Irene Adler: Chapel Noir Part 24

I glimpsed a green curtain pulled open its full width at both extremities, and in between . . . ah, it seems an affront to commit a description of what I saw to handwriting on a page: two rows of twelve stone slabs, each surmounted by a body, naked save for a bit of loincloth.

The shock of such a sight is impossible to impart. I felt as if dashed with ice water, then consumed by fire. Was my heart beating? So strongly that it felt as if savage hands were drumming upon my skin. A roaring in my ears turned every word of French or English around me into Hungarian. My feet seemed unconnected to the floor, and my head seemed to bounce against the high ceiling.

Such nudity had only been glimpsed in paintings before, and then I had quickly glanced away. I cannot say whether the male or female form was more shocking, save that they both were white as paper. And so still. Some looked as though they could wake and walk in the next minute. Some looked as though only the undertaker's art held flesh and bone together.

And yet . . . the face and form of death was so fascinating, so horrifying, that I could not take my eyes off of them. What separated them from me? Besides gla.s.s? Minutes? More likely hours. Then days. Not long before they had stood upright, clothed, had breathed, laughed, cried, cursed. Then died. And now they lay for all to see, nothing protecting them, no one standing between them and curious strangers.

It was blasphemy to gaze upon them. It was cowardice to look away.

Irene's gloved hand squeezed my elbow.

I glanced into her eyes, so bright and animated, and read their message.

I turned my head to look up at Bram Stoker.

His face was ablaze with a look of unholy wonder, as if he read a book that had never been written before.

"Thank you, Bram," Irene said when we had run the gantlet of the dead. We stood on the walk outside again, and she was adjusting her gloves.

People jostled us. I smelled wet corduroy and garlic, lavender cologne. And baby's breath.

"This is all you require of me?" he asked, confused.

"Yes. Nell and I will visit Notre Dame before we meet our coachman, who will return us to our hotel. I am sure you have other sights to see."

"Yes." He sighed, frowned. "I hope this was of use to you."

"Oh, new experiences are always of use to the observant." She c.o.c.ked her head like a robin inspecting a worm.

He sensed the perception behind the gesture, but not the reason for it, and shook his ruddy head. He was such a gentle bear of a man. I shuddered to think of the expression I had surprised upon his features. And yet, how did the Prince of Wales look when he demanded a woman's virtue, or he swept her from the presence of her husband? How many demons shelter inside the most respectable of us? Inside myself?

I sighed, too, as he left us.

"It is always more instructive," Irene commented dreamily, "to watch the quick than the dead." She eyed me sharply. "And how are you?"

"Shaken. I have never seen bodies so stripped of dignity. Even the most lurid sketches of the Ripper's victims were somehow less awful. Perhaps it's the lack of clothing."

"Clothing. I cannot tell you how vital clothing is, Nell. It is our carapace, our sh.e.l.l. I am an actress, a singer. I am considered frivolous. Yet I can tell you that costume is the s.h.i.+eld of the soul. There, that old peddler woman. Rusty, tattered bonnet, moth-eaten shawl, clumsy shoes, and dragging skirt. She wears her heart upon her sleeve, and also her occupation and place in life. In an instant we discern her station, her history. We decide to buy a rag or two, merely in charity. We decide to ignore her, to pa.s.s her by, to forget where she may sleep tonight. Still she walks on, pus.h.i.+ng her cart. An artist may paint her into a masterpiece, a tiny black blur in the lower right-hand corner. Or he may do a portrait and make her immortal. Anything can happen to a living creature in clothes. But dead, naked. We are abandoned. Nothing but what other people choose to give us for an epitaph. A victim. A lost soul. An unidentified body. I think that is why people come here. Oh, they think it is for curiosity, for callow sensation, but it is to remind themselves that they live, and that motion is the illusion of life and clothes are what separates them from the helplessness of death.

"Speaking of clothes, did you notice the tall, mustachioed policeman near the only figure that was covered by a sheet from ankle to chin?"

"No. But I did notice that shrouded corpse. What can be the reason for such an attack of modesty on the part of the officials?"

"Modesty, nothing. That was the young woman from the Eiffel Tower."

"Amazing! I could not see well enough in that dreary light to recognize her face."

"Neither could I. I know it is she because the sheet covers the severe injuries visited upon her by the killer. The Paris police are thorough, but they are not crude. Though they will exhibit bodies past the point of decaying, and even the modern wonders of refrigeration cannot delay mortal dissolution forever, they take care to disguise the outward signs. Nor do they reveal the brutalities done to these bodies."

"Ah. So they stationed a gendarme near the corpse to watch for a possible visit from a murderer."

"No, they did not. But Sherlock Holmes did."

"I am amazed that the Paris police would listen to even Sherlock Holmes in this matter."

"They did not, which is why he has to do it himself."

I whirled to face the exterior window, through which I could glimpse shadowy forms in motion and the visored cap of the gendarme's striking form. I took in the parallel glint of his uniform b.u.t.tons and the hilt of the das.h.i.+ng short sword at his side.

"It cannot be."

"I think it is."

"And did he spy us?"

"Most certainly. And our companion as well."

"Do you think he spied someone else truly suspicious?"

She shrugged. "That I cannot say. How irritating that I cannot don my own disguise and follow him, but he would be gone before I could change personas and return. I am afraid that we must follow more conventional methods in this case, Nell. I will think on what to do about Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

"I am relieved to hear you relinquish these games of dress-up and subterfuge. I fear that they are more useful for confusing your friends than confounding your enemies."

"That may be," Irene said, taking my arm companionably. "Now let us stroll along the river to the cathedral. I wish to hear my footsteps echo in that sublime s.p.a.ce, and to think of the mighty chords of music that have lifted to that stone vault over the centuries."

"I would never discourage you from entering a church, even if it be Romanish."

"And the religious environs will be a good antidote to the mortal ruins we have just seen," she added.

Dancing with the Dead

Within his wild, indulgent soul, one senses a certain pure energy beneath the coa.r.s.eness, saint and sinner in primal battle, Michael and Luciter entoiled in one body, diquised as a whirling dervish.

-NOTE TO MYSELF

FROM A YELLOW BOOK.

His pale eyes s.h.i.+ne with that odd compelling light they get at times.

At such moments one forgets his less-than-humble origins, his brutish manners, even his slovenly clothing and speech.

He will take me, he says, to the ceremony. To the holy of holies in his bizarre world.

And then I remember how much of a boy he is, although he has lived as a man since he was fifteen. He has boasted of his drinking bouts then, his thefts, his village parlor tricks, his womanizing. He veers from pride in his sins to paroxysms of penitence. He has also mentioned headaches so severe they seemed to swell his brain.

It is as if two opposite persons occupy his body and mind, each striving for the upper hand. His primitive, often childlike religiosity he owes to his peasant upbringing. His l.u.s.t for life, and for l.u.s.t, he owes to his physical and mental stamina, more than I have ever encountered in any human, and the Ghurka of India and the whirling dervishes of Afghanistan are tireless.

I feel he will be a man of importance in some place and time, should events fall rightly for him. The only question is will he be an influence for good or for ill? And who is to say which is which? I have danced both sides of that line so many times in my own life that the demarcation has become irrevocably blurred.

His potential fascinates me.

We speak the same language, though his usages are blunt and inelegant. We share a mother tongue, and little else.

Now that he has agreed to allow me to share in his most secret ways, he bubbles over with excitement.

I must wear a monk's robe.

A hooded cloak will do, I suggest.

No. A monk's robe only. I accede and send Charles out to procure one. I will not ask how. I never do. It suits me that my wishes are always obeyed and I do not know exactly how.

He tells me that I must hide myself and stay hidden, no matter what happens.

This has the autocratic feel of an old fairy tale, as if I would turn to stone if I disobeyed his slightest instruction, so I agree solemnly, swearing on the rough wooden crucifix he produces for the purpose, though I get a sliver in my palm that will prove almost impossible to remove later and will fester for some time.

I have gold and silver and amethyst and malachite and rock crystal crucifixes, that I have collected on my travels, but they are curiosities, and of some value, that is all. I am long past crucifixes.

But not past crucifixions.

He is as nervous as a bride, dressing in his soiled peasant blouse and loose trousers as if they were wedding regalia. I have offered him new clothing, but he is in love with his own smell, like a beast.

He adores the excesses that seep through the folds of his crude clothes.

It is a pity I am a fastidious person. Perhaps I would understand him better were I able to sink to his animal level. But I am master, and he is beast, and we both satisfy each other enormously on our separate levels.

He makes me kneel and pray before we depart at 10:00 P.M. He pushes my hands together in the traditional steeple of prayer, wraps the tin rosary beads around them like bonds.

He swears me to the monk's robe. Swears me to silent observance, like a monk. Laughs, and then swears me to chast.i.ty and obedience.

"Poverty?" I ask.

He shakes his unkempt head. Only chast.i.ty and obedience, and only for tonight.

I admit my heart pounds. I find acceding to his wild demands a novelty. I am not used to agreeing to anyone else's wishes. I find his staring, caressing, careless pale eyes invincible. I find the impending promise of his total lack of control exciting beyond all my previous manipulations.

I am used to lurking and watching, to setting events in motion.

The events tonight, I know, will have nothing to do with what I want or wish or arrange. They will be madly random. They will be mad.

I am very excited.

He sees the antic.i.p.ation in my eyes and laughs, ripping the rosary beads from my hands as if freeing me from bonds.

He is young, ignorant, crude, and no doubt crazy.

And yet he feels my equal.

What a fascinating beast.

And he is mine, as everyone else is his.

We walk. A long way. I trail him in my Gothic monk's robe.

The cobblestones are damp, and he takes the obscure ways, through narrow streets. I smell the river, moist and moribund. I smell frying sausages and the fetid gutters. I smell the damp wool of my heavy robe, the hood literally weighing my head down in a modestholy?-position of submission, like a beast of burden.

I will be as mute as a beast tonight, no matter what happens. I swear this to myself, the only G.o.d I recognize.

My palm throbs. The sliver from the crucifix has proven stubborn, painful. I am such a good monk, I even abuse myself for the cause, for the unholy exultation in being a humble observer of life's mysteries.

When I see the wall of Notre Dame ahead of us I pause. Here I go, bowed over like Quasimodo, clothed in scratchy Holy Mother Church wool, like a walking scapular, following my Caliban of Christianity under the shadow of the most holy cathedral in Christendom . . . or fair France, at least.

For a moment my religious childhood resurrects itself. I fear bands of avenging angels come to strike the impious down . . . but those were the fairy tales, as I have often found out in later life, and the reality is the evil that men do, not the G.o.ds or angels who would stop them from evil. These are the myths.

He tugs on my deep sleeve, pulls me against a squat tangle of buildings in front of the louring church. We are alone in the universe, and his breath stinks of stale beer.

"You will say nothing from now on. When I push you back, you will stay there."

"What is this place?"

"They call this something in this city." He spits out the word "city" as if it were cursed. "In my land, we burrowed into the heartless ground below, to hold our ceremonies. Here we must make our own burrows, and we have.

"Below and hidden is our chapel," he goes on, "that we have made with our own hands and hearts." He jerks his rough-shaven chin at the towers behind us. "It is older than that whited sepulchre of stone and rich incense and corruption. Below we make our own cathedral, we call down our own G.o.d. And He comes. You will see."

I follow him into the ancient erection of stone and sour wood.

He moves through a decrepit door, and I follow. My robe catches on splinters as possessive as the grasping hands of beggars. I have never given alms.

I hear the wool shriek as I pull it free again and again, and then . . . cool underground air. We are stumbling down rough stone steps.