The Cathedral Thief

We all have secrets.

Mine lies buried in a dirty backyard, along with a fragment of tainted glass stolen from Notre-Dame. The events associated with it date back to almost half a century, and there is not much left today that could remind me of that time.

Paris today is nothing like the Paris of my youth. When I think about that first year in Paris, it all seems much more real than everything that happened to me afterwards. The colors were more vivid. The sun shone brighter. The patter of the rain held a melody that I haven’t heard since. Every heartbeat, every feeling burned with so much more intensity.

I never found again that electrifying feeling of novelty that Paris held in the beginning. The years that followed were never grey or dull, but they were tamed, in comparison. There was war, and recession, and then war again. There was darkness on the city of light, and even if it now shines brighter than ever, some of that brightness will forever be lost on me.

Of the Paris of my youth, nearly nothing remains. But still… Still, when the rain slowly falls on the Seine and I watch the concentric circles grow, I remember. When the sun painfully pierces through the mist that hangs above the water, time seems to suspend its course and I remember.

And then, the bells of Notre-Dame ring, and the name of Damien Sorel resounds louder than ever.

We all have secrets. We all have stories that we hide in the deepest corners of our souls, and as rain shrouds Paris in a veil of water and the ghost of the Eiffel Tower struggles to emerge through the mist, I remember a very similar morning, nearly four decades ago. I remember when it all began.