Vango
Authors: Timothée de Fombelle
4. THE FIRST MORNING IN THE WORLD
5. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIST
10. THE GENTLEMEN FROM THE GESTAPO
13. THE YOUNG LADY AND THE SUPERINTENDENT
Paris, April 1934
Forty men in white were lying facedown on the cobbled square.
It looked like a giant snowfield. Swallows whistled as they brushed past the bodies. Thousands of people were watching the spectacle. The cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris spread her shadow over the assembled crowd.
All around, the city seemed to be gathering its thoughts.
Vango’s forehead was pressed against the stone. He was listening to the sound of his own breathing and thinking about the life that had brought him here. But for once, he wasn’t frightened.
He was remembering the sea, the briny air, a few special voices, a few special faces, and the warm tears of the woman who had raised him.
Rain started falling on the square in front of the cathedral, but Vango didn’t notice. Lying on the ground in the midst of his companions, he wasn’t aware of the umbrellas bursting into bloom one after another.
Vango didn’t see the crowd of Parisians, the families dressed in their Sunday best, the devotion of the old ladies, the children squeezing between people’s legs, the pigeons numb with cold, the dance of the swallows, the onlookers standing up in their carriages. Nor did he see the pair of green eyes, over there, to the side, watching only him.
Two green eyes brimming with tears, behind a veil.
Vango kept his own eyes tightly shut. He hadn’t turned twenty yet. This was the biggest day of his life. A solemn feeling of happiness welled up inside him.
He was about to become a priest.
“Sweet madness!”
The bell ringer of Notre Dame, high above, muttered these words as he glanced down at the square below. He was waiting. He had invited a young lady by the name of Clara to dine with him on boiled eggs in his tower.
He knew she wouldn’t come: she’d be just like all the others. And while the water was simmering in the pan beneath the giant clock, the bell ringer took a good look at the young seminarians down below who were about to be ordained as priests. They would lie on the ground for a few minutes more before making their commitment for life. From his perch fifty meters above the crowd, it wasn’t the sheer drop that made Simon the bell ringer’s head spin but the leap into the unknown that these prostrated lives on the ground were, of their own accord, about to make.
“Madness,” he said again. “Madness!”
He made the sign of the cross, because you never know, and went back to his eggs.
The green eyes were still fixed on Vango.
They belonged to a girl of sixteen or seventeen who was wearing a charcoal-colored velvet coat. She rummaged in her pocket but couldn’t find the handkerchief she was looking for. The back of that white hand ventured under the veil and wiped away the tears on her cheeks. The rain was starting to come in through her coat.
The girl shivered and glanced across to the other side of the cathedral square.
A man looked away abruptly. He had been watching her. She felt sure of that. It was the second time she had noticed him this morning, but she knew, far back in her memory, that she had already seen him somewhere. A waxen face, white hair, a thin mustache, and small wire glasses. Where had she met him before?
The thunder of the organ brought her back to Vango.
The ceremony was about to begin. The elderly cardinal stood up and made his way toward the young men in white. He brushed aside the umbrella held out to keep him dry, just as he brushed aside all the hands that offered to help him down the steps.
“Leave me be!”
He was carrying his heavy crosier, and every step was a small miracle.
The cardinal was old and sick. That same morning, his doctor, Esquirol, had banned him from celebrating mass. The cardinal had laughed, sent everybody away, and heaved himself out of bed to get dressed. As soon as he was alone, he could groan freely with every gesture. In public, he was a rock.
Now he was walking down the steps in the rain.
Two hours earlier, with the black clouds thickening, everyone had begged him to move the ceremony inside the cathedral. Once again, he’d held firm. He wanted it to take place outside, facing the world these young men would engage with for their whole lives.
“If they’re worried about catching a cold, let them choose another job. They’ll live through other storms.”
On the final step, the cardinal came to a stop.
He was the first to detect something afoot in the square.
Up above, Simon the bell ringer didn’t suspect a thing. He dropped his eggs into the water and started counting.
Who could have predicted what would happen in the time it takes to boil an egg?
Three minutes to change the course of destiny.
While the water was coming to a boil, the crowd was simmering in a similar state of excitement, starting from the back row. The girl gave another shudder. Something was going on in the square. The cardinal raised his head.
Twenty individuals were beating a path through the crowd. The murmuring swelled. Shouts could be heard.
“Make way!”
But the forty seminarians didn’t move. Only Vango turned his head to the side, putting his ear to the ground. He could see the shadows closing in.
The voices were becoming clearer now.
“What’s going on?”
“Move back!”
People were distrustful. Two months earlier, riots had led to fatalities and hundreds wounded in the Place de la Concorde.
“It’s the police!” a woman called out to reassure the crowd.
They were looking for somebody. The faithful tried to quell the hubbub.
“Shhhh . . . be quiet!”
Fifty-nine seconds.
Under his clock, the bell ringer was still counting. He was thinking about young Clara, who had promised him she would come. He looked at the wooden crate set with two places. He could hear the saucepan humming on the embers.
A cleric wearing a white robe went over to the cardinal and whispered something in his ear. Just behind them stood a short, rotund man, holding his hat in his hand: Superintendent Boulard. There was no mistaking his drooping eyelids, like those of an old dog, his big snout, his ruddy cheeks, and his eyes, which twinkled with a zest for life. Auguste Boulard. Unflappable under the April shower, he was on the lookout for the slightest sign of movement from the young men lying on the ground.
One minute and twenty seconds.
Just then, one of the seminarians stood up. He wasn’t very tall. His robe was weighed down with the rain. His face was streaming. He turned full circle in the midst of so many bodies, none of which moved. On every side, plainclothes policemen emerged from the crowd and began to advance toward him. The young man brought his hands together as if in prayer, then let them fall to his sides. The clouds in the sky were reflected in his eyes.
“Vango Romano?” the superintendent called out.
The boy nodded.