I recognized Sébastien the moment I turned onto the street, Rue Desaix. He was that morning’s sole occupant of the five, small round tables at the pavement Café, Bar de la République. The apparent urgency indicated in his strange request to meet seemed at odds with his present languid posture.
The sallow face of the seated man gave no hint of returning the recognition. I was unable even to tell if he was looking at me from behind the black, mirrored lenses of his sunglasses. He claimed they were necessary to protect his ‘sensitive eyes’ from the glare of sunlight reflected from the glass and white walls of surrounding buildings. Yet, he still wore them on the most overcast of days.
While pacing the fifty yards from Boulevard de Grenelle toward him, I could see the grey framework of Paris’s most famous monument strutting above the rooftops. The distant squeal of excited voices from its lofty platform suggested a party of pre-teenaged school children had been loosed within. I winced at the thought.
Sébastien pushed the chair opposite to where he sat, away from the wooden table with his foot, at the same time, proffering his hand in traditional French greeting. “Bonjour, Roberre, mon ami.” His voice was barely audible above the stuttered whine of mid-morning city traffic. As usual, I cringed at the French pronunciation of my name. His domed forehead gleamed like polished ivory under lank black hair, thinning sufficient to suggest premature balding. He habitually ran fingers through from front of scalp to back of neck, as if to check it was still there. His pallid, sunken cheeks above wide mouth and long jaw, gave his face the similarity in shape and color to a peanut pod.
“Good morning Sébastien." I gave my reply in English accompanied by the background wail of a siren as another of the many bateaux mouches - glass roofed boats - ferried a cargo of animated tourists along the Seine. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of your invitation to meet?” I sat to face him as his tight lips almost twisted into a wan smile.
“First, let me get you a drink.” He rapped his knuckle against the expanse of plate glass window to attract attention inside the bar.
A young woman with blond hair and curvaceous body stepped from the open doorway as if she had been waiting for his signal. “Monsieur?” she raised an eyebrow toward him, and then, as he waved an open palm in my direction, turned her attention to me.
"Café noir, si vous plais madame.”
“Nothing alcoholic for you?” Sébastien's wavering voice showed a hint of surprise.
“No, I have to work this afternoon.”
He lifted an almost empty glass from the table, draining the contents in one gulp before adding another Ricard pastis to the order. She scribbled onto a notepad, and then ripped off the top sheet, placing it on the table beside him. Picking up his empty glass with a teasing smile and flaunted swirl of shapely hips at me, she returned to the bar.
“How is your class of rebellious French renegades coping with the intricacies of modern English?” Sébastien asked.
I twisted my face into a grimace, certain he already knew my answer without need of comment. As a struggling author, I found it necessary to take a part-time job as an English tutor to a group of mid-teen aged pupils at one of the inner city schools.
“And do you have no lectures to attend?” I asked in reply.
The look on his face was reflection of the one I used on him. He was a student at Fondation Maison de Sciences de l’Homme, the university situated several blocks from our meeting place toward Parc du Champs de Mars where the iron gantry of the Eiffel Tower rises like a sentinel over the city. His chosen subject was the history of Eastern European peoples in the Gothic period with particular interest in the myths and legends of werewolves and vampires originating from that era.
We met for the first time the previous November, he being, I am sure, the only buyer of a copy of my first novel. He sent an email to my website, noting that as I was in Paris, he would consider it an honor to make my acquaintance. The paranormal and occult on which my writing was based fascinated him. I suspect his father’s occupation as proprietor of a funeral parlour a mile and half north of the river had piqued his interest in the macabre. Two years my junior-I was twenty-four at the time-he stood almost a head above me, a tall gangling frame of bone with little in the way of covering flesh. Dressed habitually in black shirt, trousers and jacket, he was the epitome of one’s expectation for an undertaker.
“I’ve not really been able to concentrate on studies for the past two months… well since… you know; the time I told you she disappeared.”
“I guess then, she’s still not turned up?” She was a fellow student by the name of Nicole, on whom he had some sort of crush. This latter information I gleaned from the upset he seemed to display when he told me about her.
He remained silent for almost a full minute, his face turned toward the shop front of a small boulangerie on the far side of the narrow street, as if contemplating the display of bread and pastries for sale. A long drawn intake of breath sounded forlorn as he answered, “She has, but sadly, not in the way I would have desired. It was last night…” His low voice faded into silence as the waitress re-emerged carrying the drinks on a tray.
She placed them on the table under an intoxicating breeze of perfume I felt certain she had only moments before applied. Whether it was for Sébastien’s benefit or mine, I had no idea, as she seemed to stand very close beside him, yet held smiling eye contact with me as she served the drinks. It would not be the first time I felt surprise that the good-looking girls were attracted toward him. He must exude some sort of charisma of which I am not aware. Neither he nor I made comment, and it almost seemed with regret she turned back to the open door of the bar to continue her duties.
“Last night?” I prompted him into elucidating.
“Usual thing, I couldn’t sleep.” He told me several times in the past he suffered from chronic insomnia; “I took some notes into the parlour with the intention of trying to study.”
Sébastien occupied a two-room apartment adjoining his father’s place of work. He was an only child, his mother having died when he was six years old. His father now lived with a second wife to the western side of the city, an area known as Boulogne Billancourt. The arrangement seemed ideal for Sébastien, being readily accessible to the university. He told me he frequently sat alone with the corpses at night, reading or studying. He enjoyed their company and hoped they saw it as a last gesture of remembrance before their eternity of solitude in the tomb.
'Yeah! Weird guy.'
He continued, “There were only two coffins being prepared for internment, and it was the second, I opened the lid and saw her - my Nicole.”
“I’m sorry, that must have come as quite a shock.” I did not wish to know why he felt it necessary to ‘open the lid’ of any coffin.
He muttered something under his breath, which could have been a low growl or grunt, and then silence for a few more seconds while he slid the glass on the table from side to side as if to prevent the drink from solidifying.
“According to notes in my father’s office,” he continued, “she has been in the police morgue for the last six weeks while they do identity checks and an autopsy.”
“That’s tragic. How did she die?” I could only see my reflection in his glasses as I spoke.
“She was murdered. It said in the report, she was strangled with her own stockings.”
Murder in Paris, unlike many major cities, is rare enough to make headline news at the time a body is discovered. “She wouldn’t be the girl found naked near Pont du Carrousel would she?” I asked.
He exhaled a deep breath and then nodded. Adding water to his drink, he swirled the glass in small circles on the table, while the golden liquid dissolved into misty white clouds.
“The papers classified her as a prostitute, so I never made the connection with your missing friend,” I added.
He raised the glass against his lower lip to drink before he answered. “Some of the female students find prostitution a lucrative employment to help pay for their studies. She once told me she had no family, at least, no-one who could give her financial support.”
I dipped a cube of sugar into the tiny cup of black coffee, nibbled half then dropped the remainder into the liquid. “Do you know if the police have any clue to the identity of her murderer?” I lifted the spoon from the saucer to stir.
“I don’t think so. They seem to have forgotten her. I wish I could do something to help.” He pushed the glasses up to his forehead, wiping one eye with the back of his hand. It was the first time I had ever seen his eyes, a milky grey pupil with the black centre unnaturally large, and the whites criss-crossed with strong red veins. “I was hoping I could persuade you to assist me,” he added.
“How can I? I didn’t know her.”
He scraped the chair backward and bent down to retrieve something from under the table. He set a black leather briefcase on his knees, then squinting against the light, began rotating dials at the clasp to select an access code. The clasp clicked open, and he withdrew a sheet of paper, which he slid across the table toward me.
The page was a colored photocopy from an old book, and I guessed from variation in the formation of the letters, that the original had been hand written. Much of the text was faded with age such that deciphering was near impossible. From the few words I could read, it seemed to be a mixture of old French and Latin.
There was a monochrome image, probably from a woodcut, of three figures. Two in black seemed to be male. Dressed in clothing from around the sixteenth century; they stood within a representation of a protective circle. The third, possibly a female and facing them, was in white. She, or he, wore a long gown and some type of bonnet or headwear, and seemed to be standing in front of a tomb. I looked up, raising eyebrows in questioning glance.
Having returned the sunglasses to their normal position, “It’s a necromancy ritual,” Sébastien said.
“Do I understand correctly then, that you wish to try to make contact with the spirit of the dead girl, perhaps in order to obtain information as to her killer?”
He smiled, nodding his head almost like a very overgrown child.
I looked more intently at the text. “I’m not sure if the words are clear enough to perform the summoning. The incantations I find almost impossible to translate.”
I have the original which I can read adequately.”
“Why then do you need my help?”
“I was hoping with your experience, you could give me some assistance by constructing and dedicating the circle of protection.”
An author of occult fiction, many of the rites I describe were based on actual events, practices and experience I gained during my years of study at Bath University in southwest of England. “And when were you hoping to perform the ritual?” I asked.
“Tonight if possible. The funeral is scheduled for the day after tomorrow.”
“But you don’t need the body to contact the girl’s spiritual entity.”
“No, but I thought it would make for a stronger link to have something we can concentrate on.”
I looked more closely at the sheet of paper. An uneasy feeling nudged for attention in my stomach, but I could not reason why. Contact with the paranormal often gives me such a feeling, although I seldom and occasionally to my regret, pay too much attention.
“Tonight is very short notice. There are things we need to prepare, cleansing rituals, meditation. This is not something we should undertake without careful consideration.” This is the absolute truth. I have heard many tales of disaster when, ‘fools rush in where magicians fear to tread…’ I continued, “Now if we could arrange it for tomorrow night, I believe we will stand a much better chance of success, and will not put ourselves in such great peril.”
He sucked in top and bottom lip until his mouth appeared as little more than a thin gash while he turned his face back toward the boulangerie across the road.
To help relieve his obvious disappointment, I continued with, “I could come visit you tonight, with a list of things we need, and then perhaps you’ll understand why we must be careful. And while I’m there, you could introduce me to your friend.” Irony should be my middle name. “I’d also like to have a look at the book this ritual came from.”
That seemed to convince him. He gave an overemotional sigh and, “D’accord mon ami. Then, would nine this evening be okay?”
“Nine will be perfect,” I answered.
He picked up the glass, swirled the liquid around the inside and drank.
“One more thing,” I said. “No more - a very important no more,” I emphasized the second 'no,' “alcohol until the ritual is finished. Is that clear? You will only jeopardize our chance of success.”
He nodded, scraped the chair backward to stand, and picking up his briefcase in one hand with the drinks bill in the other, “Until tonight then Rob. Au revoir.”
“Au revoir Sébastien.”
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