There must have been a public outcry during those years, but apparently it was that crumbling wall next to the Saints Innocents Cemetery that moved Parliament to close the cemetery and turned the mind of a police lieutenant, Alexandre Lenoir, toward a solution. Five years after the Innocents disaster, government officials acted on Lenoir’s suggestion that the bodies from that cemetery and others throughout the city be transferred to the underground medieval stone quarries. The tunnels that lay south of the city gates were chosen, and the bones from Parisian cemeteries were exhumed and transported in elaborate processions to the newly consecrated ossuary. There was no way to preserve skeletons intact, so instead, bones were sorted by type and stacked and arranged along the tunnel walls together with grave markers taken from the original cemeteries. The catacombs, I learned, held the remains of six million people.
As I read, I looked at a few pictures and was relieved that Antoine had asked me to meet him after the catacombs had been closed for the day. There was no way that I would be taking a tour. Bad enough to spend time with piles of bones, but small, dark tunnels… I felt a little lightheaded just thinking about that.
After breakfast, I wandered through the streets. By mid-morning the sun was hot, beating down through a clear spring sky. The brilliance and the pulsing warmth reminded me of the “authenticity” talisman—that little sun and moon coin. It was supposed to have some sort of restorative power. How exactly did that work? Did it help you become your truest self? And if it did, how was that healing? As I walked, I looked at the faces around me. I started playing a little game, identifying each person I passed as living their authentic life—or not. The tall young man with his nose buried deep in a Paris guidebook—not. The child clutching a small stuffed dog—authentic. The middle-aged waiter who stood in the doorway of a small bistro, pulling on a cigarette and scowling—not. The woman putting up a display of brightly colored scarves in a shop window—authentic. I kept at this for several blocks before I started to wonder what was making me come to those conclusions. It was, I thought, a certain look of contentment on the faces of the people which made me feel they were living their “real” lives versus constructing some plastic life that society had convinced them to inhabit. A look that suggested they were sure of who they were, what was important to them and what their days stood for. Who else had that look? I think my mom and dad had it. Maybe that’s just a child’s assumption, but even when they would grumble about our cramped house or our clunker of a car, they seemed undisturbed, always utterly satisfied, in fact. It drove me crazy. I thought of a few friends, and then Juan’s face popped into my mind. Not Juan of the most recent years, but the Juan I had met when I first walked through the doors of the company.
JUAN MUST HAVE BEEN in his early forties when I met him, but he had the wise expression and intellectual enthusiasm of an old scholar. During my interview with Juan, he had seemed distracted, indifferent even; so I was surprised when he called to offer me the job. I would come to recognize that, during the interview, I had simply witnessed Juan lost in thought. Apparently he was so impressed with my aptitude tests, my previous work experience and my opening remarks that he was thinking ahead to what projects he could assign to me. On my first day, however, I was greeted with a thoroughly engaged Juan.
“There he is!” he announced as I hovered in the doorway. “Come, everyone,” he said to those scattered around the lab. “Come meet the new member of our team—the young but impressive Jonathan Landry.”
There were introductions and a tour, a team lunch afterward at a local greasy spoon. Juan had me start in right away, working on a redesign. I spent the afternoon hunched over a computer screen, conscious with every second that ticked by of how much I wanted to succeed. At about five o’clock I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Juan smiling at me. “I’d say that was a pretty busy first day, wouldn’t you?” he said. “I’ve got some paperwork to finish up, but you should head home. Good work.” It hardly felt as if I had accomplished anything, but Juan’s confidence in me was reassuring. I took a deep breath, saved my work and then shut down the computer.
The entire week proceeded like that. I would be sitting over the computer, concentrating intensely, and just as my shoulders started to cramp or a headache began to dig into my temples, Juan would appear at my side to ask how I was doing or to offer a suggestion, or even, on occasion, to suggest I take a short break. But despite all his support, I managed to blunder before my very first month was out—a careless miscalculation that had sample plans rejected. Juan’s boss had marched into the lab and flung a sheaf of papers onto one of the counters. “Whose work is this?” he demanded. Juan appeared immediately, picked up the papers and scanned them.
“Many apologies, Karl,” he replied. “I can see we made an error here. I’ll be sure to get you corrected plans by the end of the day.” Karl hovered a moment, casting a suspicious glance in my direction. “My mistake,” said Juan, moving toward the door, clearly trying to get Karl out of the lab. “But it’s a quick fix. We’ll get at it immediately.”
After Karl disappeared down the hallway, Juan came over to my workstation. “Just shows that we can’t be too careful in our work,” he said as he dropped the report down in front of me. “But you should never be afraid of making mistakes,” he added. “It’s how we learn.”
That was Juan in a nutshell. No blaming me or the fellow who had checked my work before it went out. Calm and philosophical. Unfailingly positive. Supportive of everyone who worked for him. He got the best out of us. I truly believe that.
Back then I couldn’t have guessed that, eight years later, Juan would be gone. And before Juan disappeared completely, a harried, harassed version of the man would be all that was left. His shoulders stooped, his face pinched, his hair an astonishing shock of gray. I would no longer be working for him, but worse still, I would no longer be speaking to him.
THE APPEARANCE OF THE SEINE interrupted my thoughts of Juan. I had arrived at the Notre Dame bridge. I headed across and then wandered the streets until I reached the cathedral. I stood for a long time outside those magnificent doors, the stone walls peopled with saints and gargoyles, the glass of the rose window flashing in the sun. What breathtaking work. What a humbling accomplishment. I took out my phone and snapped a couple of photos to show Adam when I got home. Then I headed in.
I spent the rest of the day walking and hopping on and off the metro, hitting the tourist spots, exploring the streets of the Latin Quarter, eventually stopping for a late afternoon rest in a bistro called Les Deux Magots near Boulevard Saint-Germain. The sky had become overcast, but I still chose a table outside. I ordered a citron pressé and leaned back on my cane chair. I put my hand over the little pouch that hung under my shirt and watched the pedestrians file past. It had been a pleasant day, but now I felt my heart sag in my chest. I was on my own—and for how long, I had no idea. I wanted to be back home. Adam would come for the weekend. I would be with people all week at the office. Maybe I would get up my nerve to ask Tessa to lunch. Or dinner. That would be a good way to avoid my empty apartment for a while. The thought of her dark curls made me smile.
I could have sat there until the sun set, but my phone beeped at me, reminding me that I had to be at the catacombs soon. I paid the bill and reluctantly headed out to the metro.
After a short ride, I exited at the Denfert-Rochereau metro stop and climbed the stairs. I stumbled around the parkette at Place Denfert-Rochereau, looking for signs, and soon made my way to a stone building that I had read was part of the former Barrière d’Enfer city gate. The short dark structure attached to it appeared to be the ticket office of the catacombs. But the small door was firmly shut, and there was no one around. I knocked and waited, but no answer. I knocked again, this time drumming hard on the dark wood. I thought I heard footsteps on the other side, and then the door slowly opened inward. A pimply young man of about eighteen was standing in front of me.
“Antoine?” I asked doubtfully.
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“Non,” said the fellow, rolling his eyes. “Il travaille. Suivez-moi.” He turned and walked into the building, and I had no choice but to follow. He was walking quickly, so I had to hurry behind him.
“Où est …” I began in my limited French. My guide waved his hand dismissively and repeated, “Suivez-moi.” After a few steps, he disappeared through a stone doorway. When I reached the threshold, I saw with horror that it opened onto a set of steep stone stairs—spiraling down. The catacombs. We were heading into the tunnels. My heart leaped in my chest, my shirt collar felt tight, air seemed to be blocked from my lungs. But despite the rising panic, my feet were pounding down the narrow stone stairs, the sound only slightly louder than my thumping heart. Down, down, down we went. My head was spinning, the constant turning around the stairs was making me feel nauseated. I had no idea how far down we were going, but by the time the stairs ended, it felt as if we were several stories underground.
My wordless guide was moving quickly ahead of me, as if he too disliked being down here. The tunnel was damp, and dimly lit. The bones of six million Parisians were entombed in this place. But I hadn’t seen any skeletons yet, and it wasn’t the dead that were haunting me. It was the tunnel, the low ceilings, the tight walls. As I hurried behind my escort, I felt my breath become increasingly shallow and rapid. Beads of perspiration were forming on my brow, although I was shivering. Waves of dizziness were washing over me, and it was an effort to put one foot ahead of the other. I didn’t know if I could go on, but the thought of losing sight of the young man kept me going. I knew I needed to distract myself.
Just then, we passed a small recess that was walled off with Plexiglas. Behind the barrier were a worn wooden chair and a small table with a candle on it. A plaque on the wall said something about the Second World War. I remembered another thing I had read about the catacombs. During the war, resistance fighters had hidden in these winding networks of tunnels. Spent years down here, in fact.
What would it have been like to have worked against the Nazi stranglehold? Did French resistance fighters live in a constant state of fear and foreboding? Or did their commitment to their cause, to justice, to freedom, imbue them with courage? It was probably both sets of feelings, I realized. True bravery can happen only in the face of fear—if you aren’t afraid, then how can your actions be brave?
But what irony. Living in these small, cramped spaces, surrounded by relics of the dead, testaments to inevitable mortality, did the fighters ever look upon the bones and think that, whatever the resistance did, everyone they were trying to save would end up here? Did it matter if they slowed human suffering and needless death? Did it make any of them doubt their struggle, wonder if it was all worth it? The bones in these tunnels belonged to people whose lives had passed by—some with great meaning and significance, others without. Did it matter, really, which way they had lived? Which way anyone lived?
My guide was continuing to snake ahead of me. I picked up my pace just in time to turn the corner and face the first stack of bones.
Despite myself, I slowed my pace. My panic had ebbed. The long, sloping walls were encased with bones—neat stacks of femurs, precise piles of tibias. Intricate, ornate patterns were spelled out in clavicles and ribs. Directly ahead of me was a column of grinning skulls. I thought of those hiding in the catacombs. Of course it mattered how people lived. The resistance fighters knew that. They must have looked at these bones and realized that the horrors underground were nothing compared to the horrors that were being committed above them, in the occupied streets of Paris, of Lodz, of Berlin, of Amsterdam. All resistance fighters, wherever they lived, must have realized that it would be better to face the terror than try to ignore it.
Suddenly the young man stopped at the entranceway of a new tunnel. It was separated from the one we had followed by a piece of rusted iron fencing. The tunnel was dark. My guide moved the fence to one side and turned into the blackness. He paused and looked behind at me, making sure I was following. I moved uncertainly out of the anemic light as his back disappeared in front of me. I took a few more steps. Then my foot knocked against something. A wooden rattle filled the air, and I froze. As I did, light flared around me. My guide had snapped on his flashlight. Suddenly I wished he hadn’t. The gruesome orderliness was gone. Bones were everywhere—scattered across the floor around our feet, cascading from loose stacks against the walls. The glare from the flashlight caught on waves of dust and tendrils of cobwebs that hung from the ceiling.
“Ça c’est pour vous,” said my guide. He thrust the flashlight at me. As I took it, he brushed past me.
“What—” I began to call out.
Before I could finish my question, the man snapped, “Il vous rencontrera ici.” And then he was gone, leaving me alone, fifty feet underground, a solitary human being standing in a sea of the dead.
There was nothing to distract me now. The air was still but the tunnel walls seemed to be squeezing in on me. The ceiling appeared to shudder—I was sure that, at any moment, it would come crashing down. This isn’t real, I tried to tell myself. This is an anxiety attack. But panic was beating through me, threatening to tear me apart. I wanted to lean against something, to hold myself up, but I was too afraid to move through the bones.
After what seemed like hours but was probably only a few seconds, I heard the sound of footsteps.
A small man appeared out of the shadows. “C’est moi, Antoine,” the figure announced. Just as he did, I began to sway.
“Mon dieu!” said Antoine. He grabbed my arm and steadied me. Then he moved to a gap between the piles of bones along the wall. He retrieved two small folding stools and brought them to the middle of the tunnel, unfolding them on the uneven ground.
“Asseyez-vous,” he said. “Sit, sit.”
Antoine was probably in his fifties, white curly hair surrounding a pale, wrinkled face. He wore small round glasses and something that approached a dark lab coat. Like Ahmet, he had a kind face, but there was a studious air about him.
“I apologize for making you wait here for me,” said Antoine. “I’m working this evening—restoration. Gradually, the bones settle, fall over. And there have been incidents of vandalism. It is a constant effort.”
My breathing was beginning to slow. The one good thing about my panic attacks was that they didn’t last long. It was as if my body simply couldn’t sustain the energy they required. I wiped my brow and muttered, “It’s okay.”
Antoine nodded and smiled gently. “I’m not surprised you don’t like it down here,” he said. “Most people are okay until the place empties. They don’t really want to be alone with their thoughts down here, the way I am each day. But you know, we grow fearless by doing those things we fear.” He patted his pockets and pulled out a small tin. Lifting the lid, he offered me a candy. I shook my head, and he popped one in his mouth before settling the tin back in his pocket. “As a very young boy, I lost my father,” he said. “Everything I knew about him was from the past—perhaps that’s why I became so interested in history, in archives. But the sight of him in his coffin haunted me for years. Haunted me. When this job opened up, I thought, No, no working with bones, with the dead. That’s the last thing I want to do. But then I realized that it was precisely because I feared the dead that I should take this job. It has been,” he laughed, waving his hands around, “liberating.”
Then he leaned forward and stared at me. “Are you feeling better?” he asked. I nodded.
“Oh,” he said then, as if remembering something. “Here.” He handed me a small parcel and a square of folded parchment, like the one Ahmet had given me in Turkey. “I have to continue working,” he said. “But I know you won’t mind leaving me now, will you?” I shook my head and attempted a smile, a little surprised at the brevity of the meeting I’d traveled so far for. We both stood up. “I think you can find your way out,” Antoine said. He moved toward the metal barrier and pointed down the dimly lit tunnel. “That way,” he said. “Just
follow the tunnel and don’t go down any of the offshoots that are fenced off. I’ve asked Jean to leave the door open so you can let yourself out.”
I had pocketed the package and the parchment. “Thank you,” I said, as I moved past Antoine. “Thank you.”
As I hurried down the tunnel, I heard Antoine call out, “Courage, Jonathan! That’s the only way to live. And remember, bravery isn’t really something you feel. It’s something you show.”
I moved through the tunnels. The symmetry, the neatness, the intricate arrangement of bones was a relief compared to the raw mess of Antoine’s tunnel. If I hadn’t been so anxious to get out of the tight space, I would have lingered to admire the artistry. Instead, I took deep breaths and reminded myself that the end was just around the corner, or the next one. Eventually, I made my way to the bottom of another stone staircase. I climbed up as quickly as I could, my legs aching slightly from yesterday’s Arc de Triomphe climb. When I reached the top, I moved outside with relief. The fresh evening air was like a blessing. I took several greedy gulps before I headed down the sidewalk toward a bench.
I lowered myself onto the seat and turned my attention to the small bundle that Antoine had handed me. I peeled back several layers of yellowed tissue paper. At the center of the tissue was a tiny metal skull. The jaws of the skull were parted, making it appear to be grinning at me. Or laughing. That made me smile. I turned the miniature skull over in my hands. Antiqued bronze, perhaps. Or some sort of iron alloy. I took the leather pouch from around my neck and dropped the talisman in. Then I carefully unfolded the parchment.