26

VALERIE AND JEAN-CLAUDE CROSSED Place de l’Église, a few pigeons scattering ahead of them, fluttering away. Above them, the sky was streaked by an oily rag of cloud. May I meet you again? he asked. Later today? She told him yes, then gave him her phone number. Neither of us should be alone he said, in this dreadful situation. She knew he was right. Stranded on this island, they shared a particular horror, and yet it seemed to her as if this tragedy were no ordinary thing, that they should not expect anyone to know how they felt. He walked her back to the centre of town, then left.

She felt terrified.

She remembered Gerard, his TV image dissolving into whiteness. Perhaps this gradual disappearance was a form of death — a rain of poisonous ash eating away at him. He was used to covering open warfare, dodging bullets, knowing who the enemy was. He wasn’t much for stealth. In this morning’s chaos, he wouldn’t know how to protect himself. She felt certain that he was slipping away, adrift like a boat unmoored. He’d want comfort, just as she did. Alone tonight, in New York City. She turned her cell phone on again and called him.

There is no service available at this time.

Then she wondered why she’d called.

She found herself once again staring at a row of TVs, peering into the window of the salon électronique at the foot of Rue Maréchal Foch. We are certain that all aboard those four planes were killed on impact, said the chorus of news anchors, one to a screen. Along with an unknown number inside both the towers and the Pentagon.

Valerie felt lost. Gone was the old world, the peaceful sky. For years she’d dwelled there, inside the love of family and neighbour. Yet if your neighbour happened to be Laurent Sarazin, you were just as powerless as if thousands had died.

Nothing seemed quite right to her.

It had been hard making her way down this narrow street. There wasn’t much of a sidewalk in front of the salon window, and pedestrians were merging into the crowd of viewers that had begun to swell and fill the road. Some weary people were sitting on car fenders and on the backs of trucks. It was, she felt, easier to handle dread with a crowd outdoors. In a public place, you were surrounded by the reassuring signals that this, too, was another day — another standard package of twenty-four hours, none of which could be exchanged or rejected because two or three had been damaged in transit. Men were lugging crates full of canned goods, loading trucks with the weight of uneasy fear on their shoulders, hauling this same burden of worry into the pâtisserie with the flour sacks. Soon they’d all go home, have dinner, and watch it on TV. Soon it would all be over.

She also watched, imagining that the horror of the day had cloned itself, its images repeating on multiple screens, and then once again she caught a glimpse of her husband, a string of Gerards, wan and pale. He was doing interviews in the street, but she could hear nothing. It struck her as odd that he’d managed to find people who spoke French, who were composed enough to answer his questions. Your hair is turning white, Gerard. Last night I dreamt this. On each of the screens, head after head was more ashen than before, face after face reduced to a smudge of grey.

He’s got the dead all over him, she thought. He’s disappearing.

He is at home with this.

The idea shocked her.

Une répétition, said a newscaster.

Of what?

As she watched the screen in the shop window, the second of the two towers collapsed and fell.

***

The invisible bell was still tolling. A woman was crossing herself.

She remembered Andre’s email, telling her he’d called James — It’s okay, fella, help is on the way. Help never came.

Only she’d seen the two of them at the cathedral. Then Jean-Claude.

Andre, Karen, Chantal. Bone of my bone.

And you, Gerard.

It was over — for now.

***

At the bottom of Rue Maréchal Foch, the crowd began to dissolve. By the time Valerie turned around, almost everyone had abandoned the TV shop window, walking away from the smouldering ruins of the towers. The citizens of Saint-Pierre slipped down crooked laneways and side streets like rivulets of water after heavy rain, while their silence pressed itself like a thick fog into the shape of the town.