The Mosque of Notre Dame

by Elena Chudinova

  However, Wali Farad’s plans were far greater than fighting the Maquisards in France. He dreamed of fighting in the Dar-al-Harb —the ghazwa had not been stopped forever, had it? Imagine, a bomb! That meant getting the bomb from the infidels and then waging war and waging war...

  Ever since he could remember, Wali Farad had longed to fight the infidels. When he was thirteen he formed a small “brigade” with his friends. The boys tested their innovation in the Austerlitz ghetto. They only managed to pull it off five times, but what a good time they had!

  It was Wali Falid’s idea: Late at night they would besiege someone’s house and start to grunt in front of the doors and windows. That was normal—weren’t kafirs pigs? Then they would break into the house. They prepared for this in advance—taking into account what was forbidden and what was not. Their satisfaction was their priority; the kafirs had no right to live in this world anyway! They broke all the dishes, tore the linens, abused the women—mostly their peers, since they were a little afraid of the older ones. But ripping a pajama off a girl who was screaming and scratching was a real pleasure. They didn’t have the courage to rape them, so they hid their fear with jokes.

  The adult kafirs would catch them by the arms, push them, and threaten them, but there were no open fights. Everyone knew that they weren’t going to kill or rape anyone, but it was nevertheless a great pleasure to run around a kafir house with everyone screaming and running away.

  Their game was quickly discovered and their parents interrogated them. Wali Fahid understood that his father had placed great hopes in him and that he feared that the kafirs might kill him.

  He took out a chocolate bar he found in his pocket.

  Thank you, honorable builders, dear masons, for sparing neither time nor effort to decorate the church with stone ornaments—each one a precious hand- or foothold. It was too horrible to contemplate what would have resulted had you been dyed-in-the-wool Classicists!

  Twice, Eugène-Olivier almost took a tumble, but he didn’t have time to become frightened. The first time, he found something to stand on; the second, something to grab onto. It was not for nothing that he had been conquering suburban ruins since childhood.

  The palms of his hands were scraped, leaving bloody marks on the stones. It was good that he hadn’t removed his shoes after all—it would be horrible if his feet were now in the same condition as his hands.

  There were few people who would have dared climb on the roof of the church today... I’ll brag about it later.

  Brisseville put down his binoculars. Even without them, it was obvious that something serious was occurring on the other side of the barricade. They had brought heavy equipment for clearing wrecks: bulldozers, excavators. But that had been expected. A fire truck—smart. Although it was unlikely to help.

  “Any minute now,” said an unknown young man who was lying next to Jeanne, watching spellbound as the bulldozers approached the front lines.

  “Nice day,” she said with a smile. “But why are we saving our bullets?”

  The bulldozer was leaning lightly on the barricade of overturned automobiles. Jeanne could see the face of the black man in the clear cabin. His eyes and face were full of fear. They probably didn’t make bulldozers with bulletproof glass.

  The gigantic shovel pushed the overturned Citroën that lay with its wheels in the air.

  Jeanne had time to open her mouth halfway, as the car seemed to hop into the air. Then she heard the explosion. And another. The mines went off, one after the other. They had been invisibly set in a line that stretched across the far side of the barricade. Next, the cars’ gas tanks caught fire.

  Behind the wall of flame, one could no longer see the damage, but judging from the noise, the grating, the whooping and wild cries—it was wonderful.

  Only a few seconds later, the same thing occurred on the other bank of the Seine—except that Jeanne could not hear it as well. And then on the west side, too.

  “Great, that was really great!” Jeanne found herself laughing through tears of joy. “Can you believe that they all had orders to attack at the same time?”

  “By the way, my name is Arthur,” the young man extended his hand.

  “Jeanne.”

  “Are there any injured among you?” This time, the black woman Michelle had a light-pink silk dress with a silver, maple-leaf motif. It didn’t really go with the enormous medical bag she was carrying on her shoulder.

  “We’re all in one piece for now,” answered Jeanne. “Listen, maybe you could put on some decent clothes. I want to cry when I look at you hobbling around in those heels!”

  “But what if I die today for Our Lord Jesus Christ?” Michelle asked brightly.

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “On a holiday like that, one should wear one’s nicest clothes.”

  “Is that why you were always so beautifully dressed in the ghetto?” asked Jeanne.

  “In the ghetto, that holiday can occur any day. All right, I’m going on. May Our Lady keep you close!”

  Jeanne could only admit to herself that she was still a long way away from such joy.

  “So what if they have a few Stingers—but where did they get the mines? Machine guns, sniper rifles, those can be explained! What else do they have, what and from where?”

  The general’s voice over the radio sounded like a bird of prey in a cage.

  “I don’t believe the gear is from Russia,” answered Kasim wearily. “And I suggest that now is probably not the right time to initiate a court proceeding, mon générale —but my theory is that somewhere, a depot is much poorer today.”

  “The situation of the depots is currently being checked. We have to know what else the kafirs have to welcome us with. What happened with imam Mosvar Ali? He didn’t call back?”

  “No, mon générale .”

  “Good.” The general calmed down a little. “There will be a lot of commotion, but I have no intention of sacrificing a mountain of soldiers to save him.”

  Kasim coughed. The general was not only a Frenchman, but a fourth-generation Parisian from a rich family. He would never have allowed himself this remark if he’d been speaking with an Arab.

  “Do we have many casualties?”

  “It’s difficult to calculate right now. We certainly have some losses in equipment and men.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “To withdraw to a safe distance. The engineering units are planning how to remove the barricades without losses. It’s dangerous to send in deminers, since they’d have to work under rifle fire. The sooner all the barricades explode, the sooner they’ll all burn to the ground. That will give the Maquisards just a few more hours.”

  * * *

  “We’ll get a few more hours,” said Larochejaquelein to Sophia. “That’s good. In our situation, it’s sufficient... Sophie, I’ve heard a very silly rumor—”

  “We’re not going to discuss that, Henri. We have other things to do right now. What kind of regiment have they sent? It’s 50 percent bigger than we calculated. We’re going to take heavy losses in front as soon as the barricades finish burning.”

  When the fireworks broke out below, Eugène-Olivier was sitting against a stone lattice, trying to figure out if he had seriously injured his wrist. The first phase had begun and the attack was not far off. He had to hurry. The wound was nothing, his hand was working normally. It was just a little pain.

  The stench of burning tires overcame the pleasant scent of the trees and the damp air from the river. In the air, greasy particles of soot hung densely, like incense at the devil’s wedding. They dirtied the pink flowers of the chestnuts and the pink dress of Michelle, who was bending over someone sitting on the cobblestones.

  * * *

  The closer he got to the gallery, the more slowly Eugène-Olivier moved. Now he no longer feared that he would fall; but he was very afraid that he would be noisy. Quietly, more quietly, even more slowly.

  Luckily, the poli
ceman was snoozing as he sat on the floor of the gallery. The rifle stood beside him. Eugène-Olivier crawled, trying not to breathe. He bent over. He extended his hand, very carefully grabbing the end of the barrel. Now he needed to pull, to pull straight up, like a cat pulling a fish out of an aquarium. A little bit more and he would be able to grasp it more firmly in his other hand. The rifle was too heavy to pull up with just the ends of his fingers.

  “Ah!” he cried silently. A sharp pain in his right wrist did not make him release his booty, but the butt made a noise of betrayal on the stone.

  “A-a-ah!” The young policeman, blurry-eyed from sleep, jumped up and pulled on the butt with all his strength. Knowing he couldn’t hold onto the contested weapon, Eugène-Olivier followed it into the gallery—falling directly on top of the policeman.

  The rifle fell on the floor, useless to both. The pistol in Eugène-Olivier’s holster was also useless, and the policeman couldn’t reach his own gun. They gripped each other, rolling and choking each other against the stone.

  “ Kafir , pig, livestock!” hissed the policeman.

  Eugène-Olivier fought silently. His knowledge was far more professional and he had no intention of wasting his breath.

  The young man was strong, well built, well fed, and at least 20 pounds heavier than Eugène-Olivier. He understood his advantage.

  “I’ll choke you, dirty kafir! I won’t waste a cartridge on you. I’ll cut your throat myself! You’ll smile for me from ear to ear!” He was obviously irritated that Eugène-Olivier was not answering.

  Slowly, barely perceptibly, Eugène-Olivier began to push his own forehead toward his chest, digging his chin into the vulnerable backs of the hands squeezing at his throat. He pressed down even more—and then suddenly raised his head into the Muslim’s face.

  The blow to the chin was not that powerful, but for a moment the body of the policeman was paralyzed with pain, and his muscles relaxed a little. Eugène-Olivier reached down and grabbed the Muslim around the knees. Holding the upper legs together with all his strength, he drove himself to a standing position and pivoted toward the balustrade, swinging the head and shoulders toward the top edge and starting to shove the rest of the body after it...

  “NO!” The policeman’s head was already hanging in empty space, and he desperately tried to scramble and pitch his weight back over the balustrade. “My father will boil you alive, he’ll impale you on a stick, you don’t know, you animal, who my father is...”

  Eugène-Olivier straightened his own legs with a grunt as he shoved the Muslim’s hips up over the edge with all his strength.

  The body slipped away so suddenly that Eugène-Olivier’s momentum slammed him with a jolt against the balustrade.

  The policeman’s scream echoed in the emptiness. The body turned during the fall and looked strangely wooden, as if already dead.

  Sparks jumped in front of Eugène-Olivier’s eyes and his temples pounded wildly. On the floor was a small, expensive cell phone that imam Mosvar Ali didn’t know about. It was ringing.

  The devil take it, let it ring.

  But he needed to know whether the people below understood what had just happened here. Maybe they saw. Eugène-Olivier answered the phone after all.

  “Hello?”

  “Wali Farad? Is everything alright there? Hey, who is this? Is everything all right in the mosque? Call my son! Call my son!”

  “He can’t come right now. He’s busy.”

  Eugène-Olivier turned off the phone and looked down. Wali Farad was no longer busy. His arms and legs spread, he lay motionless on the cobblestones and looked very small.

  Black clouds of smoke were rising into the air from all the bridges now. The peaceful, silver water of the Seine glistened. In the old days, a bell used to hang here. An enormous bell. But even without the bell, it was wonderful to look out on the endless row of roofs. How high you are, Notre Dame. The wind tousled his hair. Here, up above, one could breathe with full lungs.

  Eugène-Olivier carefully picked up the rifle. A superb weapon. He finally had time to examine it. The attack on Notre Dame would not begin before twilight. That meant he had to sit here for a few more hours. At twilight he would descend down the same circular staircase he had heard about in his childhood. And then he would open the door of the Portal of Judgment Day for his people. He could, of course, open any of them. But he had already decided to open that one. Because Judgment Day had, in a sense, already begun.

  CHAPTER 17

  An attack within an attack

  Fire was still licking at the blackened remains of the automobiles, but the smoke screen was less dense. After a few hours, they could see through it, and saw the army troops preparing their attack. They could see endless Kalashnikovs and helmets glittering in the sun.

  “And we don’t even have bulletproof vests,” thought Larochejaquelein bitterly. In the military depot, there were towelettes moistened with cologne, but no bulletproof vests.

  “Now they’re going to swarm us,” said Sophia. “Everyone here is smart; everyone understands who we need to take out first?”

  “The officers,” quickly answered a young man.

  “That’s right. Without commanders, an army turns into cattle... All right. Henri, I’m relinquishing command to you, although I’ll stay for a while to shoot like an ordinary soldier. In an hour, darkness will set in. We need to prepare to eject the police from Notre Dame.”

  Larochejaquelein silently nodded before he peered through the riflescope. The first shot was heard. The first shot is always the pebble that launches an avalanche. The avalanche began.

  * * *

  Abdullah did everything he could to push his way into the back rows, behind the bodies of the others. Only a few weeks ago he could not have imagined what his recently arranged life would turn into! Today, there was no philanthropist who could snatch him from the masses rushing head-on into machine gun fire!

  “Charge, advance forward!” came the order. But to the left, Abdullah saw the open door of the strafed cabin of the excavator. It looked like the skull of a whale or a walrus. No one would peer in there now!

  Looking left and right, he slipped into the cabin at just the right moment. Swearing and panting, the next soldier ran by him, jumping onto the asphalt in Abdullah’s place, while Abdullah waited in the cabin.

  New attackers tripped over the bodies of those who had been killed. The greatest crowd of them was around the barricade, which was burning out.

  Should I send in an excavator and push away the barricade? Kasim asked himself. A lot of men would die until they conquered it. But somehow he was reluctant to issue the order.

  * * *

  Thank God we have so much ammunition, thought Larochejaquelein. But why are there so many of them? Did they call out the army from all over France?

  There were now wounded. The women dragged them into the catacombs and administered first aid.

  Michelle was hurrying, sniffing as she walked and wiping her tears with the palm of her hand. The fingers of both her hands were swollen, and they hurt. For more than an hour, she had tended Philippe André Brisseville, whose lungs could not endure the smoke and the soot. How he had suffered, poor Monsieur Brisseville! Until he exhaled his last, unimaginably difficult breath—which turned his lips purple and made the engorged veins in his forehead go black—she had held his clenched hands in her own.

  Michelle herself did not suffer for an instant. Her heels seemed to catch on something. She fell to her knees and then onto her back.

  Fourteen year-old Arthur leaped to help her. “Perhaps there is something in her bag,” he said tersely to Jeanne as he searched it. “Do you know anything about medicine?”

  “There’s nothing for me to know.” Jeanne carefully leaned Michelle’s curly head on the root of a plane tree. “Don’t worry about her. For her, it’s a feast day.”

  The army’s first attack had failed. The Maquisards were already shooting at backs. None of the Muslim officers had sur
vived.

  “We’ve gained a few more hours.” Larochejaquelein wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand, which made him look like a Mardi Gras dancer.

  “Saintville-piglet, stop throwing the reflection from your mirror my way, it’s better that you screw it in where it belongs. That’s where it’s needed. You know what, Maurice—send someone to bring cans of dog food from the depot. It wouldn’t be bad to line them up on that burning steel.”

  “All right, Larochejaquelein,” said Maurice. Translating the order, he called, “Arthur, bring more mines from the depot, about five crates.”

  Looking after the young man as he was leaving, Maurice decided not to lose time. It was difficult to plant mines on the black skeletons of the automobiles. Every wire was visible. He had to find a better place.

  Maurice took his Kalashnikov just in case and headed across the barrier of sandbags. Here on the bridge, all the dead were Muslim.

  Approaching the new pile of destroyed metal, Maurice strained to hear. There was some noise from inside, blue material moving in the depths. Someone was trying to get out, obviously, toward the riverbank.

  “Listen!” Maurice said in lingua franca . “Now you’re going to come out, but not on that side. On this side. And don’t try to make a single move I won’t like. From in there, you can’t see me, but I can turn you into a pulp.”

  Abdullah came out slowly, very slowly, trying to put off the inevitable. He was afraid the Maquisard would trick him. Finally, his boots touched the asphalt, and his secure shelter was behind him.

  Maurice had to turn him over to command headquarters for interrogation, although he would have liked to simply shoot him. In the old days, if he remembered correctly, this prisoner would be called a “squealer.” A necessary thing.

  “M-M-Maurice!” The voice of the “squealer” trembled sadly, then joyfully.