smiling and steady. The day-in, day-out caring for the animals. The scent of the morning damp, dew on the long grass wetting her legs as she makes her way out to the chicken coop, fresh eggs and buckwheat pancakes for breakfast, the aroma of real maple syrup heating atop the stove. Nick’s serious face while he listens to Jim’s unfailingly patient voice explaining the intelligent and stubborn nature of goats, how to approach them for milk.

  Jim looking up at her, thanking her for breakfast, the trust and love unsaid between them and yet there in his expression. Always there. Constant. Warm. Safe.

  And she had run away from that. How could she?

  Suddenly she is awash in the knowledge that she wants (needs!) to go home. To Jim. He is a good man, reliable, dependable. He deserves better. So much better.

  And to the warm embrace and sticky hands of her son. Her son, her dear Tricky Nicky. How she yearns for the slight metallic scent of his little-boy sweat, for the easygoing happiness in his big eyes.

  Angela begins to laugh. She must look like a madwoman, she thinks, lying on a divan in a semiabandoned mansion, bandaged, strewn with cobwebs and underground grime, her laughter the only sound breaking the dusty silence.

  But the laughter soon dissolves, overtaken by tears. Angela is racked with sobs, and another wave of nausea.

  For the first time it dawns on her: It is morning sickness.

  • • •

  The next day, Angela returns to the room. Their tiny room in les souterrains. It is empty.

  But he has left a letter:

  Mi alma, my Angel,

  Do you remember how I told you an American like you cannot understand? I think you heard that as an insult, but I do not mean this. I mean that if you are not grown up in a situation like mine, you cannot know what it feels like. This is why I think sometimes a radical solution is our only hope. At some point, it becomes the only form of self-defense.

  I know you cannot understand. But I hope you can remember me as a man who loved you and cherished you beyond reason. A man who will love you for a thousand lifetimes, who adores you for exactly who you are. If things were different, I would have spent my life trying to make you happy. I would happily have died for you.