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The Madonna of Notre Dame

Page 8

by Alexis Ragougneau


  Landard gave the deputy magistrate his seat behind the desk. She opened the window wide, sat down opposite Thibault, and studied him carefully. There was nothing angelic about him except the nickname. The night he’d spent in the cells had visibly overwhelmed and broken him. Landard was laying siege to a fortress that was ready to yield. If the young man had something on his conscience, it would take less than an hour to make him confess.

  “Young man, I’ve come to inform you that your custody is being prolonged by another twenty-four hours.”

  The boy was still staring at the spot on the side of the desk left vacant by the captain’s shoes. He had not paid the deputy magistrate the slightest attention.

  “Did you hear me? Are you all right?”

  Without stirring, without even blinking, he began to talk, and Claire Kauffmann was suddenly struck by how very pale he was.

  “They went to see my mother, madame. They went to see her and they made her talk. Then they showed her on their screens like a circus animal, her face streaming with tears, with more wrinkles than a mummy. They showed my mother in tears on TV to millions of viewers.”

  Claire Kauffmann turned to the police officer. “What’s he saying? What’s he talking about?”

  “Didn’t you watch it? They interviewed his mother, and showed it on the one o’clock news.”

  “You’re joking! Which station? Who told them the identity of the suspect?”

  “No idea, madame. I guess they found out, they were doing their jobs, just like you and me.”

  “And who showed him the interview?”

  “We had a little break during our chat, about ten minutes ago. Gombrowicz clearly needed some fresh air, so I sent him downstairs and Thibault quietly watched the news while we were waiting for you, just like an old couple over a TV dinner.”

  At the mention of the television report, the young man suddenly looked dizzy. Claire Kauffmann walked around the desk and put a hand on his shoulder. “Captain, remove his handcuffs.”

  “That’s not very prudent, madame.”

  “Captain Landard, I’m asking you to remove his handcuffs immediately. I’m calling a doctor.”

  Landard complied, let the deputy magistrate do as she saw fit, and, hands in his pockets, went and stood comfortably at the other end of the room. She picked up the receiver. While the number was ringing, she turned again to the young man. He finally raised his eyes, which had been totally emptied of everything, toward the young woman, and she noticed for the first time how pale his eyes were, an almost translucent gray, a gray like tracing paper, as if they were only slightly masking the inside of his soul. He joined his hands, which were now free, and recited in a whisper: Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed be the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now, and at the hour of our death.

  Then he stood up and ran.

  Deputy Kauffmann’s phone had now been ringing in vain for three hours. Father Kern had never considered it important to get himself a cell phone, a quirk he now bitterly regretted, forced as he now was to leave his jar between confessions to go to the antediluvian pay phone in the sacristy, which nobody had used since the advent of mobile phones. In order to reach the device, which had been stuffed at the end of the corridor linking the cathedral and the sacristy, he had to go all around the ambulatory through the north side, so as to avoid at all costs the south end, where, as usual, Madame Pipi had parked her behind and her flowery hat for the day. A little earlier in the afternoon, as Kern was walking across the cathedral between two attempts to reach the Palais de Justice, he’d caught the eye of the old lady with the hat, and her expression was even more raving mad than usual, as though a flow of anguish was about to burst out, a torrent, a scream about to explode any moment now amid worshippers and tourists. Kern had decided to make a detour, struggling to look away from the glistening eyes staring at him from beneath the plastic poppies, since he considered his phone call to Claire Kauffmann to be more urgent than Madame Pipi’s confessions.

  However, once he’d reach the pay phone, he’d still have to wait to be alone, wait for the sacristan to go and polish the silver in some other distant corner of the cathedral, wait for the duty guard to finish his break and his coffee—since the staff coffee machine was in the sacristy—wait for a worshipper coming to ask for a few drops of holy water for her sick relative to leave, the precious liquid lapping at the bottom of a plastic bottle. And when the coast was finally clear, it was always the same reply he heard on the line: a tone that was becoming increasingly irritating and gave the impression that the entire Palais de Justice had been evacuated as the result of a bomb explosion.

  It was now past four o’clock. Father Kern hung up the receiver again, promising himself to try his luck once more in a few minutes. Like the day before, he could feel his temperature rising, and this only increased his double feeling of urgency and nervousness. He would leave early, this evening; his night, he knew already, did not bode well.

  He sat down on one of the wooden chests in the corridor of the sacristy. The stained glass windows of the Chapter cloister spread a green-tinted light on his back. Nearby, on the right-hand side, behind the leather-lined door between him and the cathedral, the anonymous mass of tourists emitted a dull hubbub worthy of the Tower of Babel, which echoed endlessly, from morning till night, beneath the vaults of the great aisle.

  Father Kern looked at his watch and went toward the pay phone, but was immediately interrupted by Mourad, the guard, who had come in by the external door that gave onto the presbytery. The two men looked at each other for a moment, both embarrassed by each other’s presence, then Mourad greeted the priest with a weary gesture and disappeared into the sacristy. Kern sat back down. He would have to wait again before he could phone.

  He heard the rumble of the coffee machine. Shortly afterward, Mourad reappeared, holding a plastic cup. He collapsed more than sat on the other end of the carved chest on which the priest was already sitting. They remained there for a moment, in the relative silence of this corridor, which was disturbed by Mourad’s repetitive sighs and the sound of the plastic stirrer at the bottom of his cup. Father Kern began to stuff his pipe.

  “You don’t look too well, Mourad. Something not right?”

  “Not right, Father, not right at all.”

  “What’s going on? Tell me.”

  “An injustice, Father, that’s what’s going on. An injustice like I’ve never known in my whole life.”

  “You’ve just come from the presbytery, haven’t you?”

  “That’s right, Father.”

  “Did you go and see the rector?”

  “That’s right, Father. A little earlier, I got a call on my walkie-talkie, ‘Mourad, the rector wants to see you.’ You know, Father, we don’t get summoned up there often.”

  “I know.”

  “So I go up to the presbytery as fast as I can, knock, and walk into the rector’s office. You’ll never guess what he wanted to talk to me about.”

  Father Kern took the time to light his pipe before replying. Heavy, fragrant curls of smoke rose above his head. “It was about your rounds last Sunday night, wasn’t it?”

  The guard sat up straight on the chest. “Good grief, does everybody here know?! Everybody in the world seems to know that I didn’t do my rounds after closing! Everybody except me!”

  “I believe you, Mourad.”

  “Because I’m telling you, Father: I did do my rounds. The aisle, the chapels, the ambulatory, the sacristy, the kitchens, the basements, the changing rooms ...”

  “I believe you.”

  “Then why doesn’t the rector believe me?”

  “I don’t know, Mourad, I don’t know. I guess the police have given him another story. I guess in their eyes it’s the only possible explanation for the tragedy on Sunday night.”

  “You see, Father, that’s the problem. Between a Frenchman and an Arab, it’ll always be
the Frenchman they’ll believe. Automatically, without even thinking.”

  “What you say applies to the whole country. What did the rector say to you?”

  “That once this has all settled down, as he said, there’ll be a disciplinary meeting. What does that mean, Father?”

  “It means that you’ll have to explain yourself, Mourad.”

  “What’s there for me to explain? How can I prove whether or not I did my rounds?”

  “Let me tell you something: when the time comes, if you’re called by the disciplinary committee, you’ll have the right to have someone with you. If you like, that someone can be me.”

  Mourad looked at him askance. “That’s very nice of you, Father. Is that your ‘I defend Arabs and thieves, I defend the murderers in Poissy’ side? Is that your ‘good Christian, good boy’ side? Thank you very much, Father, but let me tell you something: this isn’t Poissy and I’m neither a murderer nor a thief. With all due respect, you can keep your pity. And If I say I did my job properly, then it’s true. And I shouldn’t need to have a priest next to me to make people believe it.”

  He drained his coffee in one gulp and walked away toward the inside of the cathedral, turning up the volume of the radio he wore at his belt, right next to his jangling key chain.

  Father Kern got up with difficulty from the chest he was sitting on. He was already feeling pain in his lower limbs. Forgetting about the pay phone and the deputy magistrate for a moment, he went through the external door, down the stone steps and walked in the direction of the rector’s residence. He immediately saw him, leaning against the dark wall of his presbytery. Father de Bracy also noticed Father Kern, and started walking toward him. The two priests met at the door of Saint-Étienne.

  “Have you come out for air, Monsignor?”

  “It’s so hot up there in the presbytery. It’s unbearable. Remind me which tobacco you smoke, François.”

  “Peterson, Monsignor. A Virginia-based blend. You don’t smoke, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. I did when I was younger, but that was a long time ago. Were you coming to see me, François?”

  “I’ve just heard that Mourad is going to appear before the disciplinary committee.”

  “Not anymore. I’m going to leave poor Mourad alone, and the cathedral is finally going to be able to resume its liturgical life.”

  “How come? What’s happening, Monsignor?”

  “I’ve just received a call from the Minister himself. All this regrettable business is over.”

  “The Minister?”

  “The Minister of Justice. Surely you’re aware of his special interest in our cathedral. One could say that the suspect has just signed his entire confession.”

  “‘One could say?’ What do you mean?”

  “The young man committed suicide early this afternoon. A tragedy. Apparently, he jumped from the fourth floor right in the middle of an interrogation. By the time they took him to the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, he was already dead.”

  Sitting on top of the stone wall, his legs swinging above the water, Gombrowicz watched the Seine flow by. Half an hour earlier, he’d come out of Number 36. He’d crossed the street, heedless of the traffic. Without thinking, driven by a peculiar need to see the waters flow, he’d gone down the paved alley that led to the river. He knew perfectly well that when he went back, he’d have to tell them what he’d seen, what had happened. An hour. They’d given him an hour to calm down and regroup. He searched for words while looking at the flowing Seine. He tried to alter the images in his head into a logical sequence of sentences, but couldn’t really manage it.

  Words had never been Gombrowicz’s strong point. Ever since police academy, perhaps even since high school, he wasn’t quite sure, reports, paperwork, and minutes were for him a cross to bear. God only knew how many reports a cop had to write over the course of his career.

  Once he was up there, they’d ask him to provide his version of the facts, after they’d heard Landard, after they’d questioned the young deputy. They’d ask him to transform feelings into words. What on earth was he going to tell the Police Inspection Committee people?

  I was down in the courtyard of Number 36. I was sitting on the front wing of the Peugeot 308. I was finishing my panini. I was thinking of having a cigarette before going back up.

  Just what was he going to tell them?

  I had just opened my can of orange Fanta. I leaned my head back to drink and looked up.

  What should he tell them? Should he mention the feeling he’d had since yesterday, which had prevented him from sleeping much of the night?

  I could see very clearly that the boy was at the end of his tether. I’d already seen it in the car, last night, on the way back, after the search. Landard was driving at breakneck speed and the little lady, sitting next to him in the passenger seat, was staring at the road not saying anything, looking like she’d be on sick leave before the year is out.

  Just what should he tell them?

  I could see perfectly well that the kid would snap. Already in the car, last night, I felt he was shaking like a leaf. Then, when we took him down to the cells at the Palais for the night, I felt his arm give way. When Landard told him he’d be body searched, he started crying like a baby.

  What could they possibly ask him?

  Did he eat his cup of instant soup in the cell last night? How should I know? Did they have enough of it to go around? Because they looked rather full last night. Who did he spend the night with? Who else was in his twenty-three-foot cell? I don’t really know. What I do know is that he didn’t look good in the morning. Obviously, the Palais cells aren’t exactly the Ritz. Coffee, yes. Of course he had the right to a coffee. I even bought him one. For once, the machine was working.

  What should he tell them? Tell them exactly what he thought?

  Let me tell you, there’s something in this business that doesn’t add up. From the very beginning, something about it has been bothering me.

  Should he hush his gut feeling and stick to the facts? To the courtyard at Number 36? To the panini? To the front wing of the Peugeot 308?

  I leaned my head back to drink my orange Fanta and I saw him at the window. I saw him go through the window at incredible speed. Like a contortionist coming out of a small box, if you like, with his arms and legs out in front, but in fast-forward.

  Should he tell them about that odd feeling? The feeling that time had suddenly stopped during the fall?

  Then he fell but slowly, like in slow motion. And in a deathly silence. Like a dead leaf, like a leaf that’s too light. Or like an angel. At least to start with. Because the closer he got to the ground, the heavier he seemed. Do you see what I mean? And the fall grew faster. Because when he touched the ground of the courtyard, there was a very dull thud, very strange, very heavy, like a piano crashing down, but without the notes. Do you see what I mean? Just the sound of bones. The sound of bones breaking, but without the notes.

  However, what he didn’t need to tell them was that when he’d seen the kid dead at his feet, he’d screamed. That was something he remembered extremely clearly: he dropped his can of orange Fanta and started screaming like a man possessed. And the whole of Number 36 was looking out of their windows to see what was happening.

  The itching seemed to be coming from deep inside his flesh. It was as though a foreign, living, demented body had penetrated his body and chosen his joints to start eating away at his insides. Scratching was no use. Or else he would do it until he drew blood, until his skin gave and opened up, until his nails could dig through the flesh and claw at cartilage and bones.

  The fever had kept him nailed to his bed from as early as eight in the evening. He’d tried to take the old Bayard alarm clock apart once again, but a shooting pain in his wrist made him drop the screwdriver. The attack was so violent, he’d had to give in to it. Without even going to the trouble of undressing, he’d lain down on his mattress, a small, dark silhouette on a white sheet, a marionette made of w
retched, dried up wood, lost in the immensity of a bed. On the table, the alarm clock had been left half dismantled, its parts strewn in front of the black and white photo of his brother, while a couple of yards away, Father Kern was trying to forget that he possessed a body.

  There was no possible relief. He’d known that since he was a child. Ever since that day when, at the age of five or six, he’d noticed the red splotches appear for the first time on his hands and neck and cried out, “Mommy!” The fever and the redness had returned the following evening, and the day after that. After four days of this pattern, in addition to which he’d then had sharp pains in his hands and wrists, they decided to put a pair of pajamas and his fluffy rabbit in a suitcase, and go to the hospital. He stayed there for three months.

  They did everything to him—biopsies, lumbar punctures, blood tests—often fearing the worst, in particular cancer of the lymphatic system—then discarded all their theories one by one and in the end agreed on one final diagnosis. The illness was not deadly. That was the good news. The bad news was that nobody knew where it came from, or how to cure it.

  And so the child returned home. The attacks subsided but then came back with a vengeance less than a year later, sending him to the hospital once again. The doctors soon gave up on the huge doses of aspirin and administered equally huge doses of cortisone. The evening pains eventually subsided and they decided, from one attack to the next, as years went by, to make regular use of corticosteroids at every new alarm.

 

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