I'd always intended to visit the Père-Lachaise cemetery during the five days of my trip dedicated to Paris. I'd just thought I'd end up doing it on the final one, when I'd had plenty of time to get over my irrational fear of being perceived as a weird little freak unusually eager to hang out at a graveyard. I'd also thought I'd be visiting during the day.
Now, I found myself walking the cemetery grounds in the dead of night, accompanied by a weird little freak unusually eager to hang out at a graveyard. One who didn't feel self-conscious about that in the slightest.
The more I thought about it all, the more surreal it seemed.
Luc had done his homework. He'd made sure to locate his ancestor's grave in daylight and had scouted the route we should take to it from his carefully chosen breaking-and-entering point, jotting everything down on a map he'd printed off the Internet. He knew that some four security guards roamed the massive cemetery at night, guards we'd need to avoid at all costs if we wanted to return to our hostel without running into any trouble. The thought of us getting caught still haunted me, nerves making me nauseous as we crept through the necropolis in the dark, but I couldn't deny part of me craved that sense of danger to the whole ordeal.
On our way to division fifty-seven, we took precautions so we wouldn't attract attention: Luc held a handkerchief against his phone's flashlight, dimming its overall brightness. I shivered in the breeze, treading as lightly as I could, as if the dead would rise if too many autumn leaves crunched beneath my feet.
At this hour, the cemetery around us had an eerie vibe rather than a peaceful one: trees with orange-yellow foliage that looked nothing but black now cast long shadows over the cobblestone paths and the forlorn headstones, tombs and mausolea lining them. Some graves looked new, clean, well-maintained; others proved to be ancient markers of staunch neglect, time-worn stone crumbling and mosses sneaking along walls like unstoppable parasites.
An owl hooted somewhere up above in the trees, but Luc and I remained quiet, speaking only in hushed whispers if it couldn't be avoided. Sometimes I swore it wasn't only Luc's whispering I could hear, but someone else's, too, the wind carrying sounds that could've been either words or imaginings to my ears. We hadn't caught glimpses of night guards or presences other than our own, but I still felt as watched as I had on the subway before.
The paranoia ate at me more than I cared to admit, though Luc seemed a lot more relaxed next to me, unbothered by angel statues with prying eyes and the thought of millions of bones decaying all around us. I supposed horror was in the eye of the beholder, indeed.
To take my mind off the horror I most certainly beheld, I tried to steer my thoughts in a different direction. I contemplated the many famous people buried in Père-Lachaise and which of their tombs I wanted to see when I was a regular tourist visiting during the day like everyone else. Oscar Wilde's tomb topped my list.
Because Oscar Wilde was simply a legend, and I wouldn't be taking constructive criticism on that opinion.
Back home in Dublin, I'd passed by Oscar Wilde's childhood home and his statue in Merrion Square almost daily on my way to school for years. I'd known he was an author and, one day, when I'd been looking for a book to read, I'd picked up the only novel he'd ever written.
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
I'd read it cover to cover in a single day. The work had instantly solidified its status as my favourite book, a status it still held now, two years after I'd read it first. The story of that devilish portrait and Dorian Gray's twisted descent into depravity reached far into my soul somehow, touched me on some deeper level, though I always failed to put the sensation into words.
But it wasn't just the novel that spoke to me. Wilde had been a Dubliner, just like me; he'd obtained a degree at Trinity College, the college I also planned to go to after my gap year; and, like me, he'd been attracted to guys, even getting convicted for it close to his life's end.
My sexuality had fortunately never landed me in trouble approaching that level of misery, but coming to terms with it had been a struggle nevertheless, and Wilde and his novel had given me an invaluable crutch for the journey. Knowing one of my favourite authors had faced problems similar to and worse than mine made living with my own more bearable.
So now that I was here, in Paris, I couldn't skip out on seeing Oscar Wilde's tomb. I practically owed him a visit.
"Nick." The soft sound of Luc's voice brought me back to reality. "Uncle Richard's grave is here, and you're already past it."
I stopped dead in my tracks, plucking my head out of the clouds and mentally berating myself for letting all the Wilde fanboying carry me away. We were here to visit Luc's ancestor's grave and toast to the man before getting the hell out of this place again. We'd do that and nothing else.
Richard Vaillancourt's grave belonged in the 'long-neglected' category of Père-Lachaise's final resting places. It consisted of little more than a slab of stone slowly falling apart, the crucifix depicted on it only half-intact, lichens painting it an ugly shade of yellowish green. Though I could still make out Luc's uncle's name, his dates of birth and death had become illegible. If I had to hazard a guess, the man's grave had been here since the fin de siècle, give or take a few years.
I doubted Richard's forever home had seen much tender loving care in the more than hundred years since his passing.
"Evening, Uncle Richard," Luc told the grave with a grin. "My mom sends her regards."
Uncle Richard, much to my relief, didn't reply. I would've fainted like an overly delicate Victorian lady if he had. Luc shrugged off his backpack, set it down and zipped it open, pulling out two small cans of beer. I didn't like alcohol much and didn't drink it often, but accepted a can when Luc offered it, anyway. I was already breaking into a cemetery tonight; might as well add another sin to the growing list.
"Do you have a nice speech prepared?" I asked Luc as he zipped his backpack closed again.
"I'll wing it. I'm sure Uncle Richard won't mind." Luc opened his can and raised it to his uncle's grave. "Uncle Richard, we may never have met in life, but it's pretty cool to be visiting you for All Souls' tonight. You're family and I'm sure you were an awesome dude back in the day. So wherever you are, here's to your... afterlife health, I guess."
If an afterlife really did exist, I imagined the people afterliving it didn't encounter many health issues, but Luc had done his best and I wouldn't ruin his fun by pointing that out. I toasted to Uncle Richard right along with him, opening my own can and taking a sip of the beer. I didn't dislike the taste as much as I'd expected I would. Maybe cemeteries were the right drinking environment for me.
"Do you think you could snap a picture of me?" Luc strolled closer to his uncle's grave and crouched down. "Mom's gonna love that."
"I'm sure she'll be enamoured by the fact you're out here breaking French laws," I replied, grabbing my phone to take pictures as requested, knowing full well that if I used my own phone for the job, we'd have to swap contact information in order for me to send him the photo. Perhaps I had some game, after all.
Though Luc didn't stop me, so maybe it had been his game all along. Unless that was wishful thinking on my part.
"She'll be fine. My parents are divorced and I lived with my dad before leaving on my travels, so Mom will be happy to hear from me by default." Luc struck a pose, smiling for the camera, making a peace sign with his left hand. I took multiple photos of him from a few different angles; he'd be able to choose the shots he believed he looked best in and wanted to keep, though I personally thought he looked stunning in each one. Some people seemed born to feature in photographs and Luc could be counted among their ranks.
"Done." I was more than ready to dazzle my hot roommate with my amazing photography skills. "Here, tell me which one you like the most–"
I stopped mid-sentence, train of thought grinding to a halt as my heart skipped an unpleasant beat.
Something in the darkness behind Richard's grave moved, a black shape with features I couldn't make out at a glance. I jumped back with a loud yelp, prepared to run for my life if I had to, even though I wasn't sure where I'd go to escape. No way did I know Père-Lachaise better than an evil ghost intent on chasing me down.
"Nick, hush. That's only a cat." Luc might've laughed at my embarassing panic if I hadn't just produced noise loud enough to wake the dead when we were supposed to be quiet; now, he frowned, probably praying to God none of the night guards had been close enough to hear. "The cemetery's full of feral cats. I tried to pet a few of them earlier today, but they're really shy and run away the first chance they get."
Imagining Luc trying to convince cemetery cats to give him some love was a mental image both hilarious and adorable, but I forced myself not to let it distract me. I glanced around in an attempt to find that terrifying cat, but it had already disappeared back into the night. No matter how hard I looked, I didn't see it anywhere.
But I did see light.
Headlights in the distance. Headlights belonging to one of the carts the guards must've been using to get around. Headlights in the direction we'd come from, headlights between us and our way back out.
Parisian jail cell, I'm coming for you.
"Guard," I squeaked, momentarily stunned. This was bad, this was so very bad, he'd heard me, he knew we were here and my parents would lock me up in our house forever if they found out and–
"Run!" Luc whisper-yelled at me. In a flash, he'd dropped his can, snatched his bag off the cobbles and dashed away from the approaching lights. He didn't hesitate for a moment. The prospect of having to face the night guard alone sent an instant adrenaline boost through my body and I rushed right after my roommate, can clutched tight in my hands, beer spilling over my fingers as I almost tripped over my own two feet.
In hindsight, I so would've preferred a ghost.
We couldn't keep this up, was all I could think as we sped through the dark, trampling leaves, the contents of my stomach really threatening to resurface now. We wouldn't be able to outrun that guard. It wasn't even that my muscles ached (I really should have put more effort into PE class participation), but the fact that we might get hopelessly lost in Père-Lachaise if we veered too far off our planned route. Not even our tourist map could help us, then: we wouldn't have time to consult that thing unless we could get the guard off our backs for a good moment.
But there was a saying I remembered. You can run, but you can't hide.
Except that wasn't true.
"Luc! We need a hiding place!"
If we found a spot, some hidden spot among the trees and the tombstones, we had a fighting chance. The guard might drive past us, thinking us still ahead of him, and we'd have the last laugh and move in the opposite direction, right back to the route we'd taken to Richard Vaillancourt's grave. It would be tough to do quietly with all those crunching leaves, but we didn't have a choice. I couldn't think of a better plan.
We reached a crossroads, one avenue lined with trees and flower pots leading to an imposing marble structure, one of the many monuments scattered about the necropolis. Sculptures of people on their way to the land of the dead adorned its front, which made me feel even queasier. Luc, on the other hand, ran straight for the building upon hearing my words.
"That's the Monument aux morts. There's supposed to be an ossuary behind it. We should try to get inside."
"An ossuary?" If it wasn't so important we kept moving, I'd have halted right away. I was prepared to do many things to avoid my parents' wrath, but hiding out in Père-Lachaise's bone collection felt so wrong I could hardly express it. Wrong, not to mention impossible. "Do you seriously think they don't lock those doors?"
"Bro, I told you I'm winging this!" Luc rushed up the monument's steps, grabbing at one of the doors leading to the remains it obscured. "If you have something else in mind, I'm happy to take it into consideration–"
He fell silent. My own agitated reaction died on my tongue.
Luc had pushed the door open. I could see nothing but complete darkness behind it. A darkness not even our flashlight seemed able to chase away.
"Oh," was all I could say, genuinely baffled. This was strange. Uncanny. Why wasn't that door locked?
"Don't just stand there. I'm going in." Undeterred by the dark and whatever could be hiding in it, Luc stormed into the ossuary, a shadow fading into blackness. My stomach still flipped at the idea of hiding in that monument, but the thought of dealing with the night guard by myself made my head spin even more. I had to choose between two evils, and I'd have to do it fast.
With a deep breath, I threw myself into the darkness, shoving the door closed behind me.