Rooftoppers

Two days later, Sophie sits in the darkening Tuileries Garden, waiting to meet another rooftopper, as arranged by Matteo. He told her nothing about this person or how long she might have to wait, though he says that it could be five hours. He refused to wait with her, as he never goes down to street level, where he might be caught. Sophie has said nothing to Charles about this meeting, not wanting him to worry. After waiting for about an hour, Sophie hears a voice close behind her and turns to see a blonde-haired girl perched on the back of her bench. This girl, who knows Sophie’s name, is quickly joined by her “sister,” Safi, a dark-haired girl who appears with equal stealth. The blonde girl introduces herself as Anastasia; both she and her sister are small and filthy but fearless looking. They are very beautiful, though Safi has the hardened look of someone who has been through a lot. Unlike her sister, she is very taciturn, not saying a word.

Anastasia says that Matteo told them all about her by signaling to them with candles. What he said about her was “mostly good,” she says, which impressed them since Matteo likes very few people. Unlike Matteo, the two sisters live in the trees; they picked up English (and other languages) by eavesdropping on tourists in the parks. Like Matteo, they don’t remember having a mother and are not even sure how old they are, though Sophie thinks that Anastasia looks about 13 and Safi 10. Anastasia tells her that she and Safi are arbroisiers—tree dwellers—and points out a pair of hammocks at the top of the park’s tallest tree. Other sky-treaders, she says, are the boys who live on the city’s train stations, who are called gariers. The gariers, she adds, are “bad”—disreputable people who steal and “cut.”

As Safi begins scaling a great tree to fetch a gray sweater for Sophie to wear on their trip, Sophie asks Anastasia if her sister ever talks; Safi talks when no one is around, she answers. Sophie reflects, “I think […] everyone starts out with some strange in them. It’s just whether you decide to keep it” (208). Anastasia tells her that if they’re going to the train station, they’ll need the help of a certain boy, a “fighter.” This boy always wants to be paid, so first they’ll have to get money for him. Unlike thieves, she and her sister always pay for what they take, even if they have to leave the money surreptitiously. To get this money, they’ll have to meet up with Matteo after dark, at a bridge—the Pont de Sainte-Barbara.

An ornate bridge with gold-painted railings, the Pont de Sainte-Barbara attracts many visitors who throw coins (and sometimes valuable rings) into the river to make a wish. When Matteo appears—walking casually along the bridge’s railing—Sophie strips down to her underwear, and she and Matteo begin diving for coins in the icy water. As Sophie comes up, shivering, her hands full of money, she asks Matteo about the gariers. He and Anastasia tell her that the gariers are “dirty,” but not in the literal way of other sky-treaders; that is, they’re vicious, like a “mad dog.”

Once they have collected three francs’ worth of coins, Matteo says that’s enough, and he and Sophie swim to the bank, “half racing.” Sophie swims faster, but Matteo cheats by dunking her: “Cheating doesn’t exist for rooftoppers,” he says, “There’s just alive or dead” (217). After Matteo swims off, Safi tenderly grooms Sophie’s wet hair. Then, she vanishes into the trees, leaving Anastasia and Sophie to walk to Notre Dame, where the “fighter” lives.

As the two girls walk to Notre Dame on the dark pavement, Anastasia reluctantly answers Sophie’s questions about the gariers and Matteo’s hatred of them. A few years earlier, the gariers warned Matteo to stay off the rooftops, which they wanted all for themselves. Since the rooftops are all that Matteo has, he refused. In the brawl that followed, Matteo lost the tip of his finger and received a serious gash in his stomach. One of the gariers lost a hand. To keep from dying, Matteo had to seek medical attention at an orphanage. Since then, he’s never gone near the train stations and has kept off the streets from fear of being put back in the orphanage.

The majestic heights of Notre Dame loom, and Anastasia and Safi show Sophie how to climb up its side. As she goes, Sophie learns how to locate her center of balance: “[O]nce found, it was like a place marked in a book—easy to recover” (223). At the base of the cathedral’s great tower, they find Matteo, who says that Sophie should whistle to call Gérard, the “fighter” they collected the money for. She uses the three-note whistle she used to summon the birds on the tightrope, and within seconds, a boy somersaults down from the bell tower, landing right in front of her. He looks younger than Matteo but is taller, with long, thin legs. To Sophie, he doesn’t look like much of a fighter. He already knows who Sophie is and what she needs from him; gratefully, he takes the three francs, saying that Notre Dame has raised the price of its candles. Gérard, Anastasia says, has very good hearing; he can hear a harmonica being played halfway down the river. He can also sing, which he demonstrates with a clear, sweet song that makes Sophie tingle all over. Even the taciturn Safi whoops with pleasure. Matteo says that they must hurry if they are to reach the stations in time to listen for the mysterious cello playing the Requiem. Sophie last heard the music around two o’clock in the morning, he reminds them. Worried, Gérard notes that “two is a bad hour for gariers” (228).