“That man looks like Tom Hardy and I am dressed like Jessica Tandy,” Natalie hissed.
“You are also working,” I reminded her. I gave her a little shove to push her up in the line.
“There’s a rumor Tom is going to be the next James Bond. He could shake my martini anytime,” she said, waggling her eyebrows. She had powdered them white, but they were still effective.
“Give your libido a rest,” I said. “And you’re supposed to be speaking German.” The Paris guide I was carrying had a German flag emblazoned on the front and I tapped her with it.
“Ja, meine herrische Dame,” she said, saluting.
I pushed her again and in a few minutes we were through the security queue. A bored employee sat on a stool, recording the number of entries on a silver clicker as we rebuckled our fanny packs. There was nothing more interesting in them than wallets stuffed with coupons and credit cards, and a few toiletries and small craft projects each. I was also carrying a pair of plastic ponchos printed with Eiffel Towers bought cheaply from a sidewalk vendor just off the Pont des Arts. We’d made a stop at a sporting goods store for a few extras including kneepads, neatly hidden under our jogging pants. The catacombs tours were self-guided, and we started down the tall circular staircase, descending 131 steps until we hit stone. The air was dank and chilly, and there was an odor unlike anything I’d ever smelled before.
“What the hell is that?” I muttered in Natalie’s ear.
“Death, darling,” she said.
But this wasn’t the kind of death I was used to. We dealt it out, quick and clean. Depending on whether the mark had been shot or stabbed or poisoned, the smell would be different. Blood was sharp and metallic; poison could be pleasant—I had a soft spot for botanicals. Hang around too long and you’d smell other, worse things as the body settled into the relaxation of death. But the first few minutes could be perfectly tolerable if you weren’t too squeamish about the odor of blood.
Blood, I could handle. But Mary Alice had a point about the bones. There was a short exhibition on the history of the catacombs, explaining that the crowded cemeteries had become vectors for disease by the time of the French Revolution and a plan had been formed to exhume the dead and relocate them to an ossuary. Approximately six million of them had found their way to this city of the dead. Then we turned a corner and WHAM. Bones from the word go. The catacombs were a series of low, wide chambers with bones piled in patterns against the walls, maybe six feet deep. Each room opened onto at least one other, with heaps of bones locked behind fences. Some of the rooms were themed—nothing but piles of skulls, grinning at the visitors. Beside them was a plaque reading, stop—this is the empire of death. I hoped there were replicas in the gift shop because I wanted to buy one for Mary Alice to hang in her kitchen.
“This must be the femur room,” I said as we turned a corner and came upon a heap of heavy, long bones with knobby ends.
We paused, making a show of peering interestedly at a set of bones as a group of Canadian tourists moved past, snapping pictures as they went. One girl fell a little behind, posting her selfie （“#romancingthebone”）， and I fought the urge to trip her.
When they had moved on to the next room, Natalie peered back the way we had come and gave me a quick signal. She led the way around a lacy pillar of vertebrae to a small gate set in the stone wall. I pulled a set of circular knitting needles out of my fanny pack. The work in progress was a M?bius scarf in a dull, stony shade of wool. Mary Alice had prepped it, and she had explained how to unravel the scarf, popping the stitches free until the needles were bare. A quick twist and the ends of the needles were unscrewed. Inside each was concealed a thin piece of sturdy wire, and I handed them over as Natalie whipped a credit card out of her wallet. I pressed the corner and it lit up, a miniature flashlight we’d found at the hardware store where we’d bought the wire. She bent to work, wriggling the wires into the keyhole of the gate. She closed her eyes and did it by touch while I held the light steady.
From the room beyond, I could hear the faint sounds of a tour guide reciting facts in Japanese. I didn’t hurry Nat along; I just kept the light pointed where she was working and listened as the noises of the tour group got louder. I could make out the shutter clicks of their camera phones, the rustle of their raincoats.
Natalie swore softly.
“You’ve got about four seconds,” I said finally.
She closed her eyes again and took a deep breath, flicking her wrist. The lock turned and she yanked the gate open. The metal made a hideous scraping noise, but we’d come too far. We dove inside, pulling the gate closed behind us and flinging ourselves flat on the ground. There was a tiny depression there and the gate was deep in shadow. As long as nobody came close to investigate, we could wait until the tour group passed through and then go on our way.