Last Performance

Table of Contents

Montmartre at night had a way of holding its breath. The narrow cobblestone streets wound like veins between tall, aging buildings whose windows leaned toward one another as though conspiring. In the pools of yellow light from the streetlamps, the fog swirled, and faint accordion music drifted from unseen corners.

Jacqueline, a young art student from Lyon, loved this part of Paris. She had come for the museums, the bohemian cafés, the life of a painter’s apprentice. But more than that, she loved the quiet walks home after her evening classes at the École des Beaux-Arts. Her friends thought it was unsafe to walk alone at night in Paris, but Jacqueline had grown used to the city’s quirks.

On one such evening, as she crossed Place du Tertre, she noticed something strange. At the far end of the square, under a flickering lamp, a figure stood perfectly still. A mime. Not unusual here, of course; Montmartre had a history of street performers. But this one was… different.

He was dressed not in the playful stripes and bright suspenders of the usual mimes, but in an immaculate black suit. A bowler hat shaded his eyes, and his face paint was pure white save for the exaggerated black smudges where his eyes should be and a crimson smear for a mouth — stretched unnaturally wide. His gloves were stark white, clean, as though freshly laundered. He didn’t perform. He didn’t juggle or pretend to be trapped in a box. He simply stood, his head tilted slightly, watching her.

Jacqueline slowed her pace. Perhaps he was waiting for a crowd? But the square was empty except for her. She gave him a polite smile and kept walking. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw him move — a tiny shift forward, one deliberate step. When she glanced back, he was in exactly the same pose, yet somehow closer.

A faint unease curled in her stomach. She picked up her pace, the sound of her boots tapping against the stones echoing in the stillness. She told herself it was nothing — just an eccentric performer trying to unsettle tourists. But as she reached the corner of her street, she looked back again. The mime was now standing at the very edge of the square, his head cocked, mimicking her exact posture. Jacqueline laughed about it the next day when she told her roommate, Elise.

“You probably imagined it,”

Elise said.

“Or maybe you were tired from class. You have that overactive painter’s imagination.”

Still, Jacqueline couldn’t quite shake the image of that pale, still face.

The next night, she lingered at the café after class, sketchbook open, drawing quick strokes of the mime from memory. Black suit. Crimson mouth. White gloves. When she finally decided to walk home, the streets were quieter than usual. Halfway through Place du Tertre, she froze. He was there again. Exactly where she had first seen him under the flickering streetlamp. Her heart skipped. She told herself it was coincidence. Street performers often returned to the same spot, didn’t they?

This time, he did move. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted one hand and mimed drinking from an invisible glass. Then he gestured to her a small wave of his fingers, beckoning. Jacqueline forced a laugh and walked on. When she reached the end of the square, she couldn’t resist looking back. The mime was now ten paces closer, arms outstretched as if pressing against an invisible wall.

By the third night, she told herself she would take a different route. No more crossing the square. But Paris’s streets were tricky, and her shortcut still led her past the edge of Place du Tertre. And there he was. Closer this time. He began to walk when she walked, stopping when she stopped. His steps made no sound at all. She ducked into a side street, heart thudding. She half expected to see him emerge behind her, but the alley remained empty. When she reached her apartment, she locked the door and drew the curtains. Still, she couldn’t relax. She kept imagining the faint scrape of white gloves on glass.

She slept poorly, dreaming of walking through a thick fog while something followed just out of sight. In the dream, she turned, and there he was — face filling her vision, red mouth cracking into something far too wide to be human. She told no one about him now. But that night, she lingered in class, waiting until the others had left so she could walk home with the crowd. Yet somehow, as she passed the café near her street, the crowd thinned. She was alone again.

From the corner of her eye, she saw him in a shop window’s reflection. Not behind her. Beside her. Walking in perfect sync, head tilted toward her. Jacqueline’s pace quickened. She didn’t dare look directly at him. When she reached her building, she fumbled with her keys, heart pounding. She shut the door and leaned against it, forcing herself to breathe. Then came the tapping. Soft, deliberate. From the window. Her apartment was on the fourth floor.

Jacqueline’s stomach turned to ice. She crept toward the curtain and, with trembling fingers, pulled it aside just an inch. He was there. Standing impossibly at her window, balanced on nothing. His white gloves pressed flat to the glass, his painted face grinning wider than she thought possible. He mouthed something she couldn’t hear, tapping the glass with one finger. She screamed and stumbled back. The tapping stopped.

For the next two days, she refused to leave the apartment after dark. She even considered leaving Paris entirely. But Elise convinced her to stay thinking it’s probably just some creep who’ll get bored and move on. On the third evening of hiding, Jacqueline told herself it was safe to return to her normal routine. She left for class in daylight, staying out until just before sunset. The streets glowed with the last orange light of day. She allowed herself to breathe again. But as she turned onto her street, she froze. He was waiting at the far end. Not under the streetlamp this time. Not halfway across the square. Directly in front of her apartment building.

Jacqueline’s hands shook. She backed away, but he mirrored her, step for step. The street emptied around them, the air thick with a strange, suffocating silence. Then he raised his hands and began to mime — pulling an invisible rope toward himself, hand over hand, as though reeling her in. Her feet wouldn’t move. Her chest tightened. The rope pulled tighter. She could feel it impossibly coiling around her wrists, her throat. Jacqueline gasped, stumbling forward. She wanted to scream, but no sound came. The last thing she saw was his painted grin filling her vision as darkness swallowed her.

The next morning, the police were called to the building. Jacqueline’s apartment door was found wide open. Her bed was neatly made, her sketchbook closed on the table. The only thing out of place was a single white glove, resting on her pillow.

In the weeks that followed, tourists in Montmartre reported seeing Le Mime Noir, as the locals had begun calling him. He had a new act now. A silent performance with two mimes instead of one. And if you watched too long, the new mime’s painted eyes seemed to follow you.