Читать книгу The Rising - Will Hill, Will Hill - Страница 23

PARIS, FRANCE FOUR WEEKS EARLIER

Frankenstein sat on a bench outside Notre Dame de Paris, watching the worshippers file out of evening mass. It was Christmas Eve, and the ancient cathedral had been nearly full to capacity.

He had taken to coming here at the same time every evening, as the last of the sunlight played across the ancient ramparts and gargoyles far above his head. There were usually crowds of tourists gazing up at the huge stone building, cameras slung round their necks and guidebooks in their hands as teenage kids glided around and between them on skateboards and bikes, but the plaza had been largely deserted while the service was taking place. The cold and the festive season had seen most of the tourists leave the city, and most Parisians stay inside.

Those whose faith had compelled them out into the freezing night had flocked into the comparative warmth of the cathedral as the bells rang for the Christmas mass at six o’clock. Frankenstein had stood among them on several occasions as the grand organ boomed and wailed, as the choir harmonised, as the incense smoked and fumed, and the bishop conducted his service from before the ancient altar.

Today, he had chosen to stay outside.

He found watching the faces of the men and women who departed from the cathedral after the mass as illuminating as the service itself; the blank disinterest of those for whom the ritual was nothing more than a chore, a habit they weren’t quite able to break, against the beatific rapture of the faithful, full to the brim with God’s blessings and trembling at the almighty power of their Lord.

The depths of their feelings fascinated him. Because he, after almost three weeks in the city whose name had sparked his only flash of recognition since beginning his shallow, empty second life, felt nothing.

He felt nothing at all.

Frankenstein had arrived in Paris with his entire body a ball of flaming agony. After a day and a half pressed tightly into the bowels of the truck, he had managed to hobble away unseen when the driver brought his rig to a halt outside the Marché d’Intérêt National, the vast food market in the southern suburb of Rungis. Frankenstein had asked a man working in a mobile café for directions to the centre of the city, and began walking north. As he made his way towards the middle of Paris, a creeping sense of disappointment had settled on him.

He recognised absolutely nothing.

Not a single building, or landmark, not a street sign or the name of a restaurant; nothing triggered a rush of memory like the one he had experienced at the transport café in Germany. He saw nothing that made him feel like he had ever been to this place before.

He reached the river, the wide, winding expanse of water at the heart of the city, and felt nothing. He was waiting for an epiphany, for the locks in his head to grind into action and release, spilling his memory back into his possession.

But it never came.

For almost three weeks now, he had wandered the Parisian streets. He was as confused and disoriented as ever, more so perhaps, having been given what had felt like the first clue to unlocking his identity, only to be denied further progress. The stares of the tourists and the people going about their lives made him uncomfortable, and he began to spend his days in the dark corners of the museums and churches that littered the city, hidden away from prying eyes.

At night, he walked the streets of Pigalle and the Marais, keeping to the shadows. He watched the laughing groups of men and women as they spilled from the bars and cafés, the drug dealers and the sex workers, as they conducted their transactions in the narrow alleyways and dark street corners.

Frankenstein had no idea what he was going to do with the new life he had been given, and was aware of a growing sense, deep in his bones, that he did not want to continue with it at all. Several times he had stood on one of the bridges, staring down at the dark, freezing water of the Seine, wondering how it would feel to pitch himself over the railing; a moment of panic perhaps, a second or two of falling, then icy oblivion, washing down his throat and filling his lungs.