A New Career
20,000 men and women everyday… B. Darhma
The sight was like something out of a cheap horror comic, but it was very, very real. Hundreds and hundreds of names scrawled on thousands of crypts. The tunnels wander endlessly beneath the streets and homes of Paris. Skulls lie about absent-mindedly, so that after a few hundred yards seeing a femur or the occasional pile of common vertebrae seems rather unremarkable. The ceiling is low so that walking crouched is often preferable to risking brushing its damp furry surface. The flickering yellow/gold light from our torches cast swirling strobing shadows on the walls and floor, and the crypts performed an eerie chaotic dance.
a bright light in darkness
The earth shook and moaned regularly occasionally shaking little breaths of dust from the crypts. In some places bones were sorted into little piles of like bits, while others were stacked neatly and artistically, like gruesome bits of twisted wit. I saw the ‘skull-and-crossbones’ arrangement more than once. Doesn’t inspire confidence, I thought.
We crawled through the maze like rats. Well dressed, torch-bearing rats. The novelty of the environment wore off fairly quickly. It was dank and creepy and the backyard barbeque smell of the torches was beginning to wear on my vegetarian nose. Xavier was rambling about the history of the tombs in broken english with injections of french.
…it just doesn’t matter…
“…here are the bones of 6 million people. They are people who were buried at les Innocents. Numerous other cemeteries in Paris were placed here also. The remaindings of several victims of the French Revolution lay here. Among the skulls of 15 centuries are leaders Danton, Camille, Desmoulins and Robespierre. And sweet Madame Elisabeth, sister of king Louis XVI. They all died by the guillotine. Of course, the best–”
“Xavier?” I interrupted.
“Oui?”
“Where the hell am I?” I’m sure I must’ve looked exasperated because his expression immediately changed to a combination of surprise and indignance.
Jolly Roger
“These are the careers of Paris. Perhaps you’ve heard of them as the Catacombs,” he said. He looked past me, then with outstretched arms began a slow twirl. “Surely you have heard of this place. In this labyrinth, during the Second World War, the leaders of the french resistance gathered to plan for the liberation of Paris. Here they had their headquarters until the allied forces came.” He kicked a skull across the floor. He said, “Nowhere else is death so, je ne sais…, succinct, yes?” He’d stepped into a crossing of two passages and raised his torch high above his head beneath the tall ceiling. “Isn’t it glorious?” he said.
“It isn’t the first adjective that comes to mind, X,” I replied.
“What? Is it not ironic? The living walking through the home of the dead. Is that what bothers you?” He motioned for me to follow without waiting for a reply.
“No, I don’t think…” I began, “well, maybe yeah. I mean, how would they feel walking through the mall?”
“How indeed?” he said. We came to another of the dozens of ladders which climbed the walls into darkness. He gazed upward for a moment and muttered, “How indeed?”
He snapped his head around so quickly it made me jump. “Voilà. Le Chez Rodin.” He presented the ladder with his free hand. “Après vous. I will hold your light.”
I handed the torch to him and cautiously set about ascending the cold slick ladder. It was sturdy, recently welded from half inch re-bar, but it felt green.
We’d descended two more levels after we first entered the crypt near the Hôtel des Invalides. We had rounded a corner when Xavier stooped to open one of those trap doors in the sidewalk. He jumped to the bottom of the steep little staircase and produced a shiny ghost-story-type key from his pocket. I heard a click and a creak as the door opened. I stood around nervously before giving in to his calls to follow him. I did so only after worrying his yelling and the bright flourescent light coming out of the sidewalk would attract attention. I shut the sidewalk door as quietly as possible and pushed the big inside door behind me. I heard the lock click, and when I instinctively twisted the knob it wouldn’t budge.
It looked like any other side walk storeroom. There were wooden shelves filled with industrial sized food-stuffs on the walls and big shiny stainless steel walk-in type refrigerators in the corner. Behind one of the coolers was a black pole and a large sign reading “Vin”. When I followed Xavier’s voice down the spiral staircase which was hanging from the pole I found him in a wine cellar eyeing a wall full of vintage bottles. They were two hundred year vintage wines, with wrinkled brown handmade labels. The room was stone-walled but had three bare dirty bulbs hanging from the beams which supported the storeroom above.
“You prefer red, no?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He plucked a dusty bottle from above his head and reached a hand toward me. “Give me your valise,” he said pointing at the cotton sack I’d gotten from Courtney. He dropped the wine in and tightened the drawstring. “This will do,” he said. He moved to one end of the wall and said, “You are beginning a special adventure, Trouble. How is your stomach?”
“I’ll be okay.” I wasn’t as confident as I wanted to sound.
“Good.” He put his hands on the shelves and began shoving. It shuddered and wiggled across the floor a few inches, then it clunked loudly and seemed to float a few feet further before it stopped. Hidden behind the angled shelves was an earthen tube with an iron ladder on the far wall. It was dark – a thin rope disappearing into the hole was tied over a rung at head height. He said, “Hold this,” and tossed me the bag with the wine. Then he grabbed the ladder and started down.
He called up for me to tie the wine and lower it down behind him. I tied the drawstring around a knot in the rope and started pulling. The rope was tied in a loop, and the bottle began its trip downward. After it had been out of sight for a few seconds I saw it silhouetted against a faint flickering. I felt the rope begin moving on its own, and Xavier called, “I have it! Come down!”
I definitely didn’t want to go, but staying didn’t seem like a wise choice either. I didn’t want to be there the next morning when whoever showed up for work. And I really never liked spelunking. Caves give me that feeling like I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be.
I latched myself to a couple of rungs and turned back with my other hand to close the wine rack. It slid smoothly back into place. The tube became very dark. I took a deep breath and began an exhausting climb to the bottom. The light flickering from below only confused my eyes, so I closed them and tried to set a nice rhythm.
It was further than I had thought. At the time it seemed impossible to surpass the pain it caused in my arms and legs. When I stepped into the chamber at the bottom of the ladder I nearly fainted dead away. It was littered with gruesome bits and pieces. And they were so obviously real the effect was overwhelming at first. Xavier had the bag in one hand and two brightly burning torches in the other. He reached toward me with the torches.
“Voilà, ” he said, “you will want this.” The he led me through the macabre chambers.
It seemed like I’d climbed more than a hundred feet upward when I nearly broke my hand on the cold metal door. I couldn’t see downward for the glare of the torches. By feeling around I was able to make out a door knob and a deadbolt lock.
“It’s locked. Do you have the key?” I called back down the ladder.
“Key? I have no key!” he said, “Knock!”
“I did,” I yelled. I looked upward again and stretched my arm to knock properly when I heard the bolt slide. It clicked smoothly and the knob turned. Light poured into the tunnel as the lid slid away from the opening. A large blonde haired man peered down at me.
“Ah, Trouble!” he said. He reached a muscular arm into the tube, grabbed me by both hands and pulled me straight up, out and stood me in front of him. He was huge. Like six-feet and eight-inches huge, and not an ounce of fat anywhere. He was one of those scary body-building types, the type of look that says, “Warning: Do Not Puncture. Contents Under Pressure.”
We were in a large room, on the second floor of some place I didn’t recognize. A single window on each side of the room opposed the other, and the walls that ran the length of the room between them were totally bare. No pictures, no doors, not even so much as an electrical outlet marred the perfectly flat, beige colored sides of the room. The tube from which I was pulled was in the center of the room. There were two spiral stairways centered on opposite sides of the room between the tube and each window.
Xavier popped up from the tube like he was shot out of it. He jumped to the floor and said, “Bonsoir, Svente. You have met Trouble, I see.” He turned to me. “Trouble, this is Svente. He is Monsieur Rodin’s valet, and the best masseur dans tout Paris.”
“Enchanté, ” he said as he extended his hand.
“Mais oui,” I replied as his hand swallowed mine. His free hand motioned to the stair behind him. “Dinner is this way,” he said.
Next Week: Pick up the phone, we’re Calling the Cow
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