The Mosque of Notre Dame

by Elena Chudinova

  “What are their millions to our thousands? If one of our own stumbles, thousands of hands will reach out to help him. If the same thing happens to one of theirs, hundreds of feet will go out to bury him deeper. Vespasian was a fool—money does have a smell, after all. Some of it even stinks. Money with a decent smell grows slowly. There are really only two things that can lend dignity to money. The first is time. Money, like good wine, needs to age properly. The second is tradition. Without our own tradition behind us, we are no one.”

  The Lévêque family had its own tradition. Some of the women became nuns, but not too many. Men went into the priesthood very rarely—there were too many workers’ and farmers’ genes in them. Nevertheless, from generation to generation, the head of the family, wearing an alb over his three-piece suit, served at festal masses at Notre Dame. The Lévêques were the hereditary altar servers of Notre Dame. This privilege did not come cheaply. They always made contributions for restorations, for benevolent purposes, for the priests’ vestments. This was also a tradition.

  Great-great-grandfather Antoine Philippe was the altar server during the time of the Second Vatican Council. Many old acquaintances joined the movement led by Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre in the 1970s. People of traditional orientation, even those who were not especially devout, could not accept the “democratization” of the Mass, the expulsion of the Latin language, the dismantling of the ancient altars.

  A schism ensued, and many people left the Church. But not the Lévêque family, although the new form of the Mass, called the Novus Ordo, hurt them more than others. The reason the Lévêque family stayed in the embrace of the Catholic Church was simple. It was called Notre Dame. They could not reject the holy shrine any more than one could abandon any old friend in need. So Antoine Philippe suffered together with the Church. He endured the 15-minute-long Mass, the priest who stood facing the people (instead of the Lord), and the placement of the Sacred Gifts in the hands of the faithful.

  “We can flee from the Modernists,” Antoine Philippe used to say, “but the Church cannot.”

  It so happened that Patrice was the last altar server of Notre Dame. Grandfather was more than fifty years old when the Wahhabis broke into the church and began to destroy the statues and crosses in it. The priest serving that day quickly removed the nylon gown representing the chasuble he wore over his alb, which was actually a white collar attached to a red cloth with white sleeves at the sides. (The color was red because it was the day of commemoration of a martyr.) The priest had no desire to become a martyr himself. He hastily divested in the sacristy, removed the white collar from his blue shirt, and made his way to the exit. No one tried to stop him. All attention was focused on Patrice Lévêque, who stood in front of them with the most comical of weapons in his hands—the hook he normally used to adjust the high drapes.

  He hit two or three Wahhabis on the head, and pushed a few more aside with jabs of the hook. The battle didn’t last more than a few minutes. Grandfather fell, his throat slit from ear to ear, bloodying the pedestal of the Holy Virgin—the one where it is said she was offering the Christ Child a stone lily. (Now that all statues have been destroyed, we cannot know whether the Christ Child was truly stretching his little hands toward the flower of France, or if this detail was added later to make the story more interesting.)

  Eugène-Olivier’s childhood was dominated by this scene: the altar server who dies waging a senseless battle for Notre Dame, and the priest who flees, removing his white collar with trembling fingers and later tossing his dangerous plastic garment underfoot—together with his vows.

  Eugène-Olivier couldn’t explain why he felt no sadness at his grandfather’s death, and that all his thoughts about God were accompanied by the angry recollection of the traitorous priest. No, God did not exist. Only demons and punishment for such demons existed. His hand unconsciously felt for the secret pocket sewn into his stupid clothes. That was the only thing he believed in.

  Pleasantly excited, Zeynab finally entered the shade of the large department store, like a huge aquarium filled with soothing semi-darkness. Of course, the room lit by hundreds of lights only looked dim to someone just entering it from a street bathed in strong sunlight.

  “Madame is here to see the fashion show?” asked a store clerk wearing a mauve chador (the official color of the store) pleasantly. “It’s only just begun; there are still plenty of comfortable seats in the showroom.”

  Zeynab gladly passed through the open glass doors into a small room where about forty women were sitting around the stage. And there was Aset, with an empty chair right next to her.

  “Have you already bought the entire collection or did you leave half of it for me?” whispered Zeynab to her friend as she sat down.

  “How did you know it was me?” Aset smiled through the crocheted netting covering her face. The question was rhetorical; the young woman knew no one else in the room could have the same gold-knitted clothing. Silk taffeta imported from China was hard to come by, even in Paris.

  A hostess spoke into the microphone, explaining the advantages of the First Rose model. A girl ran out onto the podium wearing ankle-length black pants with gold trim and a matching micro-blouse that left her stomach bare. A casual vest of dark red crêpe de Chine accented her movements. Her lips were smeared in dark red, carefully framed with pencil. In her black hair was a red rose of crêpe de Chine whose petals mingled with her thick curls.

  “Oh, how divine!” sighed Aset with resignation. “But only for a real brunette!”

  Well, of course, if blonde Aset wore something like that, her husband would run away. He would say talak to her! But Zeynab simply must buy it; such a beautiful garment would make Qadi Malik happy. No matter that she was a little on the plump side; the model wasn’t exactly skinny, either. Zeynab would buy it and then boast in front of Aset.

  She glanced at her friend patronizingly, as she did rather often. After all, Aset was only a first-generation true believer from a family of wealthy French industrialists who had managed to convert before the others. They had been friends since childhood and Zeynab, of course, knew about all the skeletons in her friend’s closet. The old, evil woman who had died only five years ago stubbornly called the little girl Annette, even in front of her school friends! Aset would sometimes try to draw her friends’ attention away with her toys, and sometimes she would yell at her grandmother, artfully avoiding her blows. It was quite funny. But in any case, Aset was not even the equal of a Turkish woman; she simply lacked what true Arab families usually have. Something was missing in people who changed their religion, and something would always be missing. They talked convincingly, but when the time came to take a stone and throw it at a giaour , they immediately began shying away and making excuses.

  * * *

  Eugène-Olivier, moving his lips out of habit, repeated all the instructions he had received from Sevazmios. Usually, he repeated everything word-for-word once an hour, but this time he did so once every half an hour. Not because he was afraid that he would forget something; it was simply pleasant through repetition to recollect her voice, intonation, eyes, the movements of her hand holding a cigarette. It was not often that one got one’s orders directly from Sevazmios. What he was feeling could have been described as infatuation, but it wasn’t really that. It was a special feeling of adoration unlike anything else, adoration that one can only experience during youth when the soul is still growing and absorbing ideals, disregarding age and sex. It is bodiless and savage, more like death than life.

  The gleaming purple Mercedes slowly came to a stop in front of the department store. The qadi was sitting at the wheel. It was well known that he liked to drive new cars. But he did have a driver who could have been on the job today. Had that been the case, Eugène-Olivier would have been forced to return empty-handed. A driver (who always doubled as a bodyguard) could have spent his down-time nibbling on sunflower seeds, but he could also have decided to inspect the car one more time. An unexploded device is an
awkward thing; it has fingerprints and many other things on it. One could say it is simply papered with business cards. Moreover, the next attempt would have been at least twice as difficult. But today, the qadi was alone.

  He pulled his corpulent body out of the car with difficulty. Eugène-Olivier’s vision suddenly became focused. As if he were less than an arm’s length away, he saw the round face tanned on the beach (back from Nice a week ago), the trimmed beard, the tinted eyeglasses with thin gold frames, the thirty-two unnaturally shiny porcelain implants in his calculated smile of satisfaction.

  Qadi Malik was smiling. Not even an hour had passed since he had said talak to an attractive girl whom he had married three hours earlier through the imam . The girl (what was her name?) truly deserved the praise she received from his friends at the club. A lusty, red-haired girl with blue eyes and a pug nose, rounded and elastic—the body of poor Zeynab didn’t bear comparison. It may be that Zeynab wasn’t much fatter, but it wasn’t just a question of being fat. Her thighs and buttocks were like gelatin, and they trembled under his hand like jellyfish. And were about as attractive. But this girl... ah.

  So he didn’t mind taking the time now to fetch his wife from the store. Zeynab must also get what she had coming to her. No rags could possibly make her attractive again in her husband’s eyes, but rags themselves make women happy. Let her be happy. A sensible man values peace in the home, and dedicates attention to each of his wives.

  Eugène-Olivier forced himself to interrupt this endlessly long moment. In actuality, he had been observing Qadi Malik for no more than a few seconds. Enough, it was time! Five, four, three, two, one, go!

  Qadi Malik frowned as he shut the car door. Right in front of him, some girl—young, judging from her abrupt walk and her thinness that not even her clothing could hide—apparently mesmerized by the window display, dropped her bag of groceries. White onions began to bounce on the pavement. Fool! What was she doing here anyway, with such cheap food? She was wasting time looking at the display window of a store where she would never be able to buy anything in her life, while her family at home was waiting for lunch!

  A few onions rolled right under the wheels of the car. The woman bent to retrieve them. That’s right, go ahead and pick them up! Another man would have intentionally stepped on it, but Qadi Malik only pushed away a tomato he found in his path with his foot.

  Several young men stopped to laugh. The woman swiftly gathered her groceries and put them back in her bag.

  The tinted doors of the store had already begun to open, but Qadi Malik suddenly stopped and angrily slapped himself on the forehead. He had forgotten his cell phone! He wouldn’t have gone back for it, but he was expecting a call from Copenhagen. Every second could cost him dearly—the market wouldn’t wait.

  The same clumsy young woman jumped away from the car in fear. Apparently, the phone was already ringing. Qadi Malik hastily took it out, put it to his ear, and got back in the car. Of course, he needn’t have. He could have let the phone wait and gone into the store. Or he could have simply retrieved his phone and then talked as he walked. By choosing either of these things, the eminent qadi of District 16 of the city of Paris could have prolonged his life by as much as half an hour. But he preferred to sit back down in the comfortable leather seat and shut the door.

  Eugène-Olivier pressed the remote-control button.

  The caller from Copenhagen could not understand why his client responded to his very important news by simply hanging up. He tried to call back, but Qadi Malik did not answer.

  Zeynab and Aset stood next to the lingerie counter. The sales clerk was packing the exquisite pink teddy Aset had chosen into a mauve bag. Zeynab would have preferred a juicier tone, like raspberry. But she was sorely disappointed. In her size (50), they only had white and blue! What could possibly be worse, for a pale brunette! It was an insult, pure and simple. They had said they could order it. Of course they could order it, but she wanted it today! She was tempted to pinch the poor sales clerk until she hurt her, and Aset, too—who was nonchalantly writing out a check with a diamond-encrusted pen.

  “Shall we have a coffee, my dear?” asked Aset, replacing the gold pen cap. “I just can’t resist their baklava .”

  “But of course.” Zeynab hid her annoyance and decided she would have a glass of pomegranate juice.

  She was not sure if her best friend had mentioned the baklava casually, or if she were alluding to the fact that not every woman had to watch what she ate for fear of gaining weight. It was true that the baklava here was superb; maybe she would allow herself just a small piece after all.

  The two friends were already walking toward a corner with comfortable mahogany chairs when the glass wall behind the counter shattered into thousands of brilliant pieces. An entire sky of sunlight burst into the aquarium-like dimness of the store. The blue sky outside started filling with billows of smoke. Shoppers on the store’s second floor looked down to see throngs of people running and screaming below.

  But all the screaming was soon drowned out by the siren. It wailed above the crowd like a mortally wounded leviathan. Eugène-Olivier got up from the asphalt, where he had been crouching. As could be expected, the fact that someone had dived to the sidewalk a split second before the explosion had gone unnoticed.

  The ambulance parted the throng of people. It wasn’t clear where they were heading—some were running away from the scene of the explosion, while others approached out of curiosity. The result was chaos.

  One of the youngest store employees, not a sales clerk but a cleaning woman, carefully made her way through the glass and hurried out to look, still wearing her rubber gloves, not in the least concerned that her face was uncovered. Who would punish her now?

  “What is it, Shabina?” shouted a woman with a manager’s card, staying at the counter with its samples of silk drapery.

  “An explosion!” the girl called back.

  The mellifluous voice of the girl clashed with the bass of the siren and carried well on the upper floor. “They’ve blown up a car, a purple Mercedes, right in the parking lot! A fancy SUV; I saw it parking! They’re not even trying to pull out the driver; the car is burning like a torch. There’s a man behind the wheel. He’s all in flames. The firemen are not even trying to put him out! The ambulance is here, too, but the doctor just waved his hand and went to help the wounded; he didn’t even approach the Mercedes. They blew it up right in our parking lot!”

  Zeynab turned to stone. A purple Mercedes SUV in the store parking lot! Ten minutes ago, as she and Aset entered the lingerie department, Qadi Malik had called on the phone to tell her he was on his way.

  Zeynab was certain that she had become a widow. But it was not because of the car—there were other such vehicles! No, the horrible conviction came from another source, a savage sense that she had been humiliated. It was as if she had been robbed, tricked, deceived by someone looking her straight in the eyes, by invisible enemies who were now laughing and pointing a finger at her. The First Rose dress had been bought in vain, the raspberry teddy had been ordered in vain, the bottle of Opium perfume was packed in vain, and different colors of hair gel, the plush shoes and pearl clutch. All her purchases had been in vain, and there would be no others. Her brother-in-law’s wife, the evil Emina (a plain Turkish woman who had always been jealous of Zeynab,) would take care that the widow respected the customs. All the customs.

  Standing next to Zeynab, Aset did not know how to stop herself from trembling. She suddenly remembered her Grandma Madeleine, who refused to leave the house for the last ten years of her life—just so she would not have to put on a chador.

  “You are shapeless, utterly shapeless! You are not women, you are uglier than frogs,” she would say, shaking her stubborn head. “Since your mouth is already covered by fabric, then at least keep it shut! Do not be a shapeless, mouthless pile of screeching cloth!”

  Zeynab was wailing spasmodically next to Aset—who was suddenly overcome with unexpected dis
gust. She found no strength to help her friend. Soon the wailing stopped. Zeynab slumped and fell.

  No one, of course, even attempted to put out the red flames licking up through the metal shell of the vehicle. When it finished burning, the crime inspectors would come. The loiterers standing next to Eugène-Olivier were arguing about the best and worst features of the model of SUV burning before them. Eugène-Olivier dropped the remote control into his deepest pocket and moved back several steps. He turned around and began walking. Slowly, even more slowly!

  Planting a magnetized device under the raised floor of an SUV was less than half the work. Much more difficult than organizing an explosion was walking away slowly, instead of rushing to escape. Eugène-Olivier, who imagined for his own reasons that Sevazmios was watching him, forced himself to occasionally stop or slow down, imitating someone whose curiosity was occasionally overcoming his fear. The stupid clothing would protect him; the only important thing had been to choose it correctly.

  “ATTENTION! ATTENTION! REMAIN IN YOUR PLACES! SEAL OFF THE STREET AT THE INTERSECTIONS!”

  Wasn’t technology wonderful? A policeman’s voice suddenly came through on the loudspeaker normally reserved for the call of the muezzin . Earlier, they wouldn’t have thought of using it. Now they would place a vehicle in the middle of the street to block it off, and then they would start checking everyone, without exception.

  Luckily, the intersection was near.

  Eugène-Olivier bolted toward it as one hustles toward an elevator whose doors have begun to close.

  He was running now, moving in such a way that the wind flapped his uncomfortable clothing around, billowing the sleeves like sails, lifting the hem he was holding; he didn’t care about authenticity any more. A young black man, obviously one of the volunteer deputies of the religious guard, tried to trip him with his foot—since his hands were busy with the pie he had just bought, and he had no intention of putting down the pie for the sake of catching some criminal. But he had to say goodbye to his pie stuffed with mutton and red peppers anyway when Eugène-Olivier kicked him in the knee as he ran. The kicked youth fell, and the pie began to roll around on the pavement. The crowd did nothing, simply milling around on the sidewalk, because they feared the fugitive might have a pistol. Eugène-Olivier didn’t. The police did. A few shots rang out above the wailing of the sirens.