It’s late afternoon by the time we hit the outskirts of the city. The motorway gives way to the perplexing maze of the peripherique, and the miles of tunnels and exits that lead towards the heart of the city. Clare is still gazing out of the window, her hands tucked up behind her knees, which are curled up towards her chin. I navigate us around to the west of the city, my rusty french just about adequate to make sense of the bewildering array of road signs. Finally we emerge on the Champs du Mars, and Clare lets out a gasp of excitement; the first noice she’s made since asking for a rest stop outside Rouen.
“Is that the Eiffel Tower then? It’s HUGE.” We’re practically under the legs of the tower, and I drive up onto the pavement and across the lawns.
“Let’s go right to the top, I want to see the whole city.” Clare tugs my arm, walking with her face turned upwards, trying to pick out the staircase as it winds up through the tower.
We reach the turnstile, and I haul myself over it. Clare vaults over it barely breaking her stride, and I’m reminded of how much fitter I was in my youth. Hand in hand we stop at the bottom step and turn our heads directly upwards. I whistle in appreciation and it echoes up the steel frame.
“Ready then?” I ask Clare. She nods without taking her eyes off the top of the tower. Without warning I let go of her hand and start racing up the steps. She screams, and a second later I can hear her following, yelling curses that she can only have learnt from me.
“You fucker! Fucking cheat, wait for me!”
I know I can’t keep up this kind of pace for very long, so I slow slightly and when we reach the first floor she shots past me. As she passes she punches me hard on the arm, sticks out her tongue, and charges forward with renewed vigour. There’s little I can do to catch her, so I try my best to keep up with her as she cajoles from above.
“Come on you old git, it’s only a few stairs. I thought in your day you had to go walk to school barefoot uphill in the snow, this can’t be too bad.”
I mentally run through a list of torture techniques I can employ on her when I catch up, ranging from playing nothing but Queen albums at full volume for a week, through to stealing her supply of chocolate, when she suddenly goes silent mid-sentence.
I call her name, but there’s no reply, so I call again, a note of urgence in my voice. Still nothing, so I summon every ounce of energy and hurl myself up the stairs two at a time. I reckon she was probably at the second landing, and sure enough as I approach the landing I can see her blonde hair.
“Oi, what’s that about?” I’m out of breath, and my legs are on fire, but she doesn’t even turn to look at me. As I climb the last few steps the sun shines into my face, and I have to raise my arm up to shield my eyes.
“Hold it right there, and don’t move a muscle.” The voice is thick with a russian accent, almost out of a bad film. I step forward anyway, trying to make out the man behind the silhouette.
“I mean it my friend. Stop right there or I’ll shoot your little girly.”
Clare’s voice is trembling. I don’t hear exactly what she says, but I know she’s pleading with me not to do anything.
“Okay,” I offer, “I’ll stay right here. We were just going up to take a look at the city, we don’t want…”
He interrupts, and I notice that his voice is slurred slightly. Is he drunk? “That’s right. You stay right there, and you…” He motions to Clare with what seems to be the stubby barrel of a sawn-off shotgun, “you move over and let him come up the stairs. I want to see him properly.”
I ignore the contradiction in his order and climb slowly, raising my hands to about shoulder height as I do.
“Good, good, no foolish heroics, clever ghost.” I glance at Clare and see that she’s got her hands up in the air too. Apart from being slightly pale, she seems to be okay.
“Okay, you’ve got us, but we’re not ghosts.” I hope he’s not drunk as I would be if I was alone.
“Sure, I believe you.” He doesn’t sound very convinced, and gestures with the gun several times in different directions. “You all just stay right there whilst I get a drink. Fucking ghosts must think I’m drunk if you’re trying to trick me like that today.”
I lower my arms slightly, so that my palms are outwards but barely at the height of my chest. The russian has his back to us and is rummaging through a large rucksack wth one hand whilst the other waves the gun in our direction. Every couple of seconds he spins round as if we’re trying to catch him off-guard, and then resumes his search. I start to relax, and let myself take in the scene.
We’re stood near the stairwell leading back down to the first floor, with the observation deck leading round the brown steel of the tower and heading off to the right. Directly across from the top of the stairwell, our captor is a filth-covered man of perhaps sixty who looks as if he has neither washed nor shaved in many months. The only signs of clean skin are two smears either side of his mouth, which puzzle me for a moment until he wipes his face with a similarly filthy sleeve. His eyes are dark and bloodshot, his hair a dark brown with a slight reddish hint, matted and twisted. Around the large blue Berghaus rucksack that he’s searching through are scattered empty cans of food, a sleeping bag, and dozens of empty vodka bottles of all shapes and sizes.
“What’s your name?” I turn to look at Clare, and she manages to shrug at me with her upraised arms.
“What matter is that to a ghost?” He turns to look at her, swinging the gun back and forth and only eventually getting it pointed in her direction. I can tell she’s trying to stifle a giggle.
“Why do you think we are ghosts?” I ask ths time, taking a step forward whilst his back is turned. Clare flashes me a look of alarm but I smile and wink at her. She doesn’t hesitate, and steps forwards to be level with me.
The Russian finally stops rummaging and pulls out his arm with a triumphant cheer. He turns back to face us with a half-bottle of Stolichnaya in his hand. Without even looking at it he spins the cap off with a thumb (a trick that I make a mental note to copy in the future) and takes a decent mouthful. The shotgun steadies as he lowers the bottle and studies us with an intense gaze. His eyes sparkle for an instant, and I realise that my estimate of his age is probably out by a good twenty years.
A minute passes as he observes us, during which he takes another three gulps of vodka. The bottle is emptying quickly. Finally he lowers the gun fractionally.
“You’re not ghosts.” I can’t tell if this is a question or a statement.
“No, not ghosts. Just two survivors who want to see Paris. We don’t mean any harm.” I try to sound a calm and friendly as possible, worried that at any second he could turn hostile again. Growing up around an alcoholic taught me not to let my guard down.
“Survivors?” He mutters something that I assume is in Russian. “You mean, there are … “ the word catches on his tongue, as if he is afraid of it.
“There are more, yes. Tell him Clare.”
“Oh yes,” she steps forward and touches his arm, “we’ve met fifty or so just driving around England. There must be thousands out there, maybe more.”
The Russian looks into her eyes, and then over to me, and I can see the tears forming. I step forward as well, and take the shotgun from his now limp hand. I yank back the stock and reveal two empty barrels. Relieved, I place it on the shelf of the metal railing behind him, and meet his gaze. I’m impressed to see that he’s kept the tears at bay.
“My name is Evgeny Ivanovich Rastroporich, it is my pleasure to meet you.” He takes one more gulp on the vodka then offers it to me.
“Ladies first,” I say, gesturing towards Clare. Evgeny raises one grimy eyebrow, but passes the bottle to Clare. She keeps her eyes fixed on him and knocks back a good double measure. Lowering the bottle she beams a dazzling smile at Evgeny, who lets out a huge belly laugh.
“I’m Clare.” She reaches out to shake his hand, and is clearly shocked when he grabs both of her shoulders and pulls her in to kiss her cheeks. Blushing, she steps backwards and passes me the bottle. There’s about four large measures left, so I glance at Evgeny who is patting his pockets. Grinning suddenly he extracts a battered aluminium hip flask and a packet of Lucky Strikes. I nod, and empty the bottle in one slug.
Evgeny offers us both a smoke, and we both decline. I’m actually sorely tempted, but don’t want another lecture, so I make do with inhaling deeply on the second-hand smoke.
I can tell there are a million questions bubbling away in Evgeny’s head, but I don’t want to ruin the moment for him. It’s obvious that he’s telling the truth – he really hasn’t seen another living human being in over a year. We all wander over to the railing and stand there, admiring the view.
Paris is almost untouched by fire. It seems improbable, but the city is virtually unchanged from how I remember it as a child. More skyscrapers out to the west, but the lack of noise up here is the same. Perhaps the only difference immediately noticeable is the absence of traffic in the streets below.
“So Evgeny,” Clare doesn’t pronounce his name very well, her South London accent struggling with the phonetic complexity of the unfamiliar consonants causes it to come out as, “So Yeffgenny, how long have you been up here waving your gun at ghosts?”
He takes a long last drag from the cigarette and flicks it out over the edge of the rail whilst extracting another and lighting it, then taking a couple of quick puffs. Turning to face Clare he just shrugs. “A few weeks perhaps? I go down to get supplies when I must. The dogs, they are not keen on me, and I am not so keen on them.” He picks up the shotgun, frowns at the empty barrel, and loads it with a couple of shells that he pulls from the pocket if his battered grey coat. It might once have been quite the piece of tailoring, but now it looks more like a collection of loosely-stitched rags.
“What dogs?” I ask, trying to see any evidence of activity below.
“Oh, don’t you worry, they don’t come out until after dark, and they don’t come up here. Nothing for them to hunt up here except old Evgeny, and I don’t taste too good.” He laughs, a great huge coughing guffaw that probably owes much to the vodka.
“But there are feral dogs in the city? Are there many of them?” My experience of feral dogs so far has not been promising, and I’d rather not end up hiding if I can help it. I’m sure Clare could use a good night’s sleep too after the last few days.
Evgeny just pats the gun and miraculously produces another bottle of vodka, which must be near the end of his stash because it looks like the cheapest crap you’d find in a budget supermarket. What it lacks in quality he makes up for in quantity, pushing back enough for all three of us. Clutching the bottle in one hand and the gun in the other he slides to the floor with a smile.
“Go on up to the top.” He gestures with the bottle, tries to put the gun to his mouth, and realises his mistake just in time. “The view is very beautiful at sunset.”
Clare takes my hand and starts walking off towards the spiral staircase leading upwards. “See you later then Evgeny.” She waves, but doesn’t get a response.
I turn my back on the old cossack, and follow her up the stairs.