The Letterbox

by Layton Green

  A rush of emotion, powerful and sure, seized and then spun my senses like a rabbit shaken by the jaws of a tiger. When Asha and I entered our hotel room, she pulled me to bed. I could tell she was feeling the wine.

  She kissed me but I eased away. I still hadn’t forgotten the look of guilt in her eyes in Dubrovnik. “Maybe we should talk.”

  “I didn’t really have talking in mind.” She moved closer, until our lips brushed.

  “You don’t play fair,” I said.

  “Of course I do.”

  She continued kissing me. As my hands slid around her waist, my head spinning with desire, I made one last effort, concentrating all of my willpower on stopping the downward progress of my hands as they reached for the top of her silk underwear.

  They didn’t obey.

  The next morning, the hotel phone rang like a fire alarm. Asha and I rolled out of bed and met Jake and Lou in the lounge. The place was a few clicks above the lodging in Naples.

  “What a morning,” Lou said. “The soap operas here would make Caligula blush. So what’s the plan? Pere Lachaise after breakfast?”

  “Yep,” Jake said.

  “What if we run into the Druids?” Asha said.

  “It’s daytime, there’ll be plenty of people around.” He shrugged. “You’re free to stay here.”

  I didn’t look up as I chewed my croissant. I knew no one would choose that option.

  We lingered a while longer and then took to the tree-lined streets. Pere Lachaise’s signature walls soon appeared alongside Boulevard de Menilmontant, and I felt a tingle of excitement that another portion of the map might be revealed.

  As we paused at the gargantuan stone entrance to the cemetery, I wondered when I would become a permanent resident inside such a place and what I would accomplish before I arrived. I also couldn’t help shivering at the thought of whatever it was we had seen in that courtyard. Glancing at Asha’s troubled eyes and narrowed mouth, I knew she was thinking the same.

  As my glance turned into a gaze, I realized that another emotion had invaded my psyche, a companion to my growing feelings.

  Fear.

  Fear of not being able to have her, fear of losing her, fear of being with her. Perhaps, I thought, fear was integral to desire: wanting someone so much that you trembled.

  Standing before those walls guarding a city of finished lives, I found feeling for Asha the most terrifying proposition of my life.

  I grimaced and willed it to go away. It was a horrible thing to have to live with.

  But, my God, the possibilities.

  We entered the gates.

  -26-

  I had seen impressive cemeteries before, but the spectacle spread before us was the Plato’s cave of graveyards, all others mere shadows of the kingly Pere Lachaise. It was a necropolis of necropoli, an unending symphony of tombs, sarcophagi, mausoleums, vaults, and sepulchers.

  Asha surveyed the sea of tombs with raised eyebrows. “I can’t even see the other side.”

  Some of the crypts were the size of small houses, their secrets guarded for eternity by mythological creatures frozen in stone. “It’s like the Taj Majal of graveyards,” I said.

  “The Taj Majal is a graveyard,” Lou corrected. “Built for the wife of Shah Jehan, the fifth Mughal emperor.”

  “Shut up, Lou.”

  A wide cobblestone lane ran towards the middle, with smaller paths branching off it. The main thoroughfare even had a signpost: Avenue Transversale. As we strolled down the avenue with the other tourists, I felt as if we were on a supernatural safari, observing the natural habitat of the dead.

  “It’s scenic and all,” Jake said, “but I’m itching to stomp around on Kardec’s grave.”

  I noticed a pair of tourists bent over a map, and they informed us that brochures were available at the northern entrance. We made the trek and purchased one for ourselves. It didn’t provide a complete listing of tombs, but it did include the gravesite of our famous spiritist.

  At the center of Pere Lachaise, the two main thoroughfares, Avenue Transversale and Avenue des Etrangers Morts, intersected. We turned right and walked until we reached a small path branching to the right, close to where Kardec’s tomb appeared on the map.

  We dispersed and began searching for the tomb and the telltale dolmen. As I wandered further off the main road, the path narrowed and the tombs grew smaller and closer together. I smiled to myself: location counts, even in a cemetery.

  I heard voices up ahead and saw a group of people standing in a loose circle. I drew closer and noticed a guard on the outside, watching the scruffy crowd with distaste.

  Obnoxious laughter punctuated the conversation. I edged my way in. Everyone had gathered around a slab of granite set into the earth, easily the most nondescript gravesite I had seen.

  I approached a white guy with long hair and an oversize Grateful Dead T-shirt. “What’s going on?” I said.

  I caught an odd glance and a whiff of bourbon. His accent was British. “You don’t know who’s buried here? Mr. Mojo Risin?’”

  “Who?”

  “Jim bloody Morrison. He died in Paris and they stuck him in here. You know, the Doors?”

  I knew. “Is this some kind of ceremony? Why is there a guard?”

  Again an odd look, as if the entire free world but me was clued in. “Someone’s always here, mate. Got to keep the vigil. Fans got too rowdy a few years back, started leaving bottles and graffiti around, so the city keeps a guard posted.”

  I walked around the circle of worshippers, who didn’t seem too bereaved, and my suspicion was confirmed as I approached the opposite side. Not meters away from Morrison’s gravesite, within clear sight of a dozen people and a security guard, sat the dolmen marking the entrance to the tomb of Allan Kardec.

  The guard glanced my way, and I dazzled him with a smile.

  I gathered the others and we took stock of the situation. The ancient dolmen consisted of two large, upright rectangular stone blocks capped by another slab. It was positioned such that one had to walk underneath the top slab to reach the door of the tomb.

  The crypt itself was a sizeable stone edifice. I couldn’t tell if the iron door was locked, but even if not, we could hardly sneak inside with a gendarme standing meters away.

  As the guard looked on with officious boredom, we conducted a fruitless inspection of the dolmen and the outside of the tomb. Asha frowned. “I thought the dolmen itself was the key.”

  “Whatever we’re looking for might’ve been carried inside,” I said. “And remember, there were two dolmens.”

  Jake glanced at the gendarme. “The baguette’s already giving us the eye.”

  “So what now?” Asha said. “We can’t get inside during the day and it’s locked up at night.”

  “I don’t reckon there’re a lot of options. Who’s up for a little midnight breaking and entering?”

  “That’s your plan?” Lou asked. “Break in at night, after what happened at Pompeii?”

  “You got a better one?” Jake said.

  “No, but—”

  “Me either. If you think of one before dark, let me know. But I’m gettin’ inside that tomb.”

  Midnight was the appointed hour. We wanted to ensure the streets would be dark and quiet, yet leave sufficient time to explore the crypt.

  After lunch, Jake said he would take care of logistics and disappeared into the city. Lou settled into a chair in the lobby, watching a soccer game on TV with his feet propped up, arms waving at the referees, chatting in a variety of languages with the other guests.

  Lou hadn’t said whether he was going to the cemetery, but Asha didn’t take any convincing. I knew it was reckless, but it had been reckless to come to Paris in the first place. The sooner we accomplished our task, the less chance anyone had to find us.

  I wished Asha and I felt safe enough to enjoy the splendors of Paris. I would have taken her to gaze upon the city from Sacré-Coeur, stroll down the Champs-Elysees, dine in a bistro
with chalkboard menus and then drift down the Seine at dusk.

  Instead we strayed to the hotel’s enclosed brick courtyard, which wasn’t a bad consolation prize. A few wrought-iron tables surrounded a chestnut tree resplendent with the reds and golds of early fall. Ribbons of ivy accented the courtyard walls, and couples sipped drinks at the tables or canoodled on stone benches.

  We let the sun warm us by the fountain. After chatting for a while, Asha quieted and leaned her head against my shoulder. Despite the looming visit to the cemetery, the intensity of my desire was a balloon of pressure expanding inside me. I moved to kiss her but she put a finger to my lips, smiled, and replaced her head on my shoulder.

  “Paris is so beautiful,” she murmured. “Don’t you think it’s the most beautiful city in the world?”

  I fell silent, eying a couple kissing across the courtyard as if no one else was watching.

  Beauty was a relative thing.

  After dinner in the hotel, we met Jake and Lou in the lobby just before midnight.

  “Fun day in the City of Love?” Lou said under his breath.

  I gave him a bitter smile. “You coming with us?”

  “I’m dying to see Jake’s plan.”

  “Did you figure out how to get us in?” Asha asked Jake.

  “Does a cat have climbing gear?”

  We followed Jake to the entrance to Pere Lachaise, canvassing the streets for signs of the Druids. I couldn’t see Jake greasing the palms of French officials or schmoozing a cemetery guard, so I didn’t know what to expect as our entrance plan.

  We continued along the street that paralleled the huge wall until we reached a series of homes backing on to the cemetery. Jake cut into a dark lot with houses on either side.

  “Where’re you going?” Asha asked, but he was already walking towards a copse of trees.

  When Jake re-emerged, Lou snorted, and I chuckled. Jake was carrying a rusty aluminum ladder.

  “I found an unlocked shed today. Owner’s probably on vacation.”

  Jake leaned the ladder against the fifteen-foot wall and climbed atop the wall. We all followed. “Want to go first?” he asked me. “I’ll stay behind for the ladder.”

  I tried to mask my unease. “Sure.”

  After shuffling along the wall until I was positioned over some soft-looking bushes, I lowered myself with my hands and dropped the remaining distance. I stood and brushed off the dirt, glanced at my surroundings, and drew a sharp breath.

  I had landed in another world.

  -27-

  Crypts, vaults, and sarcophagi stuffed the fog-enshrouded grounds like a sinister sculpture garden. The fog was a mystery, since it was not present outside the walls. It seemed clichéd, as if put there for effect. But something about the cemetery must have been conducive to moisture, because the ghostly tendrils snaked around the trees and tombs to create a surreal, haunting landscape.

  In the darkness, I couldn’t discern the paths I knew wound in and around the crypts, so from my vantage point the tombs seemed to float chaotically within the fog. I shuddered and found myself wishing the others would hurry up and join me.

  Asha dropped down and took in the scene, her eyes betraying similar thoughts to mine. “Look at this place,” she murmured.

  Jake and Lou started arguing atop the wall. After a few moments they lifted the ladder down. I started to position it to help Lou, but he went ahead and dropped. He landed awkwardly, crumpling to the ground and cursing.

  I rushed over. “Are you okay?”

  He stood and limped. “I’m fine, just a little sprain.”

  “You sure?” I said. “We can get you back to the other side.”

  “Not a chance. I’ll ice it when I get back.”

  Jake dropped down lightly and seemed not to notice the scenery, but Lou’s eyes had widened. “Who put up the horror movie set?”

  “A little unnerving, isn’t it?” I said. “Whoever made this map has done an excellent job of providing us with frightening places to explore.”

  “Does anyone know where we are?” Asha said. “Jake, did you bring the map?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not gonna do us much good until we find one of the main roads to use as a reference. I didn’t realize it’d be so foggy in here.”

  I exchanged a glance with Asha. We could barely see ten feet ahead.

  Jake switched on a flashlight. “Let’s head towards the center.”

  The crunch of our footsteps was the only sound penetrating the solitude. Though Jake’s confidence helped put me at ease, I couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding as we followed the sinuous paths of earth and stone that wound through the maze of tombstones. Talking felt inappropriate, as if the place should not be disturbed, and I felt the kind of irrational dread one feels when alone in the dark, even though the others were right beside me.

  “I can’t believe we’re in the middle of Paris,” Asha said, with a shudder. “This place is its own little world.”

  “Jake, you’re a little quiet,” Lou said. “Are you communing with the French spirits? Trying to absorb a little culture?”

  “I’m respecting the dead,” he said, “and taking in the scenery. Some powerful symbols in here.”

  “Symbols?” Asha asked.

  “Most of these crypts are Catholic. Catholic burials, Catholic guardians, Catholic symbols.”

  “So that’s good, right? It’s like being in church.”

  “More like being in war,” he said quietly.

  We passed a crypt the size of a small garage. I noticed the door was ajar. Stone gargoyles flanked the entrance, and the darkened interior of the tomb exerted a hypnotic attraction, a morbid temptation to uncover its secrets.

  “I think we may be getting somewhere,” Jake called out.

  I couldn’t see him through the fog. “Where are you?”

  He emerged on the path ahead of us. “A little ways ahead it runs smack into one of the main drags.”

  We followed Jake to the larger byway, which ran perpendicular to the path we had been traversing. I was completely turned around. “Anyone have any idea which way the center is?”

  We looked around and saw the same scene we had seen throughout our walk: fog, trees, and a jumble of crypts.

  Asha shivered and drew her arms across her chest. “Someone pick a direction.”

  Jake shrugged and headed down the road to the left. I kept glancing behind us. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, and it appeared we had made the right choice: ten minutes later we arrived at the center. The signposted intersection had seemed gimmicky during the day, but it felt appropriate at night, guiding the way into the city of the dead.

  Jake inspected a headstone just off the road. He waved us over and pointed out a carving of a stylized flower with an arrow-shaped head, underneath a stone lion. “Do you remember this?”

  “That fleur-de-lys?” I said. “I think so.”

  “Me too,” Jake said. He pointed to the left, down Avenue des Etrangers Morts. “Our tomb is this way.”

  Before we had taken five steps, a long, keening howl broke the silence, sounding as if it had come from inside the walls. Asha’s eyes widened in the halo of light from Jake’s flashlight.

  Lou chuckled. “A little clichéd, don’t you think? A howl in the cemetery? It’s probably a night watchdog.”

  “Guarding what?” Asha said, her voice shrill. “Corpses?”

  I swallowed and told myself it was impossible to judge the distance of sound.

  “Not to add fuel to the fire,” I said, “but let me also point out that we don’t know our way out of here.”

  Jake waved impatiently in the general direction from which we had come. “It’s over there somewhere. It’s not like we’re in the Sahara.”

  Asha shuffled her feet and looked away. I knew the strange howl wasn’t the only thing on her mind.

  Our pace quickened as Jake led us down Avenue des Etrangers Morts. Soon after, we arrived at the stone menhir guarding the entrance to t
he tomb of Allan Kardec.

  “I’ve never been so happy to see a crypt,” I muttered.

  As we stood in front of the dolmen, a sense of accomplishment washed over me, my elation combating the sense of unease I had felt since entering Pere Lachaise.

  Jake stepped to the iron door and pulled on the ornate bronze handle. The door swung open without a sound. We crowded inside and drew a collective breath, unprepared for what the moonlight revealed.

  -28-

  A large table, covered in finely embroidered green cloth, dominated the center of the crypt. The embroidery portrayed religious scenes from Africa or perhaps Brazil, with dozens of colorfully garbed worshippers dancing in abandon on a moonlit beach. Five plush, velvet-covered chairs lined each side of the table, and golden chalices waited to be quaffed. Next to an enormous silver bowl was a tome entitled Le Livre des Esprits.

  Lou translated the title. “The Book of the Spirits.”

  Jake fingered a silver cross necklace he had pulled out from beneath his shirt. Asha ran a finger along the edge of the embroidery as I glanced around the room. Artwork and silken tapestries covered the walls, the tapestries depicting scenes from the East: maharajahs gesturing atop elephants, monks seated in various stages of meditation, beehive towers rising out of a jungle. The artwork was dark and occultist: books bursting into flame, black-robed figures holding steaming potions, satyrs preaching to crowds of animals.

  Against the far wall, a silver throne squatted on a raised dais, complete with a wooden staff. Two portraits adorned the wall above the throne: a painting of a stocky woman with a powerful gaze, and a gold-framed likeness of Allan Kardec.

  “Who’s the hag?” Jake said.

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Lou said, favoring his hurt ankle as he leaned against the table, “that’s H.P. Blavatsky.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The founder of Theosophy, a nineteenth-century occult quasi-religion. She traveled the globe searching for insight into ancient magical practices. According to her, the world is full of mystical wisdom and adepts in exotic places who can do miraculous things. She still has a large following. A complete kook, of course.”