Елена Чудинова - The Mosque of Notre Dame

But what could he do? He was here on business, and the priest, it appeared, was the boss. Eugène-Olivier would just make it clear by his behavior that spiritual matters did not interest him at all.

Jeanne, however, casting a sideways glance at her guest as if it pleased her to shock him, bent down before the priest on one knee like a boy and bowed her head.

“Jube, domine, benedicere!”

“Hello, little Jeanne,” the priest’s lips were smiling but in his eyes, fixed on the light-colored head, there was a flash of pain. “Benedicat te omnipotens Deus…”

“Father Lothair, this is Eugène-Olivier from the Resistance Movement.” Jeanne was already dusting her jeans. “He will be waiting with us until his new documents are delivered from Colombes.”

“I remember, Jeanne.” Apparently, Father Lothair could not help smiling good-naturedly when looking at the girl. He turned to Eugène-Olivier. “Apparently you’ve not had an easy morning.”

“I’ve been rewarded with a whole day of rest in a place more beautiful than the Côte d’Azur.” Eugène-Olivier was pleased that he had resisted making the shocking remark that it had been a trifle, nothing at all. It would have been very cheap, and the priest would have noted it immediately.

“You are here for the first time,” Father Lothair said, observing Eugène-Olivier intently, confident that he had the right to be curious. “Strange place, isn’t it? It was created at a time when people thought religion was an old-fashioned eccentricity—just because they had managed to fly a few dogs and a monkey around our sinful planet. They thought a lot about the future, which they were sure would see the unimaginable flowering of all sciences and artificial forms of intelligence. I’ve read books from those years. The only thing that the worshippers of progress of that time could not imagine was our present. None of them could have even dreamed what their shelters would be used for, and by whom.”

“I don’t believe in God.” Eugène-Olivier looked the priest in the eyes. “How could He have allowed them… to install foot baths in Notre Dame?”

“Was He the one who allowed that?” responded Father Lothair. “We did, or our ancestors did. First, by treating Notre Dame as an architectural monument instead of the house of the Throne of God. That’s what they did during the entire 20th century: appease and appease. Speaking of ancestors, yours must have been from Normandy; I’m sure they were.”

“Probably, I don’t remember.” The question of his origin didn’t particularly interest Eugène-Olivier, but it was clear the priest wanted to change the subject. “We lived in Versailles for a long time—before, of course.”

“Still, there’s no question. The upper part of your face even looks like Jeanne’s.” Father Lothair glanced at the girl. “And she’s a typical woman of Normandy. When I was a boy, I saw a portrait of Charlotte Corday. It was painted almost thirty years after her death. She was rendered as a generic beauty, I think—nothing to do with the subject. But whenever I see Jeanne, I like to think that I am looking at Charlotte’s real portrait. And it’s quite likely that I am. Charlotte was a girl from Caen. And there are hundreds of girls like Jeanne in Caen today.”

“How awful,” said Jeanne, “Hundreds of girls with thin hair and short legs!”

“And you would prefer you looked more like Miss Universe of 2023 than Charlotte Corday?” asked the priest.

“Miss Universe—what’s that, Father?” asked Jeanne, jokingly. “The best paid model of the year?”

“No, just the winner of a beauty contest. They were not only models, but students and hairstylists, librarians… There was even a police officer’s wife,” sighed Father Lothair. “I always feel so terribly old when I realize how little you know about the old world.”

Father Lothair was certainly not an old man; he looked somewhere between 30 and 35. But in order not to make him feel even older, Eugène-Olivier did not ask him who Charlotte Corday was. A nurse shot during World War I? Probably.

Another woman, tall and slender, entered the church. Eugène-Olivier saw her out of the corner of his eye before he realized who she was.

“Oh!” Jeanne’s eyes opened wide with surprise

From afar she looked young, thanks to her narrow hips and quick, youthful gait. Her long, dark hair seemed to have an inner silver glow; it was straight and fell to her fragile shoulders. But when she moved closer, it became evident that the glow was because the dark strands were abundantly mixed with gray. Not only was she not young, she was at least 60. But in her narrow, black jeans, a black turtleneck, running shoes, and a light jacket, Sophia Sevazmios wasn’t exactly old. The most feared of the seven leaders of the Resistance Movement Army— Maquis for short—for the moment, she lived outside of time.

Eugène-Olivier saw Jeanne’s gaze slide involuntarily to Sophia’s left hand, in its thin leather glove.

“I take it off when I walk around in their neighborhoods at night,” said Sophia with a smile. You know the song, don’t you? Good day, Father.”

“Yes.” Jeanne blushed, and Eugène-Olivier discovered with new delight that her blush was somehow English, not warm, but decidedly cool. “I’m glad to see you, Sophia,” said Father Lothair, grinning like a little boy. “This is Jeanne Saintville and I don’t think I need to introduce the young man to you. I imagine you’ve already met today.”

“You’re an impossible man to surprise, Father.” Sophia’s hand reached toward a large pocket but seeing the altar, she changed her mind.

“You can sit with me in the sacristy since you can’t survive half an hour without your cigarettes with the Mesopotamian name,” Father Lothair said, motioning toward the small door with his hand.

“The cigarettes are called Belomorkanal. As far as the young man is concerned, it would seem that the late qadi —by an incredible coincidence, I must say—was responsible for the new use of the Arc de Triomphe. Of course, we didn’t know that the first victim would be Simoulin. Two days more and we might have been able to save him, but time was in their favor.”

“We need not pity him any longer—now he pities us,” Father Lothair said, opening the metal door to let in Sophia, Jeanne, and Eugène-Olivier. “I have another guest here, but I don’t think she’ll complain about the smoke.”

In the so-called sacristy, a room with a wardrobe, a desk and a few armchairs, there at first appeared to be no one. Eugène-Olivier’s attention was drawn by the bulky clothes hangers, each of which held vestments of velvet and brocade. Closest to him was a chasuble that even looked heavy, made of dark red brocade, embroidered with dark gold thread and eaten in places by moths. The gold thread formed the letters “I”, “H” and “S.” Eugène-Olivier knew that they meant “Jesus,” but he couldn’t remember how.

Hiding behind the hangers was one of the children who had been brought to hear Mass. She was apparently in the mood to play hide-and-seek.

“Hey, I see you, come out!” Eugène-Olivier called softly.

The little girl peeked out from behind the chasuble to one side and then the other before emerging. She was about eight years old, maybe less, and as pretty as a picture in a children’s book.

Something else about her appearance startled Eugène-Olivier: Her light-colored curls, probably the color of flax, were so dirty that they looked like dark ash, and fell to her waist uncombed. Her sole article of clothing was a gray man’s T-shirt, printed with an advertisement for Monoprix supermarkets. The T-shirt fell over her knees like a dress. But because the neck opening was too wide, one or the other of her skinny shoulders peeked out when she moved. The little girl’s shapely bare feet stood on the tile floor as confidently as if she had never worn shoes. No wonder she had managed to cut herself! There was blood on her little feet.