The Mosque of Notre Dame

by Elena Chudinova

  “And not a bad little business, at that.” The girl motioned with her head toward the sofa, which was covered with a beautiful throw—ultramarine with an orange geometrical pattern. “One hundred dollars for a soldier, three to four hundred for an officer. So how much did that rag cost? At least three men, yes? It’s not cheap. And how many children didn’t return home because you were perched in a tree with your scope? Just so you could furnish your apartment. This place is awash in blood.”

  “No, no, you’re wrong!” Ana struggled not to show her fear, knowing that it would mean certain death. But sweat ran down her spine under her light dressing gown. Big drops appeared on the palms of her hands.

  “I was in Chechnya a very short time! I got most of my money here, from restitution. A big factory was built on the land where my grandmother’s house once stood!... Look, I can compensate you for moral damages! I have a bank account!”

  “I have a bank account, too.” The girl was growing increasingly adult and self-confident, and most important, she kept her distance. “Money solves a lot of problems, doesn’t it?” she added. “But you can’t always buy a life.”

  The girl also kept an eye on the alarm button—actually, she kept the pistol pointed at it. For some reason, Ana thought of the straw trapezoid she had wanted to hang for Christmas instead of setting up a hackneyed, too-European Christmas tree. This would not happen, it was quite clear to her now. It wasn’t the girl and it wasn’t the pistol, but something else—a strange and ugly conviction that her hour had come and that it was pointless to resist. So this was why people sometimes behaved so strangely before death!

  “You’re going to kill me?” Ana did not recognize her own voice, already dead, hollow.

  “I’m going to kill you. Free of charge. Move over there, against the wall.”

  The art of sniping had always been just a business for Ana. She had never spoken with her targets, had never seen them close up while they were alive. However, she had heard this intonation many times. What difference could it possibly make whether she was killed in the middle of the room or against the wall? None. Or was there a reason after all?

  Ana had no time to comprehend.

  The girl in the pink jacket suddenly became immature again. She came up and carefully bent over the body of the elegant woman in her black lace dressing gown. Her tanned and muscular legs were spread on the shag carpet. The girl stood and looked at her for a while. Then, from another pocket, she pulled a flat plastic container with sanitary wipes. Quickly and meticulously, she cleaned everything her hands could have touched.

  CHAPTER 4 (continued)

  Sophia

  “You are too young, Father, to understand what a melodramatic collision is happening within you now!”

  The woman inhaled the smoke from her cigarette. “When my parents were young, a lot of movies were made, and we are just like the characters in one of them. An old woman who has sinned, but whose heart has grown soft, tells the story of her life to a young, celibate priest who is full of the noblest aspirations. He’s handsome, of course. In those years, the movies treated celibacy so romantically. That was before they banned movies about Christianity because they were offensive to Muslim Eurocitizens—and then all movies.”

  The priest paid no attention to her ironic words. He was used to such speeches, a standard “protection ritual” well known to students of psychology. What was remarkable was the story of this great soul, almost destroyed in her youth, who found the strength to live—even in hatred.

  “You said a change occurred that day?” he asked softly.

  “Not in my soul—I hate to disappoint you. In my body.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After the kidnapping, I stopped growing. The doctors gave me all sorts of things! They began to believe that I would stay 4’11”. But from eighteen to twenty I suddenly spurted up to 5’5”. I had blackouts from my rapid growth. Then I grew another inch over the next year and a half.”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t grow after every similar episode,” the priest smiled, looking for a moment younger than his thirty-three years, “or today you would be as tall as the Eiffel Minaret.”

  “They invoke me to frighten their children just the same,” the woman exhaled a ring of smoke. “Unfortunately, without reason.”

  “You’ve never killed children?” The intonation that could be felt in the priest’s voice was reminiscent of the fingers of a physician cautiously approaching a spot suspected to be malignant.

  “Alas, no, although the ‘alas’ will shock you. It’s stupid not to kill them, but I have permitted myself this stupidity—not to kill them, that is.”

  “All children are cruel,” said the priest softly. He was sitting across from Sophia, covering his eyes with the palm of his hand, as was his habit. He wore no stole around his neck. The hand was just a reflex. When someone told him such things, the priest had no right to see his face.

  “That’s something else, Father. Honestly speaking, they’re not really children in our sense of the word. They’re just people who haven’t reached adult size and the ability to procreate yet. Their soul and intellect stop growing at age five; only the amount of stored information increases. It’s also it’s hard to say these children are not adults, since even the adults never mature to the point where they can distinguish between good and evil.”

  She went on, unstoppable: “You’ll say that their child in good hands can be educated to become a good person. I just know you’ll say that. And they love the fact that we think that way. But they themselves don’t believe it’s true. Where I was, they called themselves masters of eugenics. They planned whom they should cross with whom to get better offspring. The brave with the intelligent, the modest with the outrageous—combinations of all the types available. But the product of all their genetic research, for some reason, was always the same—a killer and a bandit. Their eugenic masterpieces should be stifled in the cradle or better yet, in the womb. Or best of all, in the germ.”

  The priest was already used to this woman’s strange manner of speaking. She uttered words of furious passion in a serene, cold voice completely lacking in emotion. The more fervent the emotion, the colder her voice became.

  “But what kept you from sin, when you considered it beneficial?”

  “My right to not resemble them in any way. I just told you the story of the Estonian woman who tried to strike up a conversation with me. They know—the longer you talk to a person, the harder it is to kill him.”

  “But isn’t that true?”

  “It is, for people like her. The logic of the hired killer is that you shouldn’t see anything human in the face of your victim. My logic is just the opposite. You should look the person in the eyes, you should see whom you are about to kill. That’s the only way you can assume responsibility. If you can’t kill while looking someone in the eyes, you shouldn’t do it. It’s just not necessary. Sometimes that happens.”

  “But that’s so difficult.”

  “Father, whoever said it should be easy to kill?” The old woman smiled. “But we’ve strayed from the subject. The logic of the woman sniper was ‘just business.’ She thought of herself as a gun for hire. Whereas those who don’t mind talking with their victims get a tremendous feeling of satisfaction. But no matter how much they enjoy killing our children, we shouldn’t kill theirs—despite what logic and common sense dictate... What are you laughing at, Father?”

  “Please don’t be angry, but I really don’t think a theoretical infrastructure is necessary when it’s the result that counts.”

  “My husband’s father used to say the same thing.”

  The digital clock showed one o’clock. One could only tell whether it was day or night outside by its blinking green numbers.

  “Is it true he was an Orthodox priest, Sophia, and that you were baptized in an Orthodox church?”

  “What a Jesuitical approach. It wasn’t my father-in-law who baptized me, but my mother’s si
ster, who took me to church when I was only an infant. It was to the great dissatisfaction of my Jewish relatives.”

  “They were Jews?”

  “They were secular people, inasmuch as that historical phenomenon is conceivable. They thought all religions quaint. My grandmother on my father’s side was also a physician. She thought it unhygienic to take a child somewhere and dip it in something.”

  “In Western Europe, there was something even worse—Christian materialists. And your father-in- law?”

  “He was a priest. I think that he wanted a different wife for his son—my husband, Leonid Sevazmios. Quite different. He understood and accepted that there would not be any children, that I couldn’t have children in a world where I couldn’t guarantee their safety.

  “My father did not survive what happened to me. He burned out at the age of forty-five from an amalgamation of illnesses. They appeared suddenly, one after another, sometimes two at a time: his heart, his liver, his blood vessels... Before, he hadn’t even been sick with the flu for years. It was as if his body sabotaged itself. I was incredibly sad for him, but there’s no way I could permit myself to be in his shoes, either.

  “Nor would I have wanted to be in the place of my Leonid. And it wasn’t about me, or our unborn and unconceived grandchildren. For Father Demetrios, my father-in-law, it was terrible that his only son, for whom he so much wanted a spiritual career, was buying weapons under the auspices of his uncle’s trading company—most of which he was going to give away. It was, to put it mildly, atypical for a Greek!

  “The Greeks at that time, as always, behaved quite selfishly. They believed that the Islamization of Europe wouldn’t affect them. It’s funny, but in essence the impractical and silly boy, as Leonid’s family thought of him, was far more practical and sensible than all of them put together. He had personal assets, which he inherited from his mother, and he spent everything without asking anyone’s permission. Coming from a prominent family, it was scandalous for him to be dealing in weapons. Fortunately, we met after all that had quieted down.

  “My father-in-law accepted Leonid’s line of work when his son told him just one thing: ‘If you had done your missionary work yesterday, we wouldn’t have to buy weapons today.’ ”

  “He was right, Sophie,” said Father Lothaire. “The truth is that people get tired of permissiveness, because they realize it is empty and dangerous. They start to long for clear rules. It’s the last spasm of spirituality: Tell me what’s not allowed! What is Great Lent? Not stuffing yourself during Passion Week! Here, the Orthodox religion could have won over Catholics—who never knew the severity of the Protestants! So your husband did not join the ranks of the nonbelievers, but of those fighting for the faith?”

  “Yes, he remained a believer.”

  “But he did not succeed in turning you to God.”

  “What could we do? He received his faith with his mother’s milk, whereas I... Father, perhaps you don’t understand what inspired me to have a conversation like this. You are too tactful, of course, to say that such things happen when people pass the age of seventy. But if that’s what you are thinking, you’re wrong. I have walked hand-in-hand with death my whole life; the salvation of my soul is as unimportant to me as it has always been.”

  Sophia stood up and, to hide her excitement, began to pace quickly in the small room. “You have to understand that old soldiers like me have a special intuition. Perhaps I am thinking about issues of faith more than ever before because I sense something is about to occur. And I sense that something concrete needs to be done... How can I explain what I don’t understand myself?”

  “Sophie, the reason really isn’t important to me.” The caught her eye and looked at her intently. “I’m happy that such thoughts are crossing your mind because you really do have something to think about.”

  “Oh?” Sophia smiled.

  “Doesn’t it occur to you, Sophia, that there’s something illogical here? Let’s look at things from your point of view. You’re a materialist, as you’ve always been. I’m an idealist mystic, primarily someone who lives among nonsecular abstractions.”

  She took a fresh cigarette from her pack, smiling to herself.

  “Sophie, how is it possible that I have a practical goal and you don’t? I’ve wanted to say this to you for some time but to be honest, I’ve been afraid.”

  “Lord, you’re still a boy, Lothaire. How can you even imagine that you could say something to me that would devastate me?”

  “No matter how illusory my goal may appear to you, it is realistic. It serves a practical purpose. The Mass must exist—as long as there is a single priest left, one drop of wine, and a handful of flour. This is why we endure being killed and tortured. But you, your entire resistance movement, have no goal. War can’t be a goal in itself; it’s only a means to an end. You don’t understand that you can’t defend Europe any longer. The war that the Resistance Movement has been fighting for more than a decade has been lost, completely lost.”

  “You’re right, Father. You see that the brutal truth doesn’t make me tear out my hair.”

  “You have a widespread spy network; there are training centers; there are channels for the delivery of ammunition. There are, I believe, accounts in banks outside Eurabia; the Chinese wouldn’t give the Maquisards their fireworks for nothing. But a goal— Maquis has no goal! And hundreds of people are dying in this war. That young boy risked his life today to eliminate one corrupt Muslim. But in the end, the reserves in the military warehouses will be depleted, the shelters will be discovered, and the last one of you will be punished. The Muslims will win in the end.”

  A mischievous flame danced in Sophia’s eyes. “And in the end, they’ll cut down the vineyards, the shelters will be uncovered, the last missal will be destroyed, the last priest will be killed. The Muslims will win in the end.”

  “Not so!” the priest said, his blue eyes flashing in response. “Here is the difference: When there is no more Mass, Judgment Day will come. They will not win; they will end up in hell. This event will outlive you, according to your logic. But it will not outlive us, according to ours.”

  “Ah, what infinite Catholic hubris! You just need to add that the Poles serve a non-traditional Mass, and that Orthodox Russia and Mount Athos don’t count!”

  “I wouldn’t say anything of the kind, and you know it. In our sufficiently difficult times, everyone is responsible for himself. I’m not in Russia or Poland. I serve in France. And I must serve God as if the coming of Judgment Day depended on my prayers alone. Of course, there are elements of pride in this. But we have been taught to turn our shortcomings into the moving mechanism of good deeds.”

  “I understand,” said Sophie quietly. The candles in her eyes went out, and her face became somehow lifeless. “The boy, Lévêque, he will probably not live to my age, or even yours. But Father, what choice does he have? To live as a Muslim?”

  “To remember that he was born a Christian.”

  “That’s really the same solution. To die with dignity—that can’t be considered a goal?”

  The digital clock displayed two-fifteen. Somewhere outside, morning was drawing near, a spring morning filled with the fragrance of trees in flower.

  Almost all the smuggled Russian cigarettes had been turned to ash, leaving an unpleasant smell.

  “Father Lothaire. I’m truly grateful to you for digging with me into the lava of my past. As for the practical purpose... I really don’t do anything without a purpose. Something is in the air, something very important that will concern you and me and Maquis and the inhabitants of the catacombs equally. That may mean that I’ve found my goal; I don’t know.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Ahmad ibn Salih

  The next morning Jeanne brought Valerie a bottle of soap solution for blowing bubbles. The little girl was rapturously blowing into the pink plastic frame and laughing merrily as the iridescent balloons filled up and launched themselves into the air. Jeanne and Eugène-O
livier were catching them, sometimes trying to save them on the palms of their hands, sometimes bursting them with a clap in mid-air, rejoicing in Valerie’s delight.

  But suddenly the little girl stopped, not because she had tired of blowing bubbles, but because she seemed to forget about them. She crawled into a corner and began thinking her own thoughts. When she stood up, she noticed the plastic bottle she was still clutching in her hand with puzzlement, and then put it down as something quite useless.

  “Where’s she going?” Eugène-Olivier whispered as he watched her incredibly thin little back moving away down the corridor.

  “To the city,” Jeanne answered nonchalantly. “Probably Notre Dame again. She’ll cry there. The buttocks are afraid to chase her away.”

  Eugène-Olivier started, as if he had accidentally touched a toad. He had been to Notre Dame only once, and that was enough for him. He had seen the mihrab , the concrete building resembling a kiosk that had been added in the south-southeast.

  To go inside and look at the bishop’s throne, now transformed into a minbar with two crescent moons haphazardly stuck to its back, and on to the gallery, which was now divided by a wall to separate male from female—where two dozen foot baths were installed, looking like a public toilet...

  Muslim women washed their feet where the organ once stood. Another level was set apart for them to pray, reached by stairs awkwardly added to the outside of the building. Instead of stained glass with decorations, the windows were plain glass. Eugène-Olivier could not imagine returning to see the backward squiggles that were posted to replace serene, dignified Roman letters, to see the scars on the floor where statues once stood. Or to guess where the Holy Virgin stood as Grandfather Patrice fell... No, no, once had been enough.

  Valerie went there almost every day, Jeanne said.

  That must be more painful to her than any whipping. How could he protect her from that? How could he ensure that “the buttocks don’t go there”?