8

SHE REMEMBERED OTHER TRAGEDIES, other acts of violence, life under martial law. Valerie and Gerard were newlyweds in the autumn of 1970, living in Montreal when terrorists kidnapped a British diplomat and murdered a cabinet minister in Quebec. There is no excuse for this, said Gerard, his face contorted with disgust. They should throw those cochons in jail. Every morning, he’d read the news, then toss the paper in the garbage.

“Has Chantal spoken to Gerard?” asked Marguerite.

Valerie glanced at the newspaper on the kitchen counter. Nothing in it made sense now.

“Valerie?”

“I’m sorry?”

Marguerite picked up the newspaper and tossed it in the recycle bin. She repeated her question.

“No,” said Valerie. “Chantal hasn’t heard from him.”

I want to hear your voice, Gerard. And yours, Andre.

“Do you like soupe aux artichauts?”

“Of course.” Valerie was puzzled by the question. “Only you can’t do any cooking on that ankle.”

“Don’t tell me what I can do. I can sit on a barstool and cook, if I like. How about charcuterie? A glass of wine?”

What if Andre were on the phone, glancing out of his office window. A black roar’s slicing through his life, breaking windows and smashing computers. Everything stinks of carburant. Every paper’s burning. Cochons.

“You’ll feel better, ma chère. A little food,” said Marguerite.

Power out; a stairwell full of smoke. Valerie wasn’t hungry.

She’d never imagined Andre in business. He used to be unfocused but then he met James, and then he figured out how to make money, and now he stacks up his early-morning appointments like a busboy balancing a tray-load of dishes, never breaking one. What a kid.

All my best corporate clients are in the towers, said Andre. Every day, I’m in there.

He’d told his mother that, he’d said it more than once, but she had a blind spot around Andre. She never got his facts right. She’d formed this bad habit of sifting his remarks through her mind like heavy soil through a fine screen, saving his rich observations, discarding the mundane. When he told her where he worked, she’d kept imagining some skyscraper in midtown Manhattan, that big one at Lex and Fifty-something with the sloping glass roof. Those twin downtown towers had seemed too remote, somehow.

***

If only Andre were here for lunch, thought Valerie.

He’d love Marguerite. It’s the food. He fell in love with James over food. James used to dish out advice and snacks to classmates weighted down with deadlines. There’s a formula to writing an essay, he told Andre when they first met. First have a slice of banana-hazelnut bread, you’ll need the energy. That’s called Breakfast 101. Now use the intro to describe what you’re doing. Then use the ending to describe what you did. That’s two pages right there. Have some more bread. Fresh coffee.

All food is communion, he said later. Not those dried-up things they dish out in church.

James would come to the Lefèvres for dinner, bringing aged Boursin, a bottle of Pinot Noir, and a fine-grained bread he’d baked that afternoon. He’d cross himself and say grace and he’d cut the bread, pour the wine, and raise a glass to toast the family’s kindness.

“I just don’t get the ‘hang’ of James,” said Gerard. “He is so religieux and—”

“He wants to live a moral life,” Valerie replied. “That’s what Andre says.”

“But going to church?”

“Imagine your parents throwing you out of the house,” she said.

“That wouldn’t send me off to church.”

“Me neither. But my aunt used to say that if no one understood you, God would.”

“You think James had an aunt who said that?”

“Maybe.”

***

James had emailed her about his new job in the tower restaurant. So high up, you can see God, he’d written. And Andre, if I had binoculars.

Robert came into the room, his sailor’s face still ravaged. He eyed the TV news, then Valerie.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

“I worry that my son is in that building.”

“Your son’s young, with two good legs,” he said. “He’ll run.”

Andre would run nowhere unless James were safe, she thought.