Into the Darkness

Thirty metres under the Parisian streets the Christmas Tree beams like a lighthouse in the damp miners’ shelter. As the fairy lights flash away, and the partygoers mingle, my guide, Marc points out the architectural peculiarities of The Faco Shelter – the buttressed ceiling, and the grand staircase. It’s really quite something.

Not at all what I’d imagined as I lowered myself into the manhole some four hours earlier. I remembered the two things Marc had told me in our earlier telephone conversation. Don’t be late and don’t go down without me. Well, I wasn’t late but I did going without him. Not alone however. I was accompanied by a dozen other enthusiasts, with lamps and rucksacks full of supplies. They nicknamed me ‘The Tourist’ and assured me I’d nothing to worry about.

Philipe, a young corporal in a French tank batallion dressed in army issue overalls, was confident that my guide would be waiting for me at the bottom of the twenty-metre access well. He looked honest enough, as he explained in regimental tones he was the organiser of the Christmas party that evening.

The first thing I noticed as descending the cold iron rungs wass the heat and humidity that wafts out of the bowels of the city. The air was stale then, and even staler at the party. People had told me stories of drowning, getting lost and toxic gasses. I couldn’t seem to get the ‘worst case scenarios’ out of my thoughts. I should at least have a canary with me, I thought.

After what seemed like an eternity on the ladder. I finally arrived at the bottom of the well. As promised Marc was there to greet me with a sturdy handshake and a friendly smile. He told me to follow him. He had the somewhat illicit task of supplying the electricity to the party site. The Christmas tree had been wriggled down a mile or so of tunnel and the fairy lights were waiting to light up the shelter in spectacular fashion.

As the two of us set off down the damp, stone walled corridors unwinding extention cords, Marc took pride in explaining facts and figures about the quarries and catacombs where we found ourselves. The two hundred miles or so of network were created when stone was excavated to construct many of the 19th Century Parisian buildings. He explained what the codes chiselled into the stone walls meant; date of excavation, site foreman’s name, and reference number of the corridor. Even the corresponding street names are neatly hewn into the chalkstone.

Having connected our extension cables to the ‘juice’ thanks to the electricity provided by a lamppost on the surface. We trudge back through the mud towards the festivities. In is four year career, Marc continues, he’s done many things, but never a Christmas party. He can’t tell me haw many forays he has made into this murky underworld in his time as a cataphile. But he keeps coming back because he likes the feeling of being so close, yet so far away from bustle of the city.

When we first arrived at the ‘Faco shelter’ as it’s marked on the map, we got a hero’s welcome from the assembled cataphiles. Marc plugged in the fairy lights and reds, greens and blues filled the damp black air. I was overcome by the sheer number of subterranean partygoers. About sixty or seventy youths drinking beer and wine and munching through nibbles brought down in their rucksacks. In a corner two or three mosh away to heavy metal blasting from a portable stereo. They’re all surprisingly friendly. Not the hard core secret society that I’d believed they were. They even bestow me with the honour of slicing the enormous ham that they have brought with them.

We dance and talk till the early hours of the morning. When one by one they leave their parallel life for the surface and the painful daylight of a December morning in Paris.

Matthew Kay