The Mosque of Notre Dame

by Elena Chudinova

  “Jube, Domine, benedicere!” The words flowed by themselves, as if he had uttered them a hundred times.

  There was no time to ask whether he had learned that de Lescure was out of the picture, or if he had appeared for some other reason. Sophia continued to plant explosives, hurrying to compensate for the lost minutes. Father Lothaire, blessing the young man with the sign of the cross, handed him the censer, the aspergillum, and the vessel, keeping only the Rituale for himself.

  “Oremus.” Here was a sense of mystery, perfect mystery, which Eugène-Olivier had known existed, but had never hoped to experience. He did not anticipate what a joy it would be. The soaring dome accepted his voice and lifted it high. Oh, how different it was from serving in common buildings, barely adapted to serve as churches! Lord, how foolish it had been to hang microphones everywhere—which later came in so handy for the Muslims! This architecture had known for centuries how to amplify sound:

  Omnipotens et misericors Deus, qui Sacerdotibus tuis tantam prae ceteris gratiam contulisti, ut quidquid in tuo nomine digne perfecteque ab eis agitur, a te fieri credatur, quaesumus immensam clementiam tuam, ut quod modo visitatari sumus, visites, et quidquid benedicturi sumus, benedicas; sitque ad nostrae humilitatis introitum, Sanctorum tuorum meritis, fuga daemonum, Angeli pacis ingressus. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.

  “Amen,” responded Eugène-Olivier.

  The procession headed toward the altar. When he reached Sophia, Father Lothaire lifted the aspergillum . The drops fell on her face. In her youth, during those few, happy years with Leonid Sevazmios—as happy as Sonya Greenberg could feel happy—holy water smelled to her like lilies-of-the-valley. So many years had passed, and yet the smell was the same!

  Father Lothaire walked through the enormous church—lit by the rays of the sun and resembling the nave of a ship—as if in a dream.

  “It is a ship that is sailing into eternity,” Father Lothaire observed to himself, smiling. If he continued to think so pathetically and passionately, it would be easy to imagine himself a hero. Better to say it as Valerie would: “We need to finish the task before the buttocks arrive.”

  As he began the litany, Father Lothaire saw out of the corner of his eye that Sophia was headed for the exit with her arms full. Ah, yes, the flying buttresses. If she were killed like de Lescure, the priest mused that he himself wouldn’t be much good at setting the charges. Perhaps the young man would be able to deal with that as well. But try, Sophia—try to live an hour and a half more!

  “Ut hanc Ecclesiam, et altare hoc, ac coemeterium purgare, et reconcilare...” ( Here, Father Lothaire paused, got up from his knees, and made the sign of the cross over the stone that had spent so many years cluttered with all sorts of meaningless decorations) “...digneris.”

  “Te rogamus, audi nos!” chanted Eugène-Olivier, no longer questioning how the memory of his forebear was speaking through his mouth.

  The 67th Psalm was approaching. So many more things to do, and so far away the shore!

  Sophia returned to the church empty-handed, the charges now in place.

  “This is a church again,” said Father Lothaire. For a moment, he felt his head swaying, as if he were outside of himself. From the beginning of time, in the mind of his Creator, he had been put on earth for a purpose. He realized that he was nearly done.

  “Eugène-Olivier, Sophia: It is time for Mass. We stand in the new Notre Dame, the throne of Our Lady, who crushes the head of the serpent. Al Franconi Mosque no longer exists. It has been cast into hell!”

  “YES!” shouted Eugène-Olivier in English, without thinking. The ancient cathedral echoed with the sound of his voice, and he blushed to the roots of his hair, awkward and mortified.

  Father Lothaire smiled. In the fires that burned in Sophia’s eyes, he could read exactly the same word: “Yes!”

  He asked evenly, “What happened with de Lescure, Sophie?”

  “Dead.”

  “Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. When our labors are done, may we meet swiftly in Heaven. Everyone in position.”

  Father Lothaire turned to Eugène-Olivier: “The vestments are lying in the order that you need to give them to me. I’ll tell you what to do after that.”

  Father Lothaire covered his head with the amice, drew it down on his shoulders and put a long linen alb over his cassock. Over the alb, he tied a belt of rope. Our knots are like sailors’ knots, he thought to himself.

  The stole and chasuble were black, for a Requiem Mass.

  * * *

  Earlier, as she was attaching a piece of plastic explosive the size of a book to one of the many columns, Sophia had suddenly remembered her Aunt Liza, who was only eleven years older than she.

  Liza Zabelin, her mother’s much-younger sister, had luxuriant, light-brown, softly curled hair that fell below her waist. Everyone turned to look at Liza’s hair when she walked by. She had a slightly round face with widely spaced gray eyes, broad shoulders, and an athletic figure. Since birth she had had heart problems. To Sonya’s shame, she had never asked what sort of heart problems they were. By the time she thought to ask, there was no one left who could answer.

  The adult Sophia only remembered the exterior things about her young aunt: a well-worn copy of Gone with the Wind, portraits of dignified generals, a boy in a general’s uniform, and an icon in a box with a glass cover. Liza referred to Sophia as “my goddaughter Sonya”—since, as a 12-year-old, she had secretly baptized her one-year-old niece. As they grew older, Sophia was the only exception to Liza’s highly intellectual society. She would play with her for hours.

  “Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine.” Father Lothaire did not make the sign of the Cross over himself—as in an ordinary liturgy, but over the stone altar, blessing all who were bound by the chains of death— “et lux perpetua luceat eis. Te decet hymnus Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Ierusalem. Exaudi orationem meam; ad te omnis caro veniet. Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.”

  From the age of nine, Sonya no longer rushed to visit her aunt’s spacious, modern, dark apartment on University Prospekt. Liza was at an angry age. She made Sophia watch long films about Russian history—without castles, knights, or tournaments.

  But during the horrible months Sophia spent as a hostage of the Muslims, it was Liza who stayed at the side of Sophia’s bewildered father. She became his most reliable secretary, executing his instructions for his business while he immersed himself with the calls and negotiations for saving Sonya.

  On the day when her father, dropping the telephone receiver on the floor, shouted: “Liza, they’ve released Sonya!” there was no response from the next room. He found Liza sitting on the couch, her lips curled in a smile.

  Four years later, when she heard the details of how her aunt had died, Sonya was wracked with guilt. Why?

  Who would have imagined that more than 50 years later, she would remember her aunt’s favorite song, from the first verse to the last, in a cathedral—which is after all modeled on a ship:

  Hear us, almighty God,

  And receive our prayer,

  The “Defender” died like a hunter,

  Far from Russia, our land.

  Despite the awkwardness of the words accompanying the melody, the song sounded mighty, like the breathing of a giant.

  The captain said: “Go, boys!

  Surely we will not see the dawn!

  Russia is full of heroes

  And for the Tsar, like them, we’ll die!”

  And suddenly the watery doors opened,

  And they sank into the deep sea,

  Without a sigh, without a tear,

  Far from Russia, their land.

  Sophia had smiled, carefully adjusting the green numbers on the display of the timer.

  As he said the Mass now, Father Lothaire mused sadly, “So many years have passed since these walls have heard Latin. How they must have missed it!”

  Sophia effortlessly recalled t
he next verse in her head:

  The gulls flapping their wings,

  Circled in sorrow at their deaths

  Singing “Memory Eternal”

  To the heroes of the sea.

  Now it was time for Father Lothaire to chant the sequence heard at every Requiem Mass, asking God’s mercy on the dead—

  Dies iræ! dies illa

  Day of wrath! That very day...

  Solvet sæculum in favilla

  Will consume the world in ashes...

  Teste David cum Sibylla!

  As David and the Sibyl foretold.

  Quantus tremor est futurus,

  What a tremor awaits us...

  quando judex est venturus,

  When the Judge arrives...

  cuncta stricte discussurus!

  Shattering every bond!

  “Yes,” thought Sophia as she followed the priest’s motions at the altar, “This is like our Memory Eternal.” The two songs began to interweave in her mind.

  Your strength, Russia, your torch,

  Are your immortal heroes.

  And forever the “Defender”

  Will live in the people’s heart.

  Tuba mirum spargens sonum

  The trumpet’s blast will astonish...

  per sepulchra regionum,

  all who inhabit the world of the tomb,

  coget omnes ante thronum.

  Summoning all men before the Throne.

  Mors stupebit et natura,

  Death and Nature will be stunned...

  cum resurget creatura,

  to see the creature arise

  judicanti responsura.

  to answer his Judge.

  When the Sequence ended, Sophia knelt. Now she could listen to the liturgy. The sands of time would continue to flow by themselves.

  How much Eugène-Olivier regretted not understanding the Gospel reading, which Father Lothaire chanted in Latin! It must have been about the passage from death to eternal life. How fortunate were those who understood. After the Gospel comes the sermon... How did he know that? He just did.

  Father Lothaire turned to face the flock. He looked at Sophia and nodded to her, understanding why she was resting. And he looked at Eugène-Olivier.

  “My dear ones, I will not be giving a sermon—although in a sense that is not correct. Everything that could be said, we have said today without words. Eugène-Olivier, after you have poured water on my hands, I will continue alone, without an altar server.”

  “What do you mean, Father?”

  “That after that, you may leave. After the washing of the hands.” The priest looked at him solemnly.

  “Father Lothaire, don’t you understand?” Eugène-Olivier asked in a quiet shout, so that the church’s towering vaults, which were sensitive to the sacred, should not catch the unworthy words of men. “I am not leaving! I have a right to be here. I have a right to die with Notre Dame. I am the hereditary altar server of this church!”

  “ And today you served. But today is not your time to die.”

  After hesitating, Eugène-Olivier said, “I want to receive Holy Communion!”

  “No, you are not prepared for Communion. If this liturgy were to be the last on Earth, I would give you Communion at my own risk. But what you owe this church is to receive Holy Communion in the right way. Even if it is in another place.” Father Lothaire smiled. “I am the captain of the ship today. And I order you to abandon ship.”

  Good, thought Sophia. If he leaves now, he’ll have time to get far enough away from the walls as they fall.

  “And as your earthly commander, Lévêque,” Sophia added gently, “I am ordering you to live.”

  Cheerful candles played in Sophia’s dark eyes. The light-gray gaze of Father Lothaire was decisive. Eighteen year-old Eugène-Olivier was not strong enough to overcome them.

  “But who will pray during the Mass?” he asked weakly. “Only modernist priests would serve alone—isn’t that right, Father Lothaire?”

  “I will try,” offered Sophia. “I’m not sure that I know how, but it’s high time I learned.”

  “There,” said Father Lothaire. “Everything is resolved.” He turned toward the altar. “Gloria Tibi Domine.”

  Glory to you, O Lord.

  Eugène-Olivier continued with his last labors in the Mass, but did not follow the words. He swam in the river of his humiliation, insulted by the rejection of his sacrifice. The plain bottles he held, made of brown glass like those from a pharmacy, shook in his hands. From the second bottle he poured water on Father Lothaire’s fingers.

  “Go with God,” whispered the priest, and turned toward the altar.

  Oh, how that boy doesn’t want to live, thought Sophia. Enough people died today without you.

  “Orate, fratres,” said Father Lothaire. Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours be acceptable to God, the Father Almighty...

  Wavering slightly, as if he expected the priest to call him back, Eugène-Olivier slowly made his way to the door. Eugène-Olivier walked along the stone floor, down the aisle between the long benches to the left and right—hard benches where, he noticed with mild surprise, dozens of people now knelt.

  Among them he recognized some: Patrice Lévêque, who looked over at his grandson with a quiet smile. Antoine Philippe Lévêque, with the face of a seriously ill man who was now free of intolerable pain. Claire Eugénie Lévêque, who had lost three sons during the breach of the Maginot Line in 1940. Geneviève Lévêque, who died at the age of seventeen of tuberculosis. Auguste Antoine Lévêque, who made his fortune importing chocolate. Patrice Olivier Lévêque, with a wig divided into three parts...

  “ They will receive Communion today,” Eugène-Olivier realized. His step became more resolute.

  A pile of gray rags that someone had dropped in the vestibule caught his eye. Valerie! Valerie in her rags had slid to the ground, motionless. Her light-colored curls fell on the ground. Her wounded hands—white, spread out, looked like the hands of a porcelain doll. It could not have been otherwise. She had died, together with the church!

  Overcoming his fear, Eugène-Olivier bent down. Without knowing why, he moved a lock of the hair that covered her face. Although he did not touch her skin, his hand felt the warmth of her forehead. He touched her chest, which was rising, and felt her heart beating. But what was wrong with her, then?

  Her breathing was even, very even. Eugène-Olivier easily lifted the sleeping child into his arms and with a sudden thought, marched briskly toward the doors, almost breaking into a run. If Father Lothaire had not chased him out, who would have saved Valerie from the fire that was only minutes away?

  Jostled by his haste, Valerie opened her eyes. Her sleepy gaze briefly met his. Then the eyelids closed and the little girl sighed, finding a more comfortable position for her head on his shoulder. Never before had Eugène-Olivier seen such an ordinary, childlike gaze from Valerie. A child like any other, although very dirty, now slept in his arms.

  On her hand, he found only traces of dried blood. The stigmata were gone. There were not even scabs in their place. Only some rose-colored stains remained on her white skin.

  Careful not to wake her, Eugène-Olivier used his elbow and knee to open the heavy door and stepped out into the bright light of Paris: grayish blue, sunny—and echoing with gunshots.

  It was a day in which, despite the blood and death, clear water murmured from the small street fountain, as always. A day in which Jeanne was somewhere nearby—alive, most certainly alive.

  The timers rhythmically counted down the time remaining for the church.

  The young priest continued his prayer. For the first time in her life, the old woman prayed on her knees. They both asked themselves whether they were afraid that, in the next few minutes, their souls, wrenched from their corporal frames in inconceivable, but short-lived suffering, would rise above, through the gigantic cyclone of stone and flame.

  February-October 2004

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