what is under the ground is hidden. What is hidden cannot accurately be known.
‘Not by you,’ she says. There is no pertness in her reply. He seems to consider it a moment, then shuts the book, the inkwell, wipes the nib of the pen.
‘We are finished for today,’ he says. As they walk back to the sexton’s house, he asks, ‘Wouldn’t you like to leave here? Live somewhere else?’
‘I don’t know anywhere else,’ she says. ‘And who would look after them?’
‘Them?’
She gestures to the ground around them. ‘The dead,’ she says.
When he has parted from the girl, from the old sexton, he goes into the church. The girl has pointed out a door he can use, not the big door the corpses and the mourners must have come through, but a smaller one to the side of it, its lintel low enough to make him bow his head. For a few strides he is in a vestibule, black as Hell, then a second door lets him into the body of the church. He is at the back of the south aisle. Ahead, he can see part of the rose window above the altar. There is no sound or sign of any presence other than his own. He starts to navigate, right to left, passes behind the backs of pews, passes dreaming pillars, crosses the nave, passes a large, railed tomb on the top of which an armoured man lies beside his metal wife, their slim hands gathered in prayer. He reaches the north wall, walks down to the organ. There is no Armand Saint-Méard today. He is a little disappointed, a little relieved. It might have been reassuring to have heard the organist’s admiration of the new suit. It might also, of course, simply have been the prelude to another wasted day of drinking and rambling.
He sits on the organ bench, lets his fingers move above the keyboards. To the right and left are rows of stops, knobs of elegantly turned wood, some seemingly of ivory. He slides one out, leans to try and read what is painted there, but the script is too elaborately Gothic and is, anyway, abbreviated after the manner of chemical compounds. He slides it back in. The instrument is the only thing in the entire church he feels any interest in, any liking for. Could it be saved? Dismantled, wrapped, stored, reassembled?
He gets off the bench, steps down into the aisle and is trying, among the masonry and plaques, the substantial and insubstantial shadows, to see the door to the rue aux Fers when a voice, one that almost crushes him, falls from some impenetrable part of the darkness above.
‘ You! Who are you? ’
Horrible to be seen like this, seen but unable to see back. He stares upwards, grimacing, as if in expectation of the thudding of leathery wings.
‘ You are not the musician! I know his footfall. Who are you? ’
Echoes, black flocks of them under the vaulting. Impossible to locate the origin.
‘ Answer me, rogue! ’
He sees the door now, gets his key into it on the third attempt, finds it is the key to the Monnards’ house, fits another key, turns it, pulls at the door . . .
‘ Who are you? Who! ’
And then he is out; out on the rue aux Fers. The street is not consumed with fire. There are no abominations out of Hieronymous Bosch, no pale women consorting with demons, or stranded whales spewing tormented souls. A half-dozen laundry wives are at work by the Italian fountain. The ground about them glitters. A pair of them glance over, perhaps surprised to see anyone coming out of the church, a man, one they haven’t seen before, but soon they look back to their work, cold arms plunged into cold water. Linen will not wash itself.
8
He sits in his room, wrapped in damask, and looking through the unshuttered window to the church. The sun is setting, but the stones of les Innocents give back little of its light. The windows are briefly livid with a fire that seems more the show of some holocaust inside the church than anything as distant, as benign, as a red late-October sun. Then the light flares, ebbs, and the whole façade is joined in uniform
‘Not by you,’ she says. There is no pertness in her reply. He seems to consider it a moment, then shuts the book, the inkwell, wipes the nib of the pen.
‘We are finished for today,’ he says. As they walk back to the sexton’s house, he asks, ‘Wouldn’t you like to leave here? Live somewhere else?’
‘I don’t know anywhere else,’ she says. ‘And who would look after them?’
‘Them?’
She gestures to the ground around them. ‘The dead,’ she says.
When he has parted from the girl, from the old sexton, he goes into the church. The girl has pointed out a door he can use, not the big door the corpses and the mourners must have come through, but a smaller one to the side of it, its lintel low enough to make him bow his head. For a few strides he is in a vestibule, black as Hell, then a second door lets him into the body of the church. He is at the back of the south aisle. Ahead, he can see part of the rose window above the altar. There is no sound or sign of any presence other than his own. He starts to navigate, right to left, passes behind the backs of pews, passes dreaming pillars, crosses the nave, passes a large, railed tomb on the top of which an armoured man lies beside his metal wife, their slim hands gathered in prayer. He reaches the north wall, walks down to the organ. There is no Armand Saint-Méard today. He is a little disappointed, a little relieved. It might have been reassuring to have heard the organist’s admiration of the new suit. It might also, of course, simply have been the prelude to another wasted day of drinking and rambling.
He sits on the organ bench, lets his fingers move above the keyboards. To the right and left are rows of stops, knobs of elegantly turned wood, some seemingly of ivory. He slides one out, leans to try and read what is painted there, but the script is too elaborately Gothic and is, anyway, abbreviated after the manner of chemical compounds. He slides it back in. The instrument is the only thing in the entire church he feels any interest in, any liking for. Could it be saved? Dismantled, wrapped, stored, reassembled?
He gets off the bench, steps down into the aisle and is trying, among the masonry and plaques, the substantial and insubstantial shadows, to see the door to the rue aux Fers when a voice, one that almost crushes him, falls from some impenetrable part of the darkness above.
‘ You! Who are you? ’
Horrible to be seen like this, seen but unable to see back. He stares upwards, grimacing, as if in expectation of the thudding of leathery wings.
‘ You are not the musician! I know his footfall. Who are you? ’
Echoes, black flocks of them under the vaulting. Impossible to locate the origin.
‘ Answer me, rogue! ’
He sees the door now, gets his key into it on the third attempt, finds it is the key to the Monnards’ house, fits another key, turns it, pulls at the door . . .
‘ Who are you? Who! ’
And then he is out; out on the rue aux Fers. The street is not consumed with fire. There are no abominations out of Hieronymous Bosch, no pale women consorting with demons, or stranded whales spewing tormented souls. A half-dozen laundry wives are at work by the Italian fountain. The ground about them glitters. A pair of them glance over, perhaps surprised to see anyone coming out of the church, a man, one they haven’t seen before, but soon they look back to their work, cold arms plunged into cold water. Linen will not wash itself.
8
He sits in his room, wrapped in damask, and looking through the unshuttered window to the church. The sun is setting, but the stones of les Innocents give back little of its light. The windows are briefly livid with a fire that seems more the show of some holocaust inside the church than anything as distant, as benign, as a red late-October sun. Then the light flares, ebbs, and the whole façade is joined in uniform
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