by D B Nielsen
I smiled tentatively but, before I had a chance to reply, another member of the group – the girl wearing the blue beanie – corrected him as she came up to join us, ‘Jerry, you idiot, just because she’s in Paris doesn’t mean she’s French!’
The young man called Jerry didn’t seem to mind being insulted by the attractive girl standing beside him as he replied good-naturedly, ‘Yeah, well, if I’d known that then I wouldn’t have bothered speaking the lingo.’
‘Is that what you call it? Those sounds coming out of your mouth were meant to pass for language?’ she teased, breaking into a laugh as he pulled a face.
I watched their easy banter and felt a swift, sharp pang as I realised how much I missed my friends and my ordinary life back in Australia, but the pretty American girl was addressing me and I had neither time for nostalgia nor melancholy.
‘Hi, I’m Ashley. So, where are you from? Are you like also on a cultural tour or something?’
By now, some other members of their group had drifted over. There was nowhere to look without meeting friendly but curious eyes.
I sighed inwardly.
‘No, actually, I’m here because of an art theft. I’m assisting Interpol in their investigations.’
Jerry’s dark eyes widened in surprise before he let out a great big guffaw, his friends joining in, accompanied by cries of ‘Yeah, right!’, ‘That’s a good one!’ and some typical American street slang. Their response made me feel slightly foolish. I should have known how it would sound, despite it being the truth – all they saw was another teen like themselves visiting the Louvre. Cursing silently at my failure to dampen their interest in me, I opened my mouth to excuse myself, but was unable to do so.
A middle-aged Parisienne with dark hair styled in a chic bob, fashionably framing her rounded face, and wearing Gucci spectacles, bustled over to us. Barking out commands rather loudly, ‘Vite! Vite! Allons-y! Let’s go!’, she attempted to usher the straggling group towards the museum’s main entrance. I assumed she was their French tour guide from the little flag she was holding bearing the university logo which fluttered wildly in the wind, threatening to take flight.
As I hung back from the rest of the group she rounded on me impatiently, exclaiming, ‘Hurry up! Come on! Quickly!’
‘Oh! But, I’m not–’
She cut me off before I could explain.
‘Tiens! You’ll have your opportunity to take photos later!’ Her voice held a note of exasperation which was reinforced by the mutterings under her breath in French. I only caught the word, ‘L’Américaine!’, but I could tell it was directed at me and it didn’t sound at all complimentary.
Standing beside me still, Jerry just shrugged his broad shoulders, suggesting, ‘Look, why don’t you just join us? No one’s going to notice.’
‘Um, I don’t think so. Thanks all the same.’
‘Why not? C’mon!’ he urged.
I searched for any excuse.
‘I don’t speak French very well,’ I admitted, lamely, feeling the tour guide’s eyes boring into my back like daggers as I continued to fall behind.
Jerry laughed in response, saying self-deprecatingly as he placed his hand on the small of my back and propelled me in the direction of the main entrance, ‘Like I do? My French sucks. But don’t worry, the tour’s in English for those of us who are less cultured than Ashley.’
I squirmed under his warm regard, feeling embarrassed. But not wishing to cause a scene, I decided to just give in, reasoning that I would get the opportunity to make my escape later at some point, hoping to just slip away unnoticed.
We moved forward, heading towards the enormous revolving door at the side of the glass pyramid, ready to descend into the Louvre’s subterranean depths. The foyer beyond was brightly lit and filled with people milling about. The museum’s operators had taken precautions to ensure their guests’ safety by laying down rubber mats on the slippery marble floor and placing signposts near the entrance cautioning visitors about the hazards caused by the wild, wet weather outdoors.
‘So you’re on a cultural tour?’ I asked Jerry, stating the obvious as a means to make conversation as we pushed through the revolving door, following in the wake of the tour guide who was striding purposefully towards the curved marble staircase.
The petite Frenchwoman was setting a cracking pace and against Jerry’s much longer stride I had to almost run to keep up, being careful not to slip in my trendy but not very practical over-the-knee black leather boots on the uncovered sections of marble, now slick from melted snow trekked in by the many tourists who had already been through the Louvre that morning. At this rate, the tour would be over in half the time it normally took to see the museum’s main exhibits.
‘Yeah,’ Jerry replied as we descended the curved staircase into the pyramid, trailing in the group’s wake, ‘I figured it would be a good way to bring up my GPA. It was either this or give up football.’
From the tone of his voice it was clear to me that giving up football wasn’t an option for him. It was unlikely that he’d entertained the thought even for a moment.
As we reached the bottom of the subterranean foyer, we entered the long tunnel that stretched beneath the Louvre’s courtyard. Spread out like an endless cavern in tones of warm ochre marble to suit the Louvre’s mellow honey coloured façade, its underground hall was vibrant and bustling with tourists. The press of humanity, while keeping the winter chill from reaching inside, provided instead a stuffy, claustrophobic atmosphere which smelt of wet wool and stale sweat.
I immediately felt oppressed in the hall’s steamy confines.
As we walked on further, I caught a glimpse of the Louvre’s La Pyramide Inversée – now infamous from The da Vinci Code and part of many mystery tours tracing the path of Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu – hanging from the ceiling in an adjoining section of the entresol, an inverted skylight that fulfilled Mitterrand’s directive to the architect, “No pastiche!”, whilst Jerry and I continued to follow the little flag the tour guide was holding as it bobbed and weaved above the heads in the crowd.
The Louvre was structured like an upside-down horseshoe with the glass pyramid at its centre. Surrounding the horseshoe was its three wings; at the far back The Sully Wing, to the left The Richelieu Wing, and on the right was the most famous of the Louvre’s three main sections, The Denon Wing. We were headed towards The Sully Wing which housed its collection of Egyptian antiquities on two separate floors. Certain decisions had been made back in 1997 during the Grand Louvre renovation project as it was impossible to arrange the artworks and artefacts by specific historic periods as the heaviest objects and monuments had to remain on the ground floor. As a result, the first floor was organised chronologically, whereas the collection we were going to see was arranged thematically.
It wasn’t long before Ashley dropped back to join us as I suspected she would. It was obvious to me – though perhaps not to Jerry – that Ashley was interested in the young man beside me and I fervently hoped that he would turn his attention to her as they seemed to have a lot in common.
Walking alongside Jerry, Ashley managed to keep him occupied as they engaged in a heated discussion about some wannabe on YouTube, so that I stopped showing interest and instead took in my surroundings. Looking around at the various displays accumulated over centuries, I found that it was easy to ignore my companions’ passionate, raised voices as it was so crowded in the museum that a person had to practically shout to be heard over the din.
As I continued to tag along on their cultural tour, perhaps due to Jerry’s formidable bulk beside me, I was lulled into a false sense of security. And Ashley and Jerry were so absorbed in their conversation that when I found myself in danger, they were oblivious to my dilemma.
When it happened, it was so unexpected that, momentarily, I failed to put up any resistance. I felt my elbow being gripped tightly from behind and I was pulled back into the teeming crowd while Ashley and Jerry continued to move forward with
the surge of bodies. I tried calling out to Jerry but my words were swallowed in the cacophony of voices, all loudly speaking in foreign tongues, and could only watch as the mass of tourists swarmed around him, bearing him forward farther away from me.
Growing more agitated as the back of Jerry’s well-groomed head continued to retreat from my view to disappear behind a marble column, I finally turned to face my kidnapper, preparing for a fight or flight.
And did a double-take.
‘You! What the hell are you doing here?’ My tone was accusatory.
His eyes, wide and intensely blue, were fixed on mine, and I could see myself reflected in them, my expression a mixture of nervous excitement and fierce anger. My breath came quite quickly and I was conscious of how very large he was – larger even than Jerry – as he stood close to me, his hand now tightly wrapped around my left wrist preventing me from leaving.
‘And don’t tell me that you’re here to view the art!’ I snapped at Finn before he could reply, sarcasm lacing my voice.
Finn shook his head, one dark lock tumbling unnoticed into his eyes. ‘I was following you. You shouldn’t be on your own. I told you before that you need protecting.’
My fraying temper snapped. I was fed up with everyone – my parents, Sage, St. John, Gabriel, and now Finn – feeling that I was in need of protection. Like it wasn’t as if I wasn’t already being constantly observed by the Anakim! And it wasn’t as if both St. John and Gabriel hadn’t already told me – repeatedly – to watch myself and stay out of trouble! Hell, Gabriel was probably watching me with Finn right at this moment!
I faced Finn squarely. ‘So? What? Is that what last night was about? You’re my self-appointed bodyguard? You keep turning up like the proverbial bad penny? Well, take a ticket and join the queue!’
I think I would have struck him if he’d smiled at me, but he didn’t. His expression was curiously grave.
‘It would be better if I did stay away from you, but there’s something I have to show you.’
‘There’s something you have to show me?’ I wrenched my wrist out of his grasp. ‘Oh no! No way! Not again! No more visions! No more riddles! No more fortune-telling! Why the hell should I come with you? I haven’t decided yet whether I even trust you!’
‘That’s good. You shouldn’t.’ He leant in a little closer and I felt his breath fan my face, smelling sweetly of apples. ‘I’m one of those men your mother warned you about.’
Oh my God! Bliss! It was like the original temptation! So sweet! So deliciously tempting! He was way too dangerously heady! I reflexively closed my eyes to savour the fruity smell. It assaulted my senses until I felt positively drunk, drowning in new, wonderful sensations. Instinctively, I leant closer, inhaling the lush, intoxicating scent.
His dulcet voice held an unmistakable trace of caution and concern, as he asked, ‘Saffron? Are you all right? You look odd. Are you feeling ill?’
My eyelids flew open to see Finn’s piercing blue eyes watching me intently, his brow furrowed.
‘You’re not going to pass out are you?’
I felt suddenly ridiculous.
I might have thought that his seductiveness was deliberate, in order to prove his point, but he didn’t seem to be aware of the effect he had on me. And, worse still, also crystal clear, was how unaffected he appeared to be by my close proximity to him.
‘Hell no! Epic fail! Of course not, you idiot!’ I scowled up at him. ‘Just go away!’
Angrily flicking my still damp hair back over my shoulder, I pushed past him, anxious to be on my way and avoid further embarrassment. But he moved in front of my path, so quickly that I missed his lithe motion to block my way, preventing me from leaving.
‘I can help you,’ he said softly, before I could turn away, ‘I can teach you things. I can teach you to hear with your inner ear.’
At his words, I froze.
I searched his face – pale and enigmatic and beautiful – remembering back to that night at Satis House.
I swallowed, my voice barely sounded. ‘How?’
His eyes held mine. And again I felt their intense lapis lazuli blue wash through me, as if that colour had become my heart’s blood.
‘Come,’ his honeyed voice gently commanded, ‘I’ll show you.’
Finn didn’t wait for me to respond, assuming quite correctly that I would follow for the answers I craved. He moved at a breakneck speed, perfectly agile and relaxed in his stride, the crowd parting before him like an icebreaker through polar waters, forcing me to quicken my pace and hurry after him. At the foot of the stairs, a group of Japanese schoolgirls dressed in their naval-inspired school uniforms, reminiscent of the Harajuku girls on a classic Gwen Stefani music video, giggled and whispered amongst themselves as they shielded their faces with their hands, watching covertly as Finn strode past. I glared at them frostily as they ogled his exceptional beauty, but Finn walked on, never looking back.
We continued for some distance, down long galleries filled with ancient Egyptian antiquities, past the Avenue of Sphinxes into the Temple salon, towards the Chamber of the Ancestors, until at length we came to what I surmised must have been what Finn had wished to show me.
The Zodiac of Dendera.
‘And? So? I don’t get it,’ I said, craning my neck to gaze up at the sandstone slab decorating the ceiling, ‘How is this meant to help me?’
But he only replied cryptically, ‘Tell me, what do you see?’
My reply was prompt and unimaginative, ‘A ceiling decorated with an image of the night sky.’
‘Is that all?’ he said softly, his voice hypnotic, ‘Look closer.’
Compelled, I did as he bade me. I could feel his piercing kingfisher blue eyes upon me as I continued to stare up at the ceiling, but I refused to look at him.
This time my response was slower, more measured. ‘I see the vault of heaven represented by a disc, held up by four women assisted by falcon-headed spirits. I see that the constellations shown inside the circle include the signs of the zodiac. I see an image of a woman taming a lion.’
‘Better. Very good,’ he responded, moving to stand close behind me.
He was standing so close to me that I could feel the heat like an electrical charge emanating from his body, sending tingles down my spine. The sweet scent of apples still lingered.
‘The Round Zodiac as it’s known was once positioned above the chapel of the Temple of Dendera, south of Cairo,’ Finn explained, ‘The woman taming the lion is none other than the goddess, Hathor, whose animal form is embodied in the immortal sentinel Sphinx on the Giza plains. Legend refers to Seven Hathors.’
‘Seven?’ I asked, arrested by what he’d just said.
‘Yes, seven, though there are just six goddesses carved into the pillars at the front entrance of the temple.’
Fascinated, I turned to look up at Finn over my shoulder. ‘Why only six?’
He briefly looked down at me and I caught a flash of bright blue, before he returned his focus to the ceiling. ‘In the night sky you often can only see six stars of the Pleiades; the seventh star is the Lost Pleiad. It is simultaneously both visible and invisible, there and not there.’
‘Oh. Right,’ I said, feeling slightly bewildered. ‘But what does that have to do with me? And how’s that supposed to help me hear with my inner ear?’
‘I’m getting to that. Be patient,’ he said, and I could hear the amusement in his voice, ‘The representations of the signs of the zodiac as we know them today didn’t appear in Egypt until the Graeco-Roman period. This monument reflects the way Egyptian cultural elements merged with Babylonian and Greek astronomical and astrological theories as a result of the Assyrian and Babylonian deportations of the eighth and sixth centuries BC.’
‘So what you’re saying is that the Greek zodiac was imported into Egypt but owes its development to ancient Mesopotamia, right?’ I clarified, wondering why Finn – as well as my former teachers, my parents, St. John and even Sage – had to make
everything sound so complicated.
‘Right,’ Finn nodded in agreement, then paused, gesturing to the ceiling, ‘Do you see the rather peculiar sole hind leg of a bull near the centre?’
My eyes narrowed as I gazed up at the stone carved zodiac, searching for the bull’s leg.
‘Yes! I see it!’ I exclaimed excitedly, ‘Near the hippopotamus which kind of looks pregnant. It’s like something out of Disney’s Fantasia – you know, like that ballet piece with the hippopotamuses and crocodiles. All it needs is a tutu.’
‘That’s because it is pregnant,’ Finn replied dryly, but I could feel his chest quake behind me and I knew that he was trying hard to contain his laughter. ‘That’s Taurt – the pregnant hippopotamus goddess that symbolises the constellation of Draco. Together, with the bull’s hind leg, they represent the stars of the Ursa Major, the Great Bear–’
‘The Big Dipper,’ I interrupted as I turned round to face him, proving that I wasn’t completely brainless.
He gave me an approving look – the first genuinely warm smile I’d ever seen from him, making me blink. ‘Yes, that’s right. The disembodied bull’s hind leg might appear strange to you but, in fact, it is a universal symbol for the axis mundi.’
I waited for him to continue his explanation, wondering where this was all leading. Meanwhile, I was in danger of losing myself in his impossible lapis lazuli coloured eyes, which were not only framed by the longest, thickest, darkest eyelashes I’d ever seen on a guy, but his blue irises were encircled by a band of black that made them stand out all the more intensely against the fineness of his pale skin. I felt like a dull brown peahen standing next to a stunning peacock – which really was quite irritating. Nature didn’t play fair – giving to the males such beauty to attract a mate while the females were often left out. And as for the Nephilim – well, I wasn’t even going to go there...
‘The axis mundi or world axis or pillar,’ he continued, his voice carrying authority, ‘is often represented as a cosmic tree.’