The Madonna of Notre Dame by Alexis Ragougneau, Katherine Gregor

receiver. While the number was ringing, she turned again to the young man. He finally raised his eyes, which had been totally emptied of everything, toward the young woman, and she noticed for the first time how pale his eyes were, an almost translucent gray, a gray like tracing paper, as if they were only slightly masking the inside of his soul. He joined his hands, which were now free, and recited in a whisper: Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed be the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now, and at the hour of our death.
    Then he stood up and ran.

    Deputy Kauffmann’s phone had now been ringing in vain for three hours. Father Kern had never considered it important to get himself a cell phone, a quirk he now bitterly regretted, forced as he now was to leave his jar between confessions to go to the antediluvian pay phone in the sacristy, which nobody had used since the advent of mobile phones. In order to reach the device, which had been stuffed at the end of the corridor linking the cathedral and the sacristy, he had to go all around the ambulatory through the north side, so as to avoid at all costs the south end, where, as usual, Madame Pipi had parked her behind and herflowery hat for the day. A little earlier in the afternoon, as Kern was walking across the cathedral between two attempts to reach the Palais de Justice, he’d caught the eye of the old lady with the hat, and her expression was even more raving mad than usual, as though a flow of anguish was about to burst out, a torrent, a scream about to explode any moment now amid worshippers and tourists. Kern had decided to make a detour, struggling to look away from the glistening eyes staring at him from beneath the plastic poppies, since he considered his phone call to Claire Kauffmann to be more urgent than Madame Pipi’s confessions.
    However, once he’d reach the pay phone, he’d still have to wait to be alone, wait for the sacristan to go and polish the silver in some other distant corner of the cathedral, wait for the duty guard to finish his break and his coffee—since the staff coffee machine was in the sacristy—wait for a worshipper coming to ask for a few drops of holy water for her sick relative to leave, the precious liquid lapping at the bottom of a plastic bottle. And when the coast was finally clear, it was always the same reply he heard on the line: a tone that was becoming increasingly irritating and gave the impression that the entire Palais de Justice had been evacuated as the result of a bomb explosion.
    It was now past four o’clock. Father Kern hung up the receiver again, promising himself to try his luck once more in a few minutes. Like the day before, he could feel his temperature rising, and this only increased his double feeling of urgency and nervousness. He would leave early, this evening; his night, he knew already, did not bode well.
    He sat down on one of the wooden chests in the corridor of the sacristy. The stained glass windows of the Chapter cloister spread a green-tinted light on his back. Nearby, on the right-hand side, behind the leather-lined door between him and the cathedral, the anonymous mass of tourists emitted a dull hubbubworthy of the Tower of Babel, which echoed endlessly, from morning till night, beneath the vaults of the great aisle.
    Father Kern looked at his watch and went toward the pay phone, but was immediately interrupted by Mourad, the guard, who had come in by the external door that gave onto the presbytery. The two men looked at each other for a moment, both embarrassed by each other’s presence, then Mourad greeted the priest with a weary gesture and disappeared into the sacristy. Kern sat back down. He would have to wait again before he could phone.
    He heard the rumble of the coffee machine. Shortly afterward, Mourad reappeared, holding a plastic cup. He collapsed more than sat on the other end of the