Superheroes in Our Midst

Late one night, several years ago, I found myself standing on an empty subway platform, waiting for a downtown train. The only other person in the station was a tall man across the tracks on the uptown platform. He seemed harmless enough, so I allowed my attention to drift to a magazine article on celebrity fashion disasters. Suddenly I sensed movement. I glanced up to see the man walking on the wall of the station--his body perfectly horizontal and parallel to the ground. He took five or six steps in this fashion before flipping backward into a standing position. For a minute or two, he remained completely still, and I started to wonder if I might have hallucinated. Then he did it again.

When I told Kiki about my encounter with a real-life superhero in the bowels of the New York City subway, she simply scribbled something on a piece of paper. (She can be mildly annoying at times.) The note she handed me read, "le parkour."

I mention this because before I can continue with the French Adventure, I must introduce you to parkour--the phenomenon known in France as the art of displacement.

In the 1980s, a fifteen-year-old Parisian named David Belle invented parkour--a discipline in which the sole aim is to get from one place to another in quickest, most efficient manner using only the power of the human body. Sounds easy right? Not if you're traveling across rooftops or climbing water drains. In order to perfect their art, practioners of parkour (called traceurs if male and traceuses if female) must learn how to walk on walls, leap wide chasms, and jump from heights that would flatten an average person. Seeing them in action is enough to make you start shelving your comic books in the non-fiction section of your home library.

But not everyone with superpowers becomes a superhero. There are quite a few villains out there as well.

Click here for a New Yorker article on the art of parkour.

(Below: A video of the master, David Belle. Do I need to say, "Don't try this at home?")

The Porthole

I woke the morning after the dinner party to discover I’d slept through my alarm and missed the day’s classes. I bolted upright in bed and whacked my head on the sloped ceiling of my garret (attic) room. Three cups of coffee and four painkillers later, I took a seat in front of my computer and typed an email to Kiki that detailed the previous evening’s adventure.

Claire hadn’t been able to account for Maurice’s disappearing act. He wasn’t the sort, she’d said, to hide out in subway tunnels, particularly if it meant getting one of his custom-made suits dirty. Still smarting from his snub, I’d suggested that Maurice was a spy, but Claire wouldn’t buy it. He was too rich—and lazy—to sell his friends out. And who on earth would want information about the Ariadne Society anyway?

I wondered if Kiki might have an idea or two, but she didn’t respond to my email, and the rest of the day passed slowly. As I waited for the evening’s explorations to begin, I Googled Maurice’s family. I discovered that many of his ancestors had lost their heads during the Revolution, and that his father had been a notorious playboy, but I found nothing about Maurice. When the clock struck seven, I abandoned my research, gathered my supplies and set off to meet Claire.

After several wrong turns, I finally reached our meeting place in an alley in the 6th Arrondissement. I found Claire dressed in black and swinging a heavy crowbar as if it were a stick.

“Are you ready?” It was a challenge, not a question.

When I nodded, she dug the tip of the crowbar under a manhole cover and wrenched it out of the street.

The Disappearing Act

The members of the Ariadne Society knew how to throw a party. I ate until I was painfully full, and we all traded stories of our underground adventures. (I stuck to tales of sewers and subway tunnels. I didn’t know them well enough to reveal the secret of the Shadow City.) The only thing that dampened the festive (sometimes raucous) mood was the presence of a rather obnoxious young man seated directly across the table from me.

He’d been introduced as Maurice, and I’d seen him smirk when he shook my hand. But he was so ridiculously handsome and impeccably dressed that I couldn’t resist sneaking a few glances at him. He never looked my way. And while my other dinner companions graciously switched to English whenever my brow wrinkled with confusion, Maurice refused to speak anything but French. The snub couldn’t have been more obvious.

“Don’t let him bother you.” Claire finally leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Maurice is a terrible snob. He is not very popular in the Ariadne Society. Many of us do not trust him.”

“Then why is he here?” I asked.

“Maurice is the last of an old aristocratic family. His father and grandfathers were notorious cataphiles. It's said they had their own maps, and we thought Maurice might have information to share. But if he knows anything, then he hasn’t told us. He’s been completely worthless. In fact, I’m beginning to suspect that he’s afraid of the catacombs. Some of my friends think Otto must have needed him for business contacts. After all, it was Maurice’s uncle who commissioned Otto’s last hedge maze.”

As she finished, Maurice’s eyes landed on me for the first and last time that night. His sly smile made me wonder if he’d heard our conversation, but I refused to squirm. Instead I offered an unfriendly wink and turned my attention back to Claire.

Around two in the morning, the party came to an end, and the members of the Ariadne Society trickled out of the subway station one by one to avoid attracting attention. Claire and I were among the last to leave.

When our turn came at last, Claire flipped the switch on her flashlight, and the station went dark. “Where’s Maurice?” Claire asked once we were halfway up the stairs. “I didn’t see him leave.” I paused to think and heard the sound of footsteps below us. Claire heard them too, and I felt myself being pulled back into the station and shoved through a doorway.

Our eyes adjusted to the darkness, and we peeked at the platform. Maurice was lowering himself onto the tracks. He crossed to the other side and hoisted himself onto the opposite platform. There, he stood motionlessly, and I knew he was listening for movement. When he decided the coast was clear, he called out hoarsely and a second figure emerged.

“Nothing new.” We heard him say in French as the platform began to vibrate beneath my feet. An empty train sped through the station. When it was gone, so was Maurice.

Otto Moreau (Alias)

Here are a few things I learned about Otto Moreau.

Born ca. 1985
Disappeared late June 2006

Real name unknown. (Not necessarily a matter of secrecy. Apparently his given name was somewhat embarrassing.)

Otto claimed to have attended high school at the Lycee Montaigne near the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. The school sits atop one section of the catacombs. During World War II, the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) occupied the building and built what’s known as the Bunker Allemand (German Bunker) in the catacombs below. Otto’s explorations began at the age of twelve when his found an entrance to the bunker. The story cannot be checked since Otto’s real name remains unknown.

A maze enthusiast, Otto postponed college in order to start his own business designing holly and hedge labyrinths for the country estates of wealthy French businessmen and aristocrats. His last project was a three-dimensional maze inspired by the catacombs.

A fan of boudin noir—blood sausage (which I was forced to choke down in his honor).

Mother is American. Spoke fluent English.

Resembled a young Alain Delon. Not bad.

In 2001, he founded the Ariadne Society, a group devoted to the exploration and preservation of the catacombs.

In early 2006, Otto announced he had made a discovery, but refused to share full details. He began to spend more time in the catacombs, and by March was rarely seen on the surface. He soon took to communicating with his friends through cryptic notes hidden in crevasses throughout the tunnels. Some made sense—others were rambling and incoherent. Many may not have been found. The last note asked society members to gather at “la pinacotheque” (art gallery), but did not provide directions.

The Dinner Party

Once lunch was over and the waiter had arrived with the check, Claire passed me list of the supplies I’d need to purchase for our expedition into the catacombs. The tall rubber boots and flashlight were self-explanatory. But the list also included four cans of confit, three types of cheese, two baguettes, and a bottle of cheap wine. I asked if we’d be having a picnic, which made Claire laugh.

“The food is to keep us out of trouble with the troglodytes,” she told me.

"Troglodytes?”

“People who live in the catacombs. It’s best to have something to trade with them in case we need help. Underground, a good baguette can save your life.”

“I’ll buy everything this afternoon,” I told her. “What time should we meet tonight?”

Claire shook her head. “Not tonight. We will go on Monday. The catacombs are full of teenage boys and tourists on the weekends, so there are more police in the tunnels. All serious explorers go during the week.”


I couldn’t stifle my sigh. Monday was still two long days away, and I’d already grown to loathe Sundays in France. With all the stores shuttered, and no English-speaking friends to amuse me, my homesickness grew deadly. Claire seemed to understand my predicament.

“There is a dinner party on Sunday night,” she said. “It’s in honor of my friend Otto. Maybe you would like to come?”

“I’d love to!” I hated to sound so eager. The French seldom showed such enthusiasm.

“Then you should meet me at nine at the McDonalds on the Place de la Republique.” She looked me over and grinned. “Wear something chic.”

At 9:15 on Sunday, I was waiting outside the garish McDonald’s, wondering if I had fallen victim to a cruel prank, when I heard Claire call to me from across the street.

“I’m sorry. I’ve made us late,” she said. “We must hurry.”

Her red dress floated in the wind as she guided me to nearby a metro (subway) entrance. The station had long been abandoned and a metal gate blocked the stairs. Claire scanned our surroundings, taking note of a woman with a dachshund and a man relieving himself against a wall, before pulling out a set of keys. She opened the gate, and we both hurried into the darkness.

“They closed the Saint-Martin station during the Second World War,” Claire told me. “Part of it is used as a homeless shelter, but this part is ours.”

“Ours?” I asked.

“The Mexicans are not the only subterranean society,” she informed me.

When Claire turned on a flashlight, I wondered if a war had taken place inside the station. Everything that wasn’t burned or broken was caked with black grime. Tiles had fallen from the arched passages, and razor-sharp shards littered the floor. Rats frolicked in tall piles of garbage and debris. I’d visited several of New York’s abandoned subway stations, but I’d seen nothing that compared to the Saint-Martin metro stop.

We heard a rumble in the distance, and the platform began to vibrate beneath my feet. Claire flicked the switch on her flashlight, and we stood perfectly still in the darkness. A train shot past us, the eyes of bored commuters staring blindly out its windows.

When the train vanished, we approached a door composed of several old subway signs nailed together. A mouthwatering aroma wafted past my nose. Claire knocked and the door opened at once. Clean, white subway tiles gleamed in the light of countless candles. Massive 1930's advertisements for liquor and laundry detergent lined walls of an unused metro track. Seated at a long, beautifully-set table were more than a dozen people in formal clothing. A man in a chef’s hat toiled over five camping stoves at the end of the platform while a waiter filled water glasses. A banner on the wall read, “Bon Voyage Otto.”

“Where's your friend going?” I whispered to Claire.

“Heaven if he’s lucky,” she said. “He was declared dead last week. He disappeared in the catacombs three months ago, not long after he discovered the new passage.”

Where We Left Off . . .

THE PERFORATING MEXICANS
(June 24, 2006)


I will soon be spending some time in Paris. While there, I intend to investigate (and hopefully join) a group known as the Perforating Mexicans. (Also known as the Mexican Perforation and La Mexicaine De Perforation.)

In 2004, French police were training in an uncharted section of the Paris Catacombs when they happened upon a secret room deep beneath the city. Unlike most chambers in the catacombs, which are filled only with dirt and ancient bones, this had been turned into a movie theater and restaurant, complete with electricity and a couscous maker.

It seems a group of enterprising Parisians had combined their love of subterranean spaces with their passion for the cinema and created a movie theater in a forbidden part of the catacombs. When the authorities finally arrived for a formal investigation, they found nothing left but a note that read, “Do not try to find us.”

No one has heard from The Perforating Mexicans since, but I have a hunch that they haven’t abandoned the catacombs altogether.

For more information, see the Wikipedia entry, which includes an interesting picture of the secret society at play.



LESSON NUMBER ONE
(August 12, 2006)


(Which I learned the hard way, as usual.) Finding a way into the catacombs that stretch beneath Paris is not difficult. With a bit of luck, a runaway monkey could find an entrance. Finding a way out is the problem.

Law abiding types can always take the official tour, which guides you past the past the bones of six million Parisians which are stacked in a tidy fashion in a small section of the subterranean tunnels. An ancient and ominous warning greets all visitors, (“Stop, this is the empire of death.”), but unless you try to leave with a thighbone in your bag, you’re unlikely to end up into too much trouble.

Those who would prefer to pay a less legal visit to the catacombs, however, have a wide variety of options. Climb down any number of manholes around Paris, and you may find yourself in a dark passage that’s more than a thousand years old. (The entrance to a theater built by the Perforating Mexicans, for instance, can be accessed through a drain not far from the Eiffel Tower.)

Once you’re inside, you may want to keep an eye out for the policemen who periodically patrol the catacombs, but odds are you’ll see no one. There are more than 180 miles of tunnels under Paris, and only a handful of people can find their way around them.

Which brings me back to the monkey. Among the many who’ve met their fate in the catacombs was an orangutan that escaped from the Paris zoo over 200 years ago. But perhaps the most famous victim of Paris’s “Shadow City” was Philibert Aspairt who disappeared in 1793. His body was discovered many years later, a few feet from an exit. In his hands was a set of keys that could have saved his life. He was later buried on the spot where he was found. For a picture of his tomb, click here.

So now perhaps you’ll understand how it came to be that I got lost on my very first trip inside the catacombs.

If you'd like a little more information on Paris's Shadow City, and you can't wait, click here. Otherwise, stick around.



THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN
(September 5, 2006)




As I mentioned earlier, I first arrived in Paris in July. Verushka Kozolva had provided me with the telephone number of a young woman named Claire (for legal reasons, I can’t give her last name) who could serve as my guide to the catacombs. Her grandfather had been a member of the French Resistance during World War II, when both the Nazis and the Allies had used parts the underground tunnels to their advantage. In time, he had passed his knowledge of the catacombs along to his son (whom Verushka had befriended during year she and Kiki Strike lived in Paris) and his granddaughter.

Claire was vacationing in Romania during my first week in France. While I waited, I downloaded maps of the catacombs from some very impressive websites, but I didn’t trust them (or myself) enough to begin my explorations without an experienced guide. Instead, I tried to get in the mood by visiting other underground attractions around Paris. My first stop, of course, was the sewers.



Anyone with a particularly sensitive nose should steer clear of the sewers. It’s not that they smell the way you’d expect them to smell. If I had to describe their unique bouquet, I’d say it was a mixture of pond water, mold, kitty litter, and garbage can on a hot summer day. But if you’re able to breath through your mouth, the sewers are well worth the trip.

Dig deep beneath any street in Paris and you’ll find an arched tunnel made of brick or stone. In fact, the sewers follow course of the streets so precisely that they form a mirror image of the city above. (You’ll even find street signs to guide your way.) There are more than 1,300 miles of tunnels—some are enormous, more than 12 feet across, and others too narrow to enter. All are gloomy, dark, and dangerous. With a little rain, they become roaring rivers of filth, and toxic gasses are known to accumulate, killing the unprepared in seconds.

Despite the peril, there are many tales of those whose desperation or dimwittedness has led them to pry open one of the manholes that line the streets of Paris and drop into the darkness. Perhaps the most best know is that of Jean Valjean, hero of Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables. (It was Hugo who famously referred to the sewers as “the intestine of the leviathan.")



I, of course, chose to visit Le Musée des Égouts de Paris. It’s a strange museum built around a working part of the sewer system not far from the Eiffel Tower. You’ll see and smell everything you need to make the experience worthwhile, and you’ll learn to pity the people who lived in the days before the sewers were built. But perhaps the most interesting thing about the museum is that you're often on your own, away from guards and tourists. It would be easy to slip into the tunnels and make your way through underground Paris.


THE OSSUARY
(September 6, 2006)




In preparation for my journey into the forbidden passages of the Parisian catacombs, I also visited the tunnels that have been opened to the public. I expected a well-lit, heavily-guarded, tourist-filled environment—an underground Disney Land. I was wrong.



Two tips for visiting the catacombs. First, don’t go alone. (I did.) It’s dark. It’s quiet. And you don’t know who’s down there. Second, wear boots or sneakers. (I didn’t.) There’s water dripping (sometimes pouring) from the ceiling in most of the tunnels. The floor in many sections is one large puddle. But despite all this, if you follow my advice, you should have a fabulous time.

The highlight of the catacombs is, of course, the ossuary where human bones line the tunnels. But in order to see it, you must be prepared to walk quite a distance through dimly lit, stone-lined passages with ceilings that hover only a few inches above the top of your head. In many respects, this is the creepiest part of the journey. As the tunnels twist and turn, you can only imagine what might lie in front of you.



When at last you reach the entrance to the ossuary, and read the warning above the door (“Stop, this is the empire of death”), you may feel as if you’re ready for anything. You aren’t. There’s nothing that will prepare you for the sight of human bones stacked in neat piles that can reach more than six feet in height. These are the remains six million Parisians who were buried in the city’s cemeteries before the 19th century.



In the late 1700s, when Paris’s cemeteries had been crammed (literally) beyond capacity, the dead developed a nasty habit of tumbling into the cellars of nearby buildings. The stench from the graveyards was reported to be overpowering, and those who lived in the surrounding areas often fell prey to the “bad air.” That’s when the authorities decided to empty the cemeteries and deliver the remains to the ancient Roman quarry that stretched beneath the city. The men who carted the bones were only allowed to work at night, and it was years before the last of the dead made the trip.



In the passages that are marked for sightseers, the bones of the dead are still artistically arranged, with skulls and femurs forming bizarre (often surprising) patterns. But if you pause to peer though the gates that block less traveled routes, you’ll see that many parts of the catacombs have not fared so well. Walls have crumbled, and the dead lay in chaotic heaps. A sharp eye will also find proof of the catacombs’ multiple layers. Look beyond the barriers, and you might find yourself staring down at a tunnel that weaves beneath your feet.

This was the first glimmer of what I might find in forbidden passages. But as fascinating as the ossuary was, I had no idea how little I’d seen.


I MEET MY GUIDE
(September 12, 2006)


My first meeting with the girl who was to guide me through the catacombs took place on the morning of July 15th. I met her at a café in the Latin Quarter, one of the oldest and bloodiest parts of the city. For hundreds of years, foreign students from the nearby universities and the native people of Paris staged gruesome and deadly battles in the warren of little streets just off the river. (Many over nothing more than the cost of wine.)

It was ten o’clock on a Saturday, and other than our waiter, it seemed as if we were the only people awake in town. Bastille Day celebrations had ended just hours earlier, and most Parisians were still sleeping off the effects. It was the perfect time to plan our expedition.

Though she’s only a year or two older than I am, Claire has been visiting the catacombs for more than a decade. But she only gives tours to those who come with a personal recommendation. Kiki Strike has seen the tunnels with Claire. So have several macho movie stars, one of whom didn’t like the idea of being guided by a girl. He took off on his own and was discovered twelve hours later, huddled in a corner crying softly to himself.

Claire said she had met members of the Perforating Mexicans while exploring the catacombs. She’d considered joining the club herself, until she found that their taste in movies didn’t suit her. She agreed to take me to see their underground cinema. (The one the police have yet to discover.) But there are far more interesting things in the catacombs, she assured me, than film clubs. Not only are there bunkers and crypts and rooms made entirely of chalk, but her grandfather had always sworn that there were passages under Paris that not even the most intrepid explorers had discovered—tunnels dug by the Nazis during the war. He had spent his entire life searching, and died before he could find them.