Montparnasse
IT’S ALMOST DARK WHEN WE reach the station. Now there’s a curfew against travel at night, and the platform is deserted save for a few solo travellers and a drunk weaving dangerously close to the platform edge.
Lisa shivers, pulling her jacket around her. ‘Next time, we leave when I say.’
‘You were the one taking photos, stirring things up.’
‘You knew that place was trouble,’ she says sourly, drawing half a step ahead, and silence settles between us with the growing darkness.
Finally, a train arrives, and a few stops later, there’s a message on my phone.
It’s the same scene as last night and it’s clearly me – naked and blindfolded, tightly bound in thick black ropes. There’s a knife on the mat beside me, a few inches from my throat.
I rear back, almost dropping the phone.
‘What was that?’ Lisa says, craning in as the picture vanishes from the screen.
‘Did you see it?’
‘Not fully. What was it?’
‘It was me. When I was attacked.’
Then a text message:
You’ve been warned.
And another:
Stop sticking your nose where it’s not wanted.
‘Who is it?’ Lisa says, twisting my phone towards her.
The echo of the slurred voice, the chewed words.
Through the window, the station’s name we’re pulling into, Montparnasse, swims past on a blue banner as the train slows along the platform, and images rush towards me.
Nick’s voice.
Stop sticking your nose where it’s not wanted.
Sami and the girl in the street near Montparnasse.
The bulldozed camp at Issy, and the one I visited with Sami.
‘Alex, wait!’ Lisa calls, but I’m already halfway down the platform.
*
The bars in the Passage D’Enfer are closed, and the sign PLEASURES OF PARADISE dissolves into darkness behind a low streetlight. Beneath the sign is a plain glass window, the interior draped in green satin and dimly lit with thin white candles. As I approach, a taxi stops and a couple emerge. The woman wears black heels and a coat, the man a suit. The lacquered door to the left of the window opens and they enter straight away.
I press the buzzer and finally the door opens an inch, the gap widening to reveal a woman dressed like a flight attendant in a dark blue jacket with heavy shoulder pads.
‘No single men tonight,’ she says, her elaborate blonde hairdo stark against the void behind her.
‘No trainers either,’ she adds, slamming the door.
I press the buzzer again.
‘No single men,’ she says, viciously through the intercom. ‘No jeans. And no trainers!’
*
When Lisa and I return an hour later, I’m wearing her father’s clothes – chinos, a white business shirt and a new pair of loafers. By now a queue has formed, each couple presenting themselves to a bull-necked bouncer installed at the entrance.
Inside, the woman gives Lisa a sugary smile as she takes the door fee, then ushers us towards a staircase that leads down two flights to a cavernous basement.
The walls are bare stone, covered in a lurid varnish that makes them glow with a deep golden sheen. Low banquettes hug the walls, and velvet chairs are tucked around small tables scattered with candles giving off a deep woody scent. A group of people mill around a bar at the far end of the room, laughing and talking loudly, and there’s an air of expectation as each new arrival is scanned and appraised. When we reach the bar, a woman detaches herself from the group.
‘Want a dance?’ she says, taking my hand.
I can’t see a dance floor anywhere, but she smiles and nods towards a doorway. Her crooked teeth glow in the light like the gleaming walls but the top half of her face is hidden beneath a lacy mask.
‘Drink, then,’ she says beckoning the barman. She leans forward and something about the way she moves and her nervous smile makes me think she’s young.
The girl slides two glasses our way. ‘You’ve been here before?’
Lisa rolls her eyes. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she says then heads off through the crowd.
I chat to the girl and tell her I’m looking for someone called Nick. ‘Short, flat-faced, tattoos on his hands. You know him?’
‘No, but that description doesn’t narrow it down much,’ she says, lighting a cigarette and turning away.
I take my drink and move away from the bar, through a door and down a long, crowded corridor in search of Lisa. There’s a mirror along one side, which reflects the activities going on in a series of arched vaults. In the first one, a man stands naked, facing a black leather-padded wall. His wrists are manacled to heavy chains and a rusty anchor is suspended from a cage above his head. There’s the grinding of metal on large pulleys and people watch as he’s hoisted up until finally, he hangs by his wrists in mid-air. In the next alcove others watch a similar spectacle, this time a woman on all fours being led around by a man in a latex balaclava. In a bigger, recessed bay further down, naked bodies writhe on a large mattress. There are grunts, sighs, everyone going at it with serious faces, like they’re rehearsing for a film but have dropped their lines for the run-through. A few smaller alcoves have private dances taking place and cool air blows along the corridor from vast air-conditioning units overhead.
At the end of the passage, there’s a large cloakroom, toilets and a fire escape. I retrace my steps and find Lisa in the viewing gallery of the first chamber, taking surreptitious pictures on her phone.
As we pass the bar, the girl points to a table. ‘Take a seat,’ she says. ‘The show is starting soon.’
Lisa hesitates, but I lead her towards the table and soon the room starts filling up with people coming in from the corridor, red-faced and glowing in the flickering candlelight, adjusting their clothes as they look around, smiling at the novelty of seeing each other dressed. There’s a hum of anticipation and some take seats while others swell towards a pair of long satin curtains, which shudder then rise to reveal a small spot-lit stage.
Two women emerge dressed in red latex corsets and the same kind of masks as the girl at the bar. The crowd pulses with excitement and several men shoulder their way to the front, towards the women who make them stand in line. One of the women runs a riding crop along the men’s faces, slapping them lightly back and forth until finally, she chooses one, pulling him forward while the other woman wheels a padded bench onto the stage. It’s covered in black vinyl with brass buttons sunk deep into the padding.
The man strips, unable to control his excitement as he lies on the bench. His nakedness whips the audience into a frenzy of howls and catcalls. Slowly, the women circle him, tying his body to the bench with thick ropes. Their focus is intense, muscles flexing as they turn and bind him in elaborate knots until his body is a mass of twisted cables, white flesh bulging between the rigging. Another pair of women wheel a wooden church altar onto the stage and then, with candelabra and priestly torches, they drip red wax onto his belly. The man is moaning now, blindfolded, his feet clamped into a set of stirrups. The women beat him with paddles and slap him with knives, running them over the length of his bound and waxed body.
‘What the hell is this?’ says Lisa, totally transfixed by the spectacle on the stage.
The throng surges forward, pressing around us so I don’t notice someone crouching next to me.
‘Quick, put this on,’ the girl from the bar whispers, passing her mask. ‘He’s just arrived. You need to leave.’
She nods towards a figure at the side of the stage. At first, he’s just a vague silhouette, an outline that seems to suck the light into itself, as if he’s his own shadow. Then he turns to watch the crowd, which is yelling and whooping now. Nick – his lank hair slicked over his head, in a dark suit and a wide lapelled shirt. He carries a white-topped cane like a circus showman surveying his audience.
His gaze returns to the stage, and then very faintly, he raises the cane, nods to the women on stage, and then dissolves into the curtains’ dark folds.
Rabid howls of excitement come from the crowd as Lisa looks at me in horror. ‘I’m not watching this,’ she says, moving away from the table.
The man on the slab is screaming but I can’t see him because everyone has surged forward in a crush. Suddenly, the crowd stills and through the silence comes a soft whimpering from the bench, then hollow, muffled sobbing. There are horrified gasps from the crowd, a soft squelching sound, then the crack of a whip and shrieks of agony, before everything goes quiet.
The girl follows me. ‘That way,’ she whispers, pointing towards Lisa who heads down the corridor, the alcoves on either side empty now.
Behind us a fury of clapping from the crowd, then cheers. Up ahead, a man pulls Lisa into the bathroom.
‘Leave her, André,’ says the girl as we enter behind them.
‘She was taking photos,’ he says. ‘That’s forbidden.’
‘This place should be shut down,’ says Lisa, reaching to grab her phone from André, but he steps back and then, with a sweeping underhand, throws it into a toilet bowl.
I follow her into the cubicle while the others argue, then André leaves.
‘This place is insane. What is all this?’ Lisa says, retrieving her dripping phone.
The walls of the bathroom are covered with old cabaret posters – images of leering performers doing various circus tricks, and others engaged in murkier spectacles, like the ones in the alcoves. The top left-hand corner of each poster is embossed with name of the club, and the symbol of the reptilian creature on the sign outside. A series of older posters with a different name catches my eye and I rip one of them from the wall as Lisa pulls me from the bathroom.
Outside, the girl leads us through a set of double doors into a back service area, then up a flight of stairs to a large room, open to the rafters. The floor is padded with blue mats, there’s a boxing ring in the corner, and that unmistakeable, wet dog smell of cramped muscles, pain and sweat.
She sees my expression. ‘It took me a while to recognise you, but yes, you’ve been here before. This is where they brought you. They drugged you and put you on stage.’
‘On stage?’
She grabs my arm, traces the marks, now faint bruises. ‘These are rope burns. You were part of the performance. I don’t know what sick game they’re playing.’
‘You saw it?’
‘It was like tonight, but you were out of it, drugged, a different performance. You were tied with those ropes.’
I stare at her, appalled by what she’s saying.
‘What’s going on? What is this place?’
She opens the door onto a small back street.
‘Just stay away from here,’ she says, stepping back inside.