So this was what the rector had been angling for. Throughout the confession, Father Kern had naively believed that he was the one holding all the cards, when, in actual fact, that wasn’t the case. From beginning to end, the prelate had maneuvered the interview, leading his confessor to an impossible choice.
“I will not grant you absolution, Monsignor, for the simple reason that you’ve lied to me. Your confession was not sincere, and I see no sign of contrition in it.”
“Not sincere? What on earth do you mean? I’ve told you the exact truth. It may look dirty and immoral to you, but it’s nonetheless the truth. What do you think? That it always comes pure and immaculate, bathed in a white halo? Come on, François, don’t act the little saint. You’ve been to prisons often enough to know: the truth is not necessarily clean, and French cells are full of miscarriages of justice.”
Father Kern struggled not to let himself be undermined. “I will not grant you absolution, Monsignor, because Luna Hamache’s death was not an accident at all. On the contrary, your crime was premeditated.”
The prelate’s expression hardened and, for the first time since coming face-to-face with the rector inside the jar, Kern thought he’d made a crack in his adversary’s breastplate. He did not give him time to regroup. “That night in the treasury, you didn’t attack your victim simply to keep her quiet. Did she even have time to utter a word? You didn’t fall prey to panic at all. On the contrary, your action had been carefully thought through during the course of the evening.”
“That’s absurd.”
“When you went to take the keys from the sacristy, before going to meet Luna at the apse door, you took care to slip something into your pocket.”
“Oh, really? What did I put in my pocket, François? Tell me exactly, since you’re so clever.”
“A pair of latex gloves, Monsignor. The ones the sacristan uses to polish the silver. Unluckily for you, Gérard is an inveterate moaner. He tells his woes to the entire cathedral. On Monday morning, he cursed for an hour, before Mass and the grisly discovery. You see, he couldn’t find his precious box of gloves. The gloves you used to avoid leaving any marks on Luna’s neck.”
“This is ridiculous. You’re accusing me purely and simply of murder.”
“That’s right, Monsignor. And you will be made to appear before a criminal court. Nearly an hour ago, I spoke on the phone to Deputy Magistrate Kauffmann. I told her I wanted to talk with her. She’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“You really think so, François? Do you really believe I will allow you to destroy the work of a lifetime in just a moment?” He put his hand into his jacket and pulled out a weapon, an automatic pistol that looked old and tired, and pointed it at Father Kern. “Stand up, François. Go ahead, I’ll be right behind you. Very close. Don’t forget that.”
He slipped the revolver in his pocket and held the glass door open for the diminutive priest.
The boundary between good and evil had shifted. It was a subtle shift of which only Kern was aware, triggered by a man, alone among so many others who’d devoted their lives to God, a man who’d elected to cross to the other side of the boundary, to the side of the forces of darkness. And yet for Kern this tiny reorientation of the boundary was a veritable earthquake. He then remembered a conversation he’d had barely twenty-four hours earlier, in Claire Kauffmann’s office, and what the young magistrate had said came back to him word for word. We don’t ask ourselves if a decision is moral but whether it’s legal. Rector de Bracy had just reconciled justice and religion by dipping both in a pail of abjectness.
“Keep going, François. And don’t do anything foolish.”
Kern dove into himself in search of God, calling on Him, trying to communicate with Him, redoubling his efforts at complete understanding. This time, however, the answer to his questions was self-evident and could be summarized in one simple sentence: he was going to die.
They cut through the crowd, which was dense at that time of day. With a slight chin nod the rector greeted a few devout women kneeling in the nave. One of them rushed to kiss his hand with a ceremonial bow. He proffered her his free hand. With his other hand, he was holding the automatic pistol, wedged deep in his pocket, pointing at Father Kern. They walked along the south side, across the transept, past the Virgin of the Pillar, then into the ambulatory. A few yards before the entrance to the sacristy, by the plaque commemorating the beginning of the building of the cathedral in the Year of Our Lord 1163, Bracy put his hand on Kern’s shoulder. “The door on the right. Open it, François.”
“It’ll be locked.”
“It’s open. I made sure of it before coming to see you.”
“You’ve thought of everything, Monsignor.”
The door opened onto a spiral staircase that led up to the inside gallery. When they reached it, they stopped and the rector, having trouble catching his breath, leaned against the wall. “Oh, Lord, I shouldn’t have smoked that cigarette earlier. After so many years of abstinence, I’m clearly too old for it.”
He pulled the gun out of his pocket and signaled to Kern with the barrel to keep climbing. The staircase seemed to be twisting up endlessly toward the heights of Notre Dame. Behind him, Father Kern could hear the rector’s breathing becoming hoarser and more labored with every step. At last, the stairs opened up to a narrow gallery that ran alongside the roof. Just a few yards away rose Viollet-le-Duc’s spire. The place was a veritable furnace. The lead tiles had been storing the heat of the sun since early morning. Down below, Kern could see the sprawling flying buttresses spreading all around the apse and, even lower down, in the gardens and on the embankment, the tiny bodies of tourists, many of whom were looking up in order to admire the cathedral in its immensity. The two men were over a hundred and thirty feet above the ground.
“No point looking around, François. Nobody can see us. We’re hidden from the visitors up in the towers by the roof. For those down there we are two dots lost in the midst of stone gargoyles. At most, they’ll see your swallow dive, but then it’ll be too late.”
“A swallow dive? Is this the end you’ve planned for me, Monsignor?”
“Yes, suicide. Once again, I was inspired by the little blond angel. That boy was a veritable gift from Heaven.”
“And what would be the reason for this suicide? Luna’s death? Doubts triggered by the police investigation? Loss of faith? Who’d believe it?”
“Come on, François, everybody knows about your illness. Everybody knows your pain has become unbearable. On top of that, there’s your brother. His prison suicide. Your power-lessness to save him from death. Yes, François, I know all that, even though you’ve never mentioned it. Another perk of my relationship with the Ministry. How long ago was it? Twenty, thirty years? But you can never forget, can you, François? When it comes to certain recollections, our memory stubbornly refuses to let us down. On the contrary, year after year our memory becomes more and more accurate, more precise, until it crosses the threshold of torture. God only knows I’m in a position to testify to that. You’ve no idea how much I sympathize, François.”
“Yes, our memory. It was never a coincidence that you went to see women of North African origin, was it, Monsignor?”
“We all carry the load of our sins as best we can. For a long time I’ve been carrying the burden of a fundamental, original sin, that of an entire nation. A sin I’ve tried to bury beneath a life of respectability and prayer. But redemption is not possible. Let me tell you: what cannot be erased is the memory of the body. The body. The body never forgets.”
Once again, he pointed the weapon at Father Kern.
“I will not jump, Monsignor. You’ll have to shoot me, and all of Paris will hear the shot.”
Bracy smiled sarcastically. He slid the magazine out of the handle of the gun before pushing it back with a click of the breech. “It’s not loaded. This weapon hasn’t been used for fifty years.” He put the gun on the stone railing. “I took it out of a drawer. I thought I’d
use it to intimidate you. Fear, François, the universal fear at the sight of a weapon. It’s what determines in a second who is the slave and who the master. It’s what made you climb all the way to the top of the cathedral without saying a word, without calling out to the crowd around us. I was alone and there were a thousand of you against me. Fear, I tell you. It’s why you’re going to do as I say and jump. The fear of death, François.”
He slid a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out an additional means of persuasion. Slowly, with the obsessive care old people sometimes have, he put on a pair of latex gloves, perhaps even the same pair he’d used to silence Luna forever. “Don’t put up a fight, François. It would be pointless. I’m twice your weight. Instead, consider that, with your sacrifice, you save the Cathedral of Notre Dame from dishonor.”
Then, his arms still strong despite his age, he grasped Father Kern around the waist. The diminutive priest felt himself being lifted off the ground. It was, indeed, pointless putting up a fight. In Bracy’s arms he was no more than a puppet on a string. The rector was approaching to the void. His breathing had quickened once again. Father Kern closed his eyes and thought of his brother.
“Freeze! Now you’re going to let go of the little priest, grandpa, and let him walk away.”
It was a voice behind them. Kern felt the rector stop. He opened his eyes again and saw Lieutenant Gombrowicz in the gallery. He was holding his gun with both hands, pointing it at them. He felt the grip around his chest loosen, as though the rector’s whole body, which had up to then seemed made of stone, was suddenly turning to liquid. He let himself slide to the ground. Much to his surprise, his legs agreed to carry him, and he walked the few steps that distanced him from the void and ensured his safety.
“OK, grandpa. Now you’re going to put your hands in the air and let me come closer.”
With his left hand, Gombrowicz produced a pair of handcuffs. Monsignor de Bracy’s lips were quivering. He began to murmur. “The body ... The body ...”
Then, with the awkward movement of an old man on his last legs, he grabbed his old semi-automatic from the railing, and pointed it at the police officer. There were two instantaneous shots, causing hundreds of pigeons to take flight. Monsignor de Bracy staggered only at the second shot, as though his solid constitution had been able to take the first lead bullet but not the second. He took another step back, briefly propped himself against the parapet, and gave Father Kern a look devoid of anything. Then he swung back and disappeared down into the void.
Currently suspended in the air, he watches the tormented Kabylia landscape parade by. The Sikorsky came to pick them up and take them back to base camp. He leaves behind him a village in flames and a grandfather in tears. The sliding door of the helicopter has been left open. The noise of the blades and the engine prevents the men from talking. The turbulence caused by the rotor blows large masses of air inside. He opens his right hand above the void and pretends to catch the wind. No use. He can’t get rid of the burning sensation from the pistol in the palm of his hand earlier. The rough butt, the white notch between the two joints of his index finger dug by the trigger, the shock of the bang all the way up his forearm. It all became embedded in his flesh the moment he shot. The girl is dead. He put a bullet through her head. He shot her because he could no longer bear it—not her screams but her silence. He couldn’t bear seeing her there, her fingers stuck in the soil of her house, like a rag doll, her eyes staring straight up, as though dead, while the soldiers disposed of her body. He killed her to silence the soundless screaming that was coming out of her wide-open mouth. In comparison, there’s something gentle and comforting about the rhythmical din of the helicopter.
He knows the sergeant is watching him from the back of the aircraft. He can feel his subordinate’s eyes sliding over the nape of his neck and his back. When they get back, they’ll have to agree on the report they’re going to write. It’ll be more or less summarized in three letters: N.T.R. Nothing To Report. At the bottom of the page, he’ll apply his signature: Second Lieutenant Hugues de Bracy.
The sergeant and he will join the men. They’ll drink beer. They’ll talk about demobilization. They’ll talk about France. They’ll talk about their parents or their sisters. Those who aren’t single will talk about their girlfriends and their wives back home. They’ll talk of everything except what happened that very morning. Then, later in the evening, once it’s dark, once their blood has been amply watered with alcohol, they’ll take a walk around the back of the truck that acts as a battlefield military brothel, just to make sure they’re still real soldiers, warriors, men. It’s not impossible that this time, the young second lieutenant may join the rest of the troop. Just this once, aided by drunkenness, just to silence the anguish drilling through his belly and squeezing his rectum. Just this once. Use the exhausted body of a local pauper woman to soothe the anguish that’s crushing him sexually. Just this once. Then there’ll be night, sleep, oblivion, tomorrow. One day, these events will come to an end. One way or another, the conflict will end and he’ll finally be able to return to France. Quit the uniform. Perhaps—no, certainly—such a decision will upset his father, who’s a colonel in the air force. Forever keep quiet about this past, about this soiled youth as a soldier. Choose a life that will allow him to wash away the horrors of war.
For now, the helicopter is making its way inland. The second lieutenant has now brought his arm back inside, in from the turbulence and the wind. For a moment, he studies the inert hand on his thigh and then, like a First Communion candidate or an altar boy, he clasps his hands in a sign of prayer.
For the second time in a week, the cathedral had been emptied of visitors, then filled with police. This time, they were outside, too, right at the foot of the south wall, where they were about to remove the rector’s lifeless body.
Inside, a diminutive priest in liturgical garments was sitting alone, lost in the immensity of the nave, among hundreds of empty chairs. Someone—Father Kern couldn’t remember who exactly—had the ludicrous idea of covering him, in mid-August, with a foil blanket. He hadn’t had the energy to refuse. So now, he was wrapped in a silver sheen in the growing shadow of the day that was drawing to a close. A young woman came to sit on the chair next to him. “Aren’t you hot in that thing?”
“Terribly, Mademoiselle Kauffmann.”
She pulled the aluminum sheet off him with motherly care. Kern barely stirred, lost in thought. “Do you believe in God?”
“No, I don’t, Father. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You know, the real boundary isn’t between believers and nonbelievers, any more than it is between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The real front line is the one that separates the doves from the hawks.”
“Those who seek peace …”
“From those who want war, that’s right.”
“Don’t tell me this business has made your faith falter.”
“How about you, Claire?”
“Me?”
“Has it made you lose faith in justice?”
She took a moment to think. “I don’t know. My point of view has changed. In a way, I’ve taken a step toward you, Father.”
“Toward me?”
“By giving you access to the file of the Notre Dame case, I broke the rules of my profession, you know. What I did was completely illegal. Illegal, but not necessarily immoral.”
Father Kern couldn’t suppress a smile.
“Why are you smiling?”
“I’m thinking of how our paths crossed. I nearly renounced my vows. I suppose it was the price to pay to discover the murderer’s name. I also lied more than once. None of that was very moral. In other words, I’ve somewhat stained my cassock. And yet today, justice is none the worse for it.”
It was Claire Kauffmann’s turn to smile. “I think our respective faiths have been strengthened, Father, in spite of these few deviations. Or perhaps thanks to them.”
“What will you do now?”
“Ta
ke a vacation. Look after myself for a while. I think I need it. I’m going to stay with a friend in Italy for a few days, near Ancona.”
“Ancona? But that’s by the Adriatic, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely. My body is feeling a sudden urge to bathe in the sea, and I’ve decided to grant it that.”
They said nothing for a while, savoring the silence, the seconds passing by quietly, each enjoying the soothing presence of the other.
Kern was the first to emerge from this gentle lethargy. “What about Lieutenant Gombrowicz? Is he still here?”
“Yes, in the sacristy. I think he’s having a coffee. He’s waiting for the three of us to have a chance to talk together.”
“Have you seen him? How is he?”
“His hands are shaking. He can’t stop them. He’s just killed a man.”
“He saved my life, you know. Without him, I’d be cooked.”
“Yes, he told me.”
“I’d like to see him, ask him what he was doing in the cathedral, and what made him follow the rector and me all the way up to the roof.”
“He’ll tell you himself. I think the lieutenant has just realized he’s a good cop. If you’re feeling better, we could go join him. You also have quite a few things to tell us.”
“He saved my life, you know.”
“I know, Father, you just told me.”
They stood up and went to the central aisle, in the large nave. Very soon, Father Kern stopped, a look of surprise on his face. He wiggled his fingers, rotated his wrists. Claire Kauffmann watched him. The little man seemed to be rediscovering his body, like a baby in his cot.
“Is everything alright, Father?”
“Do you know what time it is, mademoiselle?”
“Nearly six. Why?”
The Madonna of Notre Dame Page 17
