by Jeremy Bates
“Why are you so skeptical, Will?”
“Why? Because this seems like something out of The Blair Witch Project.”
“Pascal did not make this up.”
“Then maybe the woman did.”
“Why would she do that? The catacombs are very large. As I told you, the camera was in very deep. The chances of someone finding it were small. Also, there is no footage of her. Not on any of the video clips. Just her voice. The camera could never be traced back to her. She would never have any idea who found it, if someone did. Why would she make a joke like that?”
“She was running, right?” I said. “At the end she was running. She was scared. She thought something was coming after her. But she keeps filming? Would you do that? They only do that, keep the tape rolling, in those found-footage movies.”
“No, Will. She was not filming. She was using the video camera’s LED light to see ahead of her. If she turned the camera off—it is perfectly dark down there.”
I chewed on that. “So what do you think happened? She believed someone was behind her. Did someone run past the camera in pursuit?”
“No.”
“So who made her scream?”
“I have no answer for that.”
I knew Danièle well enough to discern whether she was pulling my leg or not. Looking at her now, I didn’t think she was. Right or wrong, in her mind she was convinced this was genuine footage. A woman had gotten lost in the catacombs, and she had the unfortunate luck to run into someone who had done something terrible to her.
And why not? I thought. Why was I so adamant this wasn’t the case? Bad shit went on in the world every day. A lot of bad shit. Some truly horrible shit. You could pretend it didn’t, but you would only be fooling yourself.
“Have you given a copy to the police?” I asked.
“The police?” Danièle’s eyes widened in surprise. “Of course not.”
“But if this is real, then something happened to that woman. You need to tell the police.”
“And what do you suppose they would do, Will?”
“I thought you told me once that there are police who patrol the catacombs?”
“Catacops, yes. But they only patrol the popular areas. They make sure no one is breaking things or stealing bones. They do not perform manhunts. They do not go into the unmapped areas. The catacombs are hundreds of kilometers long. There are many levels.”
“I still think you need to tell them.”
“We are doing something better. We are going looking for her.”
“Tonight?” I said. “You’re going looking for this woman tonight?”
She nodded.
“And you think you’re going to find her?”
“We have no idea. But we are going to try.”
“That camera could be years old.”
“The video was time-stamped only three weeks ago.”
“Aren’t you…I don’t know…scared?”
“You heard her screaming, Will. If we find her, it will probably be just her body. Whoever attacked her, he will be long gone.”
“And if he isn’t?”
“There will be four of us.”
“Four? You said—”
She took my hand. “I want you to come with us.”
I blinked. “You’re kidding?”
“I want you to experience this with me.”
“There’s no way I’m going traipsing around the catacombs, Danièle, looking for some lost woman, and I think you should reconsider going as well.”
“I am not reconsidering.”
“This isn’t a game. For all you know that woman might have been murdered. You don’t want to get involved in this.”
“Then come with me—protect me.”
I tugged my hand free. “Jesus, Danièle. Didn’t you just see the same video I saw? What you’re planning on doing, it’s dangerous and irresponsible.”
“If the woman had been filming aboveground, in an alleyway, and she dropped the camera and screamed, would you refuse to search the alleyway for her?”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“I am perfectly comfortable in the catacombs.”
“Have you been this deep, where Pascal found the camera deep, before?”
“I told you, Pascal—”
“Not him. You.”
“No, I have not.”
I shook my head. “Okay, take the whole crazy killer out of the equation, the killer who might have gone back down there. What if, like that woman, you get lost? What if you can’t find your way out again?”
“Pascal knows—”
“You’re putting a lot of faith in that guy.”
“He is my friend. He is the most experienced cataphile I know. I trust him completely.”
I didn’t say anything.
“So?” she pressed.
“No, Danièle. Absolutely not.”
“It will be fun.”
I stiffened as that statement took me back to the night on Lake Placid. Let’s do it, dude, Brian had told me minutes before his death as he tossed me the keys to the Chris-Craft. It’ll be fun.
“Is there anything I can say to convince you not to go?” I said.
“Is there anything I can say to convince you to come?” she said.
“Don’t be a goddamn idiot, Danièle!” I snapped, glaring at her.
She stared back, surprised and confused. Then defiant. Abruptly she closed the laptop, stuffed it in her bag. She withdrew a pen and scribbled an address on a napkin.
“If you change your mind,” she said stiffly, standing, “I will be at this location between eight and nine o’clock tonight.”
She climbed on her bicycle and pedaled away.
My apartment building was located on a quiet street close to the St. Germain district and the Jardin des Plants. St. Germain was lively and full of restaurants and bars, though I often avoided the area because I didn’t know many people in Paris, and I wasn’t the type to dine or drink by myself, at least not outside of work. The botanical gardens were a different story though. I spent a lot of time in the free sections, walking the trails for exercise or reading a book on a patch of grass or on a bench in the shade of a tree.
I climbed the front steps of my building’s stoop and checked my mailbox. It was one of six organized into two vertical columns of three each. A locksmith service advertisement was stuffed inside it. I received several of these a week, from different locksmiths. It made me wonder if Parisians locked themselves out of their homes in disproportional numbers compared to people in other metropolises. Next to the bank of mailboxes was a placard that read: “2e etago sonnez 2 fois.” Ring twice for the second floor. I lived on the second floor, but no one had ever buzzed me. Well, except the pizza guy. I ordered from Dominos two or three times a week. The pies in France were smaller than the ones you got back in the States, and some came with weird cheeses, but they were still good.
I entered the foyer and made my way up the squeaky wooden staircase to the second floor. I was halfway down the hall when a door opened and my neighbor, Audrey Gabin, called to me. She was a stooped, frail woman pushing ninety. She wore smart black-rimmed eyeglasses and had luxurious brown hair that had to be a wig. As always, she was impeccably dressed. Today she sported a pumpkin-orange ensemble, a purple brim hat, and a matching purple scarf.
She caught me walking past her unit nearly every day. I had a theory that she had either memorized my routine or she sat near the door, patiently waiting for me to arrive home. I thought of her as a Miss Havisham type. While not a spinster or vengeful, she was lonely and heartbroken, and she hermitted away inside all day. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she had all her clocks stopped at the exact time her husband died nearly two decades before.
“Bonjour, Madame Gabin,” I greeted.
“So beautiful the day, do you think?” she said out of the left side of her mouth. The partial facial paralysis, she’d told me, was the result of a stroke she’d suffer
ed while on a train to Bordeaux to attend her sister’s funeral some time back.
“It’s lovely,” I agreed, a little louder than conversational because her hearing wasn’t great. “The perfect temperature.”
“Un moment. I ’ave something for you.”
“No, Madam—”
But she had vanished back inside her flat. She returned a few moments later carrying a plate of pancakes. She always had some dessert or another for me.
“You must try real French crêpes,” she said. “I add little…” She seemed to forget for a moment. “Ah, oui. I add un petit peu de Grand Mariner.”
I took the plate from her, which had begun to tremble in her hands. “You’re going to make me fat.”
“I ’ope so! You are très thin. You must eat.”
The elderly loved to give this advice. My grandparents had told me the same thing every time I saw them while I was growing up. And I had seen them a lot. They had lived a few blocks away from my family in Seattle. Even in my late teens, when my six-four frame had peaked at two-hundred-plus pounds, my one surviving grandmother would give me chocolates whenever I visited her at Bayview Retirement Community, telling me I had to put some fat on my bones.
Madame Gabin, however, had a valid point. I had lost a lot of weight recently and could be described as gaunt for the first time in my adult life. I simply didn’t find myself hungry of late. I didn’t know whether my suppressed appetite was because I had started smoking again, or because I was struggling with the rats of depression. I guess it was a combination of the two.
“I’ll eat everything,” I assured her. “They look delicious.”
“Roland, he loved his crêpes. I made them him every mornings.”
Roland Gabin, her long-deceased husband, had flown Spitfires in World War Two, then spent the next forty years as a civil servant until his heart gave out at the age of sixty-four.
I said, “He was a lucky man to have you.”
Madame Gabin nodded, but her eyes had clouded over, as if she had lost herself in the past. Poor woman, I thought. She had nobody. At least I had never seen anyone visit her since I became her neighbor. No children, no grandchildren. If, or more probable, when she died inside her apartment, she would likely remain there undiscovered, rotting in her bed or in her chair or wherever until someone—me?—detected a funky smell. It was an undeserving fate for a lady I suspect had been as ravishing and charming as a film star in her prime.
“Well, thanks,” I said, raising the plate.
She blinked. “Oui. De rien.”
I started toward my unit, then stopped. Madame Gabin remained standing out front her door, staring at some middle distance.
“Madame Gabin?” I said.
She didn’t reply.
“Audrey?”
She turned her head slowly toward me.
“What are you doing tomorrow evening?”
“Tomorrow?”
“I’ve been practicing my French cooking lately. I think I’m getting the hang of some dishes, but I would love some feedback. Would you like to come by for dinner?”
“Oh, non merci. I—I don’t think…”
“I’d like to hear some more stories about your husband.”
“Vraiment?” She lit up. “Well…yes, oui, if it ees okay?”
“How about seven o’clock?”
“Yes, seven o’clock. I will bring dessert.”
Smiling in her sad-happy way, she hobbled back into her unit while I continued to mine.
My cracker-box studio had a lack of idiosyncrasy so jarring it became an idiosyncrasy all of its own. It was drably furnished with brown wall-to-wall carpet, a swivel-egg armchair older than me, a small wooden desk, and a metal-frame bed so short my feet dangled over the end. A television sat in the corner on a low table. It only got a few channels and I rarely used it. The walls were mustard and pitted with the holes from screws and nails which previous tenants had used to hang pictures. My only additions were an iron and ironing board because the dryers at the Laundromat a block over didn’t work sufficiently, leaving my clothes damp and wrinkled.
Nevertheless, I was okay with the place. It wasn’t much smaller than the one Bridgette and I had shared off the Bowery. Also, there was an oven, which was great for cooking frozen pizzas when I was too impatient to order one in, and a balcony, which Danièle told me was uncommon in Paris.
I grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, then opened the window that overlooked the small courtyard to let out the foxed-paper smell that permeated the entire building. The air was springtime fresh, and the landlord was edging the garden with a hoe, making some sort of drainage line. I rarely saw any of the tenants down there. In fact, aside from Audrey Gabin, I rarely saw any of the tenants anywhere, anytime.
I sat in the armchair, flipped open my laptop, and accessed the internet. I typed “paris catacombs missing person” into the search engine. The first page of results mostly referenced the section of catacombs beneath Montparnasse’s Place Denfert-Rochereau. This was the tourist attraction open to the public. For a fee you could descend one hundred thirty steps underground and walk along a dimly lit circuit passing macabre alleys and pillars artfully constructed with tibias and femurs and punctuated with vacuous skulls.
I tried a number of different keyword combinations, but didn’t come across anything involving a missing woman or a lost video camera. I had been hoping to find the video Danièle had shown me, or at least a reference to it. This would have proved Pascal was full of shit. It was something he’d downloaded, a hoax, that was all. Unfortunately, the fact there was no mention of the video indicated the guy had likely been telling the truth about finding it on his own.
Still, I kept searching and got sucked into learning about the catacombs’ long and storied history. They began as limestone quarry tunnels dating back two thousand years to the first Roman settlers. They were greatly expanded during the cathedral boom of the late Middle Ages, honeycombing beneath the arrondissements of the Left Bank and the suburbs south of the city proper. In the late eighteenth century, long after the quarrying had stopped, Paris had become a crowded city. It had a burgeoning population clamoring for housing and burial plots. Churches maintained their own graveyards, but they were overcrowded and unsanitary. To free up valuable real estate, and to get rid of the health hazards created by corpses buried ten deep and literally bursting through the walls of people’s cellars, officials ordered the graves dug up—all of them. Over the next several decades the skeletonized remains of six million dead were dumped into the abandoned quarries, forming the largest mass grave on earth.
For safety reasons access to them had been banned since the fifties, most of the entranceways closed off, though this hasn’t deterred people such as Danièle and Pascal. They called themselves cataphiles, a colloquial name for underground urban explorers—
My cell phone rang suddenly, breaking the studious trance I had fallen under.
Danièle?
I took my phone from my pocket and glanced at the display. A blocked number. I pressed Talk.
“Hello?”
No reply.
“Hello?”
“Will?”
My heart skipped. “Bridgette?”
“Will, can you hear me?”
“Yeah, can you hear me?”
“I can now. I guess we were lagging.” A pause. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” I said, getting to my feet for some reason. A warm breeze came through the window, smelling of freshly cut grass. The landlord was now mowing the patch of green lawn with a push mower. I glanced at my wristwatch. It was 7:10 p.m. “What time is it there?” I asked.
“I’m on my lunch break.”
Bridgette and I had emailed a few times since I left New York, and I had given her my new phone number, but this was the first time she had called it.
I opened my mouth to reply, but I realized I had nothing to say. I felt how you do with a stranger in an elevator. It jarred me how Bridgette a
nd I could go from being so close, to sharing everything together, to becoming less than friends. And that’s what we were, wasn’t it? Less than friends. Because friends, at least, had things to say to one another.
“Are you enjoying Paris?” she asked.
“It’s a nice city.”
“It’s been…how long now?”
“Nearly three months.”
“And the guide?”
“It’s coming. It’ll probably take me another couple months.”
“And then?”
“I think they want me to revise the Barcelona one.”
“Spain! Very nice. I’m glad you’re happy.”
I wanted to tell her I wasn’t sure I was happy, but I didn’t.
“How about you?” I said. “Everything okay?”
“There’s something I need to tell you, Will.” She hesitated. It might have only been for a second or two, but it felt to me like an eternity. In that moment I was positive she was going to tell me she wanted to get back together. She said, “I met someone.”
A hot flash zinged through me. I continued to stare out the window, though I was no longer seeing the courtyard. Everything but Bridgette’s voice had become ancillary. “You mean a boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
I still didn’t move. I was numb. Emotionally numb.
Why the fuck was she telling me this?
“A lawyer?” I asked, surprised at the normalcy in my voice.
“He’s a police officer.”
“A cop?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. Well—”
“Will, we just got engaged.”
I’d always thought it was melodrama when people tell you to sit before hearing certain good or bad news. Now I believed it to be a justifiable forewarning, because my knees literally gave out and I collapsed into the armchair.
Bridgette said, “I didn’t want you to find out on Facebook or whatever…”
“I don’t use Facebook.”
“You have an account.”
“How long have you known this guy for?”
“We met in March.”
“Two months? That’s it? And you’re engaged?”
“We…I’m pregnant,” she said. “It wasn’t planned,” she added quickly. “But…then…I started feeling sick in the mornings, and I took a test. And…and we decided it would be best to get married.”
