The Watchers

by Jon Steele

  ‘You imagined right.’

  Rochat ducked into the tunnel. Katherine watched him scoot through the dark and come out in a place of dim blue light, then he disappeared. She felt alone amid an eerie silence. She looked up and down the winding stone steps, she felt the tower walls closing in.

  ‘Marc?’

  … marc, marc, marc …

  His head reappeared at the far end of the tunnel, upside down.

  ‘You can come now.’

  ‘Jesus, where did you go?’

  … did you go, you go, you go …

  ‘I made sure no one was here, you can come.’

  … you can come, can come, can come …

  Katherine ducked in and hurried as fast as she could. Clearing the tunnel, she straightened up and found herself in a place of blue light radiating from a huge stained glass of Christ on the Cross.

  ‘Yikes, where are we?’

  ‘The tribune.’

  ‘What’s a tribune?’

  ‘It’s the old balcony at the back of the nave. The coming-in doors to the cathedral are under your feet. This is where the Pope and Emperor sat before the organ was here.’

  ‘You mean we’re inside the cathedral?’

  Rochat pointed to the tall enclosures of polished oak.

  ‘The nave is the other side of those big boxes where the organ’s pipes live. The console lives between the pipes, it looks like a space ship. Do you want to see?’

  ‘I really want to pee.’

  ‘D’accord.’

  He led her to the other side of the tribune and through a wood door, down some winding stone steps and along a narrow passageway to another wood door that creaked when Rochat opened it, then down a few more steps into a large dusty room of unused tools and uncut blocks of limestone. Wood slats high above, sunlight pouring through plastic tarps flapping in the breeze. He shuffled to a wood shack in the corner of the room, unlocked the door. Inside was an old toilet and an old sink, a foggy mirror hanging on a nail, a string to a light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

  ‘I clean it every night, but there’s no hot water.’

  ‘I couldn’t care less just now. I’m going to have a bath in the sink.’

  Rochat looked at the sink and then her, from his fuzzy slippers on her feet to the top of her blond hair.

  ‘You’re too big.’

  ‘I’ll think of something. Just don’t run off.’

  ‘I won’t run off.’ He reached in his coat, pulled out a fresh bandage with fresh strips of tape along the sides. ‘I made this before you woke up. I imagined you’d need it.’

  ‘Gosh, you’re a regular five-star concierge.’

  ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘I’ll explain later. Don’t disappear, please.’

  ‘I won’t disappear please.’

  She dashed in, closed the door.

  Rochat stood quietly.

  He heard the toilet flush and water run in the sink and her voice say, ‘Wow, it’s so cold!’ She made splashing sounds for a long time and when she came out she was towel-drying her hair with one hand, still holding up the trousers with the other. A fresh bandage was attached to her right cheek and her face had an inquisitive look.

  ‘Which Pope?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Back there, in the tribune. Which Pope used to sit there?’

  Rochat thought about it.

  ‘I don’t remember. He’s dead now.’

  ‘Huh.’ She looked up to the sunlight seeping through the wood slats and plastic tarp. ‘What happened to the roof?’

  ‘They’re fixing it. The covers blew off in the big storm. That’s where the unfinished tower is.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Up there.’

  ‘There’s nothing up there.’

  ‘That’s why it’s called the unfinished tower.’

  ‘What big storm?’

  Rochat counted backwards.

  ‘Two nights ago, before it snowed. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘I was drugged out of my mind two nights ago.’ Katherine finished drying her hair and rolled the washing things in the towel. ‘You don’t have an extra belt, do you? I’m afraid your trousers are going to fall down around my ankles.’

  Rochat looked down at her hips. He saw her belly button, the swathe of white skin beneath. He looked quickly at her face.

  ‘I don’t have an extra belt.’

  She tugged at the belt loops.

  ‘How about a piece of string or something?’

  Rochat shuffled through the cluttered room till he found a length of thin rope that he laid on a block of wood. He picked up an old axe and chopped the rope in two. He held up the lengths for careful examination. He shuffled to Katherine, handed her the shorter length.

  ‘I imagined this one will work because the other one’s too long.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She laced the rope through the belt loops, pulled it tight, tied it in a bow. ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Like a hobo man.’

  She looked down at her outfit, wiggled her toes in the slippers.

  ‘Hey, wearable junk is very hip these days.’

  ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘It means I’m looking good, considering my entire life’s just gone to hell in a hand basket.’

  Rochat didn’t know what that meant either.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m famished.’

  The room echoed with muffled gongs from high above. Soft, round sounds filled the cavernous room.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That’s Marie. She says it’s eleven o’clock.’

  ‘It sounds different down here.’

  ‘Monsieur Rannou says listening to the bells from inside the cathedral is like being in the belly of a whale.’

  ‘Who’s Monsieur Rannou?’

  ‘He plays the organ in the cathedral at night sometimes, but he’s dead too. We can go back to the belfry now. I’ve got some bread and cheese, and I can make tea while you think about things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘How you can go home.’

  Rochat shuffled across the dusty room and up the stone steps.

  Katherine hurried after him, afraid to lose sight of the crooked little guy in the long black overcoat.

  twenty-two

  There was a phone number and name scribbled under the translation of Yuriev’s note. The elderly Russian gent in Café Romand, the one who looked like an elf, wrote it down just in case. Monsieur Gabriel was the name on the receiving end of the number. Biblical scholar and one-time boy soldier in the Spanish Civil War. Harper dialled. It rang nine times before a sickly voice answered:

  ‘Sí?’

  ‘Is that Monsieur Gabriel?’

  ‘You are English.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Only the English are so rude as to begin phone conversations by demanding information before introducing themselves.’

  ‘My name’s Harper, Jay Harper. I met an acquaintance of yours at Café Romand.’

  ‘Which friend of mine have you met?’

  Harper couldn’t remember asking for his name.

  ‘He’s Russian, you play chess with him on weekends.’

  ‘I play chess with many Russians on weekends, they are masters of the game. They stood with the Republicans in the war, the English stood with Franco and his Fascists.’

  Click.

  Harper dialled the number again.

  ‘Sí?’

  ‘Let’s try it this way. One of your Russian chess pals translated a note I found in Lausanne Cathedral. It sounds like something from the Bible and your friend, whichever bloody one it was, said you might help me with it.’

  ‘Why should I help you with this note?’

  ‘If it’s a question of money I’m happy to pay you for your time.’

  ‘I have no need of money, I only asked why I should help you with this note.’

  Harper didn’t see a choi
ce other than telling him.

  ‘Two men have been murdered in the last week. Their deaths and this note may be connected.’

  ‘How were the men murdered?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Sí, it matters. Tell me, English.’

  ‘One man was tortured with a pressing iron, then had his skull crushed with a hammer. Second man was impaled with an iron rod, pinned to a wall, eviscerated.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Two slaughtered men isn’t enough?’

  ‘You have yet to tell me why I should help you with this note.’

  Harper felt it again. No choice but to tell him.

  ‘I’m next on the list to be slaughtered. Figuring out where this bloody note comes from just might keep me alive.’

  ‘How does it feel?’

  ‘How does what feel?’

  ‘For death to chase after you.’

  Harper lit a fag, deep drag. How does it feel? He let go the smoke.

  ‘Like I’m running out of time.’

  ‘Long Live Death.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The battle cry of my brigade in Spain as we chased our own never-to-be-consummated death. Where did you find this note?’

  ‘Lausanne Cathedral. There’s a nun in the gift shop, she collects prayers left at a chapel, keeps them in a book. One of the murdered men was in the cathedral at the same time this note was left.’

  ‘You saw Sœur Fabienne?’

  ‘Yes, I saw her.’

  ‘Then perhaps you should read the note to me.’

  ‘Do you need to write it down?’

  ‘I am cursed with a photographic memory, English. It applies to my hearing as well.’

  Harper picked up the paper.

  ‘“Evil spirits walk the earth. The spirits of heaven live in heaven but this is the place of earthly spirits, born of the earth. Spirits of giants on the earth, like clouds. To occupy, corrupt, and bruise the earth.” That’s all of it.’

  ‘You’ve no idea where these words come from?’

  ‘No, why would I?’

  ‘They are unknown to you, you have no remembrance of them?’

  ‘Remembrance?’ Harper took another pull on his smoke, feeling he was talking to a dead end, at the same time feeling he had no choice but to keep talking. ‘Like I said, Monsieur Gabriel, why would I?’

  Gabriel’s voice broke into bone-shaking coughs.

  ‘On second thought, English, I don’t think I can help you. You’ll excuse me, it’s nearly time for my meditations and I mustn’t be late.’

  ‘Trust me, Monsieur Gabriel, I don’t want to keep you from your meditations any longer than it takes to know the source of this bloody note. Now, can you help me or not?’

  The sound of a striking match crackled over the line, then a wheezing draw. Harper listened to Gabriel’s laboured breathing.

  ‘Sounds like you should think about quitting, monsieur.’

  ‘I’m old and decrepit, English, smoking opiates relieves the pain.’

  ‘I wasn’t told you were sick.’

  ‘I’m not sick, only weary. I yearn for sleep.’

  Harper wanted to laugh, talking to a sleepless tramp with meditation on the brain. Then again, a sleepless tramp talking to a sleepless drunk. What a wonderful town.

  ‘I know the feeling. Look, I’m sorry to trouble you, mate, but—’

  ‘—but death is chasing after you.’

  ‘That does seem to be the fact.’

  ‘As death was chasing after the one who left the note in the cathedral.’

  Harper drew on his smoke.

  ‘He told me he was being followed, he told me the same words I told you about running out of time.’

  ‘But you didn’t believe him.’

  ‘No, I suppose I didn’t.’

  ‘And, now, you feel driven to me in the hope I’ll believe you.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Harper heard Gabriel inhale his drugs like precious things, and then his voice as if it was drifting to another place.

  ‘Your note is from the Book of Enoch, an ancient book of the Bible. The passage written is quoted from what scholars call the Slavonic fragment, the entire translation was never found.’

  Harper pulled open the desk drawer. Pen, Hôtel de la Paix stationery. He laid them on the desk, stared, wrote: ‘Book of Enoch, Slavonic fragment’.

  ‘So it’s biblical. From the New Testament, Old Testament?’

  ‘From the no testament. The Book of Enoch was thought to be nothing more than a legend. It was banned by the Jews at the beginning of the Christian epoch in AD 90, and by Christians in AD 347. Enoch’s name still appears several times in both the Jewish Bible and the Christian Testaments but Enoch’s book is not included in the Canon of Holy Scripture.’

  Harper scribbled down the words: ‘Banned by Jews and Christians. Name appears in Testaments’.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Hebrews 11:5. “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death.”’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Infect men with the fear of death, they will be your slaves. Take away the fear of death and you take away what blinds men from seeing the undying nature of their being, they are no longer slaves.’

  Harper stopped writing.

  ‘Monsieur Gabriel, I really don’t think I’m in need of a Bible class. I just need to know why a man, who had his face hammered to pulp, left a quote from the Book of Enoch in Lausanne Cathedral.’

  ‘In that case, English, my advice is that you read the Book of Enoch yourself. There is a translation of the Ge’ez script, found in 1906 in Ethiopia by one Reverend R. H. Charles. It was denounced as a fraud by biblical scholars, but I know it to be a true translation from the ancient Aramaic.’

  ‘Look, I’m not a religious man.’

  ‘The Bible has nothing to do with religion. It’s a book, a wondrous and mystical book written by frightened creatures of free will who looked to the stars and being so overwhelmed with insignificance they dared to wonder: What is this place, where is this place, why is this place? They gathered and distilled all the world’s gods and myths and legends into the greatest book ever written. And the Book of Enoch is the greatest book of the Bible never read.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because it wasn’t supposed to be this way, English.’

  ‘Sorry, what wasn’t supposed to be what way?’

  ‘Everything, all of it.’

  ‘Could you narrow that down a bit?’

  ‘Listen to me. The Book of Enoch tells the story of this place and why you are here.’

  Harper sensed he’d hit a dead end. He wrote Gabriel’s words for the hell of it: ‘Greatest book of Bible never read. Tells the story of why men are here, got it.’

  ‘No, English, the Book of Enoch tells the story of why you are here.’

  ‘Me?’

  Harper heard a druggy voice down the line:

  ‘Sí.’

  ‘Right. Could you tell me where to find this bloody Book of Enoch?’

  ‘Go to Google and ask God.’

  ‘As in type God and see what happens?’

  ‘No, English. In the round world, Google is God. The one true God who knows all things and reveals them unto men with the click of a mouse.’

  Harper dropped his pen on the desk.

  ‘Monsieur Gabriel, I have to tell you I’ve no idea what you’re on about.’

  Gabriel’s voice fell into a diminished sigh.

  ‘Forgive me, I need another dose of opiates before my meditations.’

  Click.

  Another dose of opiates, no bloody shit. Take them down and pass them around.

  Harper hung up the receiver, dropped his fag in the coffee cup. It fizzled and floated like a rotting corpse. He looked at the mess on the desk. Shreds of hand-written notes, photos of Yuriev in the casino.

  ‘Bollocks.’

  He shoved the lot in the desk drawer, slammed it closed. He walked to
the curtains, slammed shut the balcony door. He stopped in his tracks, felt a pair of eyes at his back, he turned around.

  Down on the floor, a mislaid shot of Yuriev.

  Dead man’s eyes looking at him.

  Running out of time. All that had come before, finally and forever finished.

  ‘Sod it.’

  He walked to the telephone, picked up the receiver, pressed the button with the man holding the tray.

  ‘Oui, Monsieur Harper? How may I serve you?’

  ‘Is my room wired for internet?’

  ‘Of course, monsieur, you’ll find a broadband connection at your desk.’

  ‘Right, tell the Swiss Guards in the kitchen I need a computer, tout de suite.’

  ‘Monsieur?’

  ‘A laptop, with a search engine. And ask the waitress with the gun to run over to LP’s Bar and pick up a club sandwich.’

  ‘Pardon, monsieur?’

  ‘And tell her to not forget the chips.’

  Rochat made a pot of tea and set it on the table. He sat at the table and watched her eat.

  ‘You’re hungry.’

  ‘Worst case ever of the munchies.’

  Rochat guessed that meant really hungry. He watched her sip the tea. Colour had returned to her face and her eyes weren’t as swollen from crying in the night. Her long blond hair was clean and smelled nice.

  ‘And I’m still hungry, when can we have lunch?’

  ‘I can go to Café du Grütli. It’s at the bottom of Escaliers du marché. I can bring two plats du jour for lunch. Today is roast duck day.’

  ‘Sounds good, when’s lunch?’

  ‘La Lombarde rings at noon, she tells everybody it’s time for lunch.’

  ‘I thought the bell was called Marie-Madeleine.’

  ‘Marie rings twelve times first, then La Lombarde rings for five minutes. She lives in the upper carpentry above Marie. Do you want to see the bells now?’

  ‘No, I’ll just stay out of sight for the time being. Travelling to that toilet of yours is about all the adventure I can take for now.’

  ‘It’s fun to see the bells.’

  ‘No, thanks, I’m fine.’ She looked up at the small clock ticking above the door: ten forty. ‘I’ll just sit here and wait for lunch.’

  ‘Do you want more cheese? I have a wedge of bleu.’

  ‘I’d love some, thanks.’

  Rochat brought the cheese to the table and set it on the plate. She tore a piece of bread from the loaf and spread the cheese like butter. She finished the wedge. There were only a few crumbs of bread on the table when she realized her host hadn’t eaten a thing.