The Watchers

by Jon Steele

  Harper leaned down to the water, he drank deeply. He straightened up.

  ‘Not bad, actually. How did she get into the cathedral?’

  ‘I saw her run away from those men and she came over Pont Bessières. She was in a bathrobe and naked underneath and she had no shoes on her feet and she was scared and screaming. She tried to stop a car but it didn’t see her and she fell by Café de l’Évêché and she got up and started to run up the hill. I came down from the belfry and pulled her into the cathedral before the bad shadows could find her. She was cold and I took her up the tower to the loge because it’s warm and there’s a bed where she can hide till she can find a way home.’

  ‘Did she say anything else about the men?’

  Rochat thought about it. He saw himself in the doorway of the loge and the angel saying she had to tell him something that she didn’t want to tell him.

  ‘Those men said they’d find her wherever she went and they’d kill anyone who helped her.’

  ‘She said those words?’

  ‘She said those words.’

  Harper took a long drink from the fountain to think it through. The killers either knew she was in the cathedral or they didn’t. If they didn’t, they’d find her soon enough. Oddly enough it would be better if they did know. Meant they didn’t want to kill her, not yet. Begged an even bigger question: why the hell not? And the lad, what about him? The killers would slaughter him in a flash, he didn’t have a chance. Christ, Harper thought, whatever the hell the game was in this bloody town it had just snared another victim. An innocent lad who could barely stand up straight. Harper wiped his mouth and looked at Rochat, trying not to betray his thoughts.

  ‘Are you really her friend, monsieur?’

  ‘Yes, I’m her friend.’

  ‘Are you here to help her find a way home?’

  Harper drew on his smoke.

  ‘Sure, that’s what friends are for, isn’t it?’

  ‘If you’re a friend, do you need to hide in the cathedral too?’

  ‘No … no, I’ve got my own hiding place, but thanks for the offer. Listen, I’ll come back tomorrow, maybe together we’ll figure out a way to get her home. Is there a telephone up there?’

  ‘It’s very old and it’s hard to use sometimes.’

  ‘Good, don’t use it, don’t let her use it. If it rings, don’t answer it.’

  ‘She doesn’t want to talk to anyone and she’s afraid of the police.’

  ‘I don’t blame her. Can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys in this place without a programme.’ Harper pulled the gold cigarette case from his mackintosh. ‘Do me a favour, give this to her. She’ll know it’s from me.’

  Rochat held his lantern over it, the clear stone in the lid sparkled.

  ‘Is it a future-teller diamond, monsieur?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A future-teller. I’ve never seen a real one, I only imagined it in a story.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s only a cigarette case.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Harper watched the way the lad stared at the thing, wondering if he was disappointed.

  ‘Too bad, I suppose we could use one just now, eh?’

  ‘Oui. Could you bring some food when you come back? She eats a lot.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Merci. It’s almost time to call the hour.’ Rochat turned to leave and kept turning in a slow circle till he was facing Harper again. ‘Those men from the bad shadows crushed her wings and she can’t fly any more, monsieur. That’s why she’s lost.’

  Harper watched Rochat shuffle away and back through the skinny red door and up the tower. He stepped back into the shadows of the chestnut trees and watched lantern light through the archers’ windows winding up the tower. The whole cathedral looking like the last outpost. Nice but dim lad with a lantern all there was at the gate.

  ‘God save us every one.’

  GONG! GONG! GONG! GONG!

  The sound roared through the loge and squeezed the air from her lungs.

  ‘Jesus, no!’

  She sat up, gasping for breath. She saw the crooked little guy in the long black coat standing at the open door of the loge. Burning lantern in one hand, fat grey cat in the other.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I was having a nightmare.’

  ‘A bad-shadows kind of nightmare?’

  ‘Yeah, the bad-shadows kind. Those fucking bastards knew I was in the tower, they were coming for me.’

  Rochat shuffled into the loge, set the lantern on the table, filled a glass from one of the water jugs.

  ‘In school, they always gave me a drink of water when I had bad-shadows kind of nightmares. Then I’d feel better.’

  Katherine took the glass.

  ‘Thanks. Where were you?’

  ‘In the nave.’ He picked up a piece of paper from the table and held it out to her. ‘I made a note in case you woke up and were scared to be alone.’

  She focused her eyes: ‘in nav and be bcak soone’.

  Above the words was a drawing of a man in an overcoat, holding a lantern and winding his way down the tower steps, fat grey cat at his heels.

  ‘What a nice picture.’

  ‘You can keep it.’

  She took a sip of water, ran her hands through her hair. Rochat dropped Monsieur Booty to the floor. The beast scampered through the loge and jumped on to Katherine’s lap.

  ‘The detectiveman was here.’

  ‘Who?’

  Rochat reached in his overcoat, pulled out the gold cigarette case. Katherine saw the diamond glitter in the lantern light.

  ‘Oh my God. Harper?’

  ‘He came while you were sleeping. He was on the esplanade and I was in the belfry and we decided not to wake the skeletons so I went down by the fountain so we could talk and he could drink water. He said he’s your friend and he said if I gave you this, you’d know who he was. And I asked him if it was a future-teller diamond and he said it’s a cigarette case but it was too bad it wasn’t a future-teller because we could use one just now, eh. Then he said he’s coming back tomorrow but he wasn’t going to tell the police where you were, because you need a programme to tell the good guys from the bad guys. And he said you should stay off the telephone and not to answer if it rings. Then he said that he’d bring you food tomorrow and help you find a way home.’

  ‘That’s a lot of remembering in one go, Marc.’

  ‘I practised while I was in the nave.’

  She opened the cigarette case.

  ‘I am so dying for a smoke. Would you mind if I had one?’

  Rochat found a tin ashtray on a shelf and set it on the table.

  ‘This is Monsieur Buhlmann’s. He smokes a pipe sometimes.’

  Katherine pulled on the woolly jumper and fuzzy slippers, she climbed down from the bed and sat at the table. She lit up, closed her eyes.

  ‘God in heaven, I almost feel normal again. What were you doing in the nave anyway?’

  ‘Making the thing I imagined before I lit the lantern tonight.’

  ‘The thing you imagined before … Remind me what it was you imagined.’

  ‘You have to come with me to see. Do you want to come with me now?’

  She looked up to the clock: four fifteen.

  ‘Like now now?’

  Rochat took the black cloak from the hook behind the door and held it out to her.

  ‘I’m very sure you’ll like it.’

  Katherine followed Rochat and his lantern down the tower to where two candles were set on the stone steps marking the small door in the rounded wall. The door was already open and more candles lined the tunnel beyond. Rochat ducked down and scooted through. Katherine hurried after him to the tribune. She stood up, barely able to see the crucified Christ in the darkened stained-glass window. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light. She saw a camping cot covered in wool blankets, Rochat’s sketchbooks and pencils atop the blankets. The photo of his parents and a box of many coloured pills sa
t on a small wood box aside the cot, a burning candle near the photograph.

  ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘I can sleep here and be the tower guard and you can sleep in the loge. Then we’ll both have a bed, and I can hear footsteps on the esplanade better down here. If the bad shadows come again, I can hurry up to Clémence and ring the warning sound.’

  ‘Then what happens?’

  Rochat thought about it. He didn’t really know what happened next.

  ‘Do you want to see more things?’

  ‘You mean this isn’t what you wanted to show me? There’s more?’

  ‘Oui.’

  Rochat held up the lantern and opened the little glass door and blew it out. There was only the burning candle near the cot. She watched the soft light wiggle against the stone ceiling high above.

  ‘Wow, so much light from one little candle.’

  Rochat reached down, picked up the candle from the floor. He held it between their faces.

  ‘Blow it out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Blow it out.’

  ‘OK, but if I get scared, promise you’ll light it again quick?’

  ‘I promise.’

  She lowered her face, drew a breath, blew away the flame. The stone ceiling continued to glow with wiggly light.

  ‘Look at that. Where’s it coming from?’

  ‘I can show you.’

  He led her along the narrow metal walkway next to the tall wood boxes where the organ pipes lived and he told her to duck under the long brass horns. Then he led her down the steps to the platform for the organ console high above the cathedral floor. Katherine suddenly felt she was falling.

  ‘Marc …’

  She grabbed his arm, closed her eyes, heard her voice echo into a forever space.

  … marc, marc, marc …

  ‘Be not afraid.’

  Slowly, she opened her eyes to see a cloud of light floating through the forever space of the nave.

  ‘What on earth?’

  Candles.

  Hundreds of candles burning throughout the vast dark nave.

  On the stone floor at the foot of the great pillars and lining the triforium and upper balconies running all round the cathedral. In the arches of the giant chancel dome at the far end of the cathedral and scattered over the flagstones of the altar square beneath the lantern tower.

  ‘Oh, my.’

  … oh my, oh my, oh my …

  Katherine sat on the organist’s bench, watching the light swell in the giant arches of the nave as if the cloud of light had lifted the cathedral from the ground and it now drifted unconnected to the earth.

  ‘Gosh, it looks like the whole cathedral is flying.’

  …. cathedral is flying, flying, flying …

  ‘I made it while you were sleeping. I made it so you could see things.’

  … see things, see things, see things …

  ‘What am I supposed to see?’

  ‘Things angels see.’

  ‘Really?’

  Katherine looked into the glow of light and saw delicate flames sway in invisible draughts. Bending and almost dying before curling upright to breathe light into the dark and chase shadows from the darkest corners.

  ‘Look at the shadows, it looks like they’re playing.’

  ‘Because they’re the teasing kind of shadows.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Teasing kind, they like to play in the cathedral. Sometimes they leave the door to the tower open and sometimes they chase after echoes. They’re very friendly shadows.’

  ‘That’s a sweet imagination. What’s that big white box in the pillars, next to the altar?’

  ‘That’s Otto.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A brave knight from middles of ages. Sometimes I imagine him wandering around in his armour. He falls over a lot.’

  ‘You really have quite the imagination, Marc. Anyone else wandering about the place at night?’

  ‘Sometimes I hear the statues, and skeletons and—’

  ‘Stop. Skeletons, for real? As in the skeletons you and Harper didn’t want to wake up?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘And just where are these skeletons?’

  ‘They live under the floor of the cathedral. Do you want to see?’

  ‘Oh God, can we turn on a light now?’

  Rochat turned to leave, Katherine grabbed at his arm.

  ‘No, I mean, don’t move. Just change the subject. Imagine something nice.’

  … something nice, something nice, something nice …

  ‘We can imagine the angels hiding in the cathedral.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. We’re supposed to be seeing things only angels can see. So you sit here and tell me about angels hiding in the cathedral.’

  … in the cathedral, the cathedral, the cathedral …

  Rochat sat next to Katherine on the bench and told her things he remembered Monsieur Rannou saying a few nights ago. How angels were creatures made of light and how sometimes they got lost in Lausanne. And in beforetimes, there were lots of cathedrals and men who held their lanterns against the dark so angels could find their way. And what else … oh. One by one the men with lanterns disappeared from the world because nobody thought they needed them in a world of wonderful inventions, and people forgot angels were made of light. And that he was the only one in the world left to hold a lantern in the darkness so angels could find their way. And that’s why Lausanne was full of lost angels, because there was no place else for them to go in the world.

  ‘And that’s all I can remember.’

  … all I can remember, can remember, remember …

  Katherine listened to the voice echo through the nave, then she heard the sound of her breath coming and going to the rhythm of the flames. She sat silently for a long time.

  ‘That’s such a sad story.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Yeah. Sad and beautiful, at the same time.’

  Rochat thought about it, wondering how something could be sad and beautiful at the same time. Then he remembered his mother, how beautiful she was and how sad he was watching her lowered into the winter ground of Cimetière Saint-Charles.

  ‘Marc?’

  He slowly blinked and looked at Katherine.

  ‘Oui?’

  ‘Did you go somewhere just then?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Your eyes, they do this thing sometimes, like you go somewhere else.’

  ‘Because I went to see Maman before she died.’

  ‘You miss her?’

  ‘I can still see her, in beforetimes. Do you go to beforetimes?’

  ‘Me? No, there’s not much for me to go to in the beforetimes department.’

  Katherine looked into the nave, watching the cloud of light.

  ‘Have you ever seen a lost angel in Lausanne, Marc?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Really, where?’

  Rochat reached in the pocket of his overcoat, pulled out a folded piece of paper and held it out to her. She looked at it, not knowing what to do with it.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The angel I saw in Lausanne.’

  Katherine took the paper and unfolded it. A drawing of a woman through a window, sitting at a mirror, brushing her long hair. Detail sketches of a face, the eyes.

  ‘But this is me. When did you draw it?’

  ‘I drew it when I first saw you, before you came to the cathedral. And I showed it to Monsieur Gübeli and he said it could be an angel.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Monsieur Gübeli worked for my father and he brought me to Lausanne when I was—’

  ‘No, no, Marc. This picture. How could you have drawn this picture before I came to the cathedral?’

  ‘I was in the belfry, and I saw you in a window above Rue Caroline. You were brushing your hair but your back was to me, I couldn’t see your face.’

  ‘My window? How the heck did you see me through my window?�
��

  ‘Monsieur Buhlmann gave me binoculars and I was looking for a mysterious mystery and I saw you, but I couldn’t see your face.’

  ‘A mysterious …’

  ‘I wasn’t snooping.’

  ‘Hey, it’s OK. Considering how things turned out, I couldn’t care if you were. You saved my life. But if you couldn’t see my face, how did you draw this?’

  ‘I imagined it.’

  ‘You imagined my face?’

  Rochat nodded.

  ‘Then I saw you at Gare Simplon, you were getting on La Ficelle and you asked me for a light for your cigarette but I was too afraid to see if it was really you …’

  ‘Jesus, I remember now. You wouldn’t even look at me, you were rocking back and forth. I got on the train and left you standing there.’

  ‘And you went to the Palace and you talked to the detectiveman but you didn’t turn around and I couldn’t see you still.’

  ‘You followed me?’

  ‘I followed you and I saw you going into the Palace. I stood outside in the shadows and watched you, but I wasn’t snooping.’

  ‘No, it’s OK, Marc. Don’t worry about the snoop thing. Trust me, I’m used to it. Just tell me why you followed me.’

  ‘I had to know if you were real or just an imagination but I couldn’t see your face. Then the clock on the fireplace rang and I was late and had to hurry to the cathedral, and later I was looking through my binoculars again and you were sitting at the window again. And you were looking outside, you were looking at the cathedral and you … and you …’

  ‘Kissed my fingers, and touched them to the glass.’

  ‘That’s when I saw your face, that’s when I knew what you are.’

  … what you are, what you are, what you are …

  Katherine held her breath a moment.

  ‘Marc, what do you think I am?’

  ‘You’re an angel who’s lost in Lausanne. That’s why you came to Lausanne. You needed to come to the cathedral so you could hide till you find a way home.’

  … a way home, a way home, a way home …

  Katherine looked through the nave, all the candles filling the cavernous nave with an almost breathing light.

  ‘You did all this and you’re helping me because you think I’m an angel?’

  ‘It’s my duty to protect you and help you see things.’

  Katherine raised her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Oh, Jesus.’