Les Kata

In ninth-grade French class, we each selected a typical French name, perhaps so that we would more likely stay within the confines of proper pronunciation, or to make the dreary task of learning such basic elements as the alphabet and how to say hello a bit more entertaining.  I chose Sabine because it sounded funny, not like a person’s name, more like a plant or mineral, and would allow for some disassociation/alternative personality.  I, Claire, was academically driven; Sabine was free to be mediocre, or formal, or whatever she may be.

I’m not nearly cool enough yet, but among those who frequently venture into the catacombs it is common to assume a name for the underground.  My second time down was less fraught and electrifying than the first (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQpz8kV3eZQ), but still enchanting.  We passed a memorial for a man that disappeared when retrieving wine from a basement, whose body wasn’t retrieved for 11 years; later, we explored a bunker built to protect civilians during the war that had poured walls and floors, finished with mosaic tile and had included plumbing.  We toasted each other with boxed rosé and cheap beer, and, because this is France, “junk food” included not only potato chips and M&Ms, but ham and cheese sandwiches, and a little jar of foie gras.

But most adventurously, we crawled, first on hand and knees, then pulled with arms and slid on bellies, through a narrow tunnel of earth adjoining our passage to the sidewalk grate (*note the backpack there for scale).  I was third in a line of six people.  Two more or less easily navigated that bit, and I would never be left for dead.  And yet I flushed with accomplishment—I hadn’t been afraid at all.