The Cathedral Thief

I met Damien Sorel for the first time the morning after we had arrived, quite by accident. Damien was the young man who lived in the apartment just opposite ours. He was quiet, discreet even. If I hadn’t met him on the landing – he was coming home, and I had been sent to the nearest bakery to fetch something for breakfast – days might have passed without me knowing of his existence.

If I have to be completely honest, there was nothing truly remarkable about Damien Sorel. He was average in size and height, and did not stand out in any other way. His dark complexion and even darker hair were an inheritance from a Haitian grandmother, I think. The only part of Damien that attracted the attention was his eyes. Dull-brown, dead-looking, very sad eyes. There was almost no spark of light in them. Those eyes didn’t really encourage you to look for Damien’s company. But then would come the moment Damien would smile. And whenever Damien Sorel smiled, you were guaranteed to feel something like a flutter in your chest. The first time that it had happened to me, I had dismissed it as a sign of my impatience – I had been sent down to get some fresh bread, and Damien stood on the landing, momentarily blocking my way down the stairs.

Our relations, at the start, were nothing more than what could happen between neighbors. Every once in a while, I would meet him on the landing or stairs, greet him with a word or two, hope for a smile on his part, and then we would go our own ways.

The change in our relations came with the first rays of summer sunshine. One day, I saw Damien sitting in the backyard, hidden in the shade, with a pencil in his hand and a paper on his knees. I went to him and asked him what he was doing. Where I came from, everyone knew everyone. People didn’t have manners like they did here, and it never even occurred to me that it could have been none of my business what Damien was doing – or at least, it didn’t occur to me then.

“You draw,” I stated to start the conversation. There was a part of me that was taken aback by this simple discovery. Damien Sorel didn’t seem like the artistic type. Of course, in my provincial mind, artists – painters and writers and other poets – were all of the same kind, built on the romantic model of a solitary, dark-haired and pale-skinned, tall and skinny man. Damien didn’t fit the description.

He looked up when I spoke, and in an impulsive move, tried to hide his paper from my sight. Then his face lit up for a brief instant, and a small chuckle tumbled from his lips. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head lightly, “old habits die hard.” He unfolded the paper, and held it to me. “It’s just a past time,” he added very quickly, as if he were apologizing for even drawing.

I took the paper and gazed down at it. And immediately was surprised by what I saw. I knew not much about art, and the only drawings that I had been in contact with over the last few years were the chalk cats and dogs that Chat drew on the ground of the courtyard in our old house. But even if I had been familiar with art, I would not have expected that. Damien Sorel did not draw landscapes or portraits. Damien drew architecture, with high ceilings and glass windows, arcs and pillars. Before my eyes, there was a whole building of lights and shades that was brought to life on paper.

“This is beautiful,” I muttered, unable to find another comment to make.

“Well,” Damien said after some hesitation, “it was my ambition to be a painter.”

“Was?” I asked.

Again there was that little chuckle that seemed to accidentally tumble from his lips. “People like me,” Damien Sorel said very seriously, “don’t become painters. Not really.”

I frowned. “Why not? This is beautiful. Have you got more of these?”

A sad sort of smile. “Lots of them.”

“Then you must promise to show me!”

My enthusiasm seemed to amuse Damien greatly. A little like the words of actions of a child would have amused him. But he promised nonetheless and, being a man of his word, he kept his promise. He showed me more of his drawings in the days that followed, told me about the buildings that he drew, and in return let me talk about what I thought of Paris so far. He listened to every word I said, and seemed to understand me much better than my mother or Chat had ever done. And before the end of the week, I had absurdly fallen in love with him.