31

GERARD WAS WORKING and could not come. Ora’s words troubled Valerie. It was true, said Gerard when she spoke to him about the apparition or the dream or whatever it was she’d experienced. He was supposed to have been on that plane.

Never again did he speak of it.

Matt had been horrified by Ora’s death, by the chill wind of it blowing through their lives. In bed at night, he’d hold on to Valerie, as if a hurricane might sweep them both away. Yet Gerard’s sorrow had drifted into longing. He’d look at Valerie as if a lost soul were passing through her, as if her hair were dishevelled and Ora was the wind.

***

Marguerite went upstairs to rest, while Valerie returned to the kitchen, retrieved the chilled pastry dough and got to work shaping the crust for the tarte. She dusted the bread-board with flour.

This is perhaps the most audacious terrorist attack that has ever taken place in the world, said the TV.

The dough was firm, but pliant enough for Marguerite’s rolling pin, a French one made of marble. What a weapon, Valerie thought. It could have saved some lives today. On her next flight, she’d take one in her carry-on.

She had no choice but to watch the news.

Passengers on one of the doomed planes had counter-attacked. They’d tried to plow the food trolley into the cockpit. Valerie glanced at the rolling pin, then at the dough.

Don’t even think it, she thought.

Andre would have. Ready to roll? “Let’s roll!” That’s what they said! Grab that rolling pin and do it!

Cool it, kid.

Lighten up, Mom, he’d say.

***

Valerie tore off two pieces of waxed paper. With the palm of her hand, she flattened the dough against one of them, then placed the second sheet on top. She felt grateful for the ease of her hands at work, for the simple comforts they could create. She gripped the rolling pin, and began to press down.

***

The TV’s on, and before me are solemn New Yorkers, American flags, huge banners. Perhaps they’ll be seen from outer space. Perhaps some cosmonaut circling the globe will wonder what sort of terrible day we’ve had on Planet Earth. We Will Never Forget, say the signs, and it’s almost consolation, that their outcry may reach to the stars.

I’m old enough to remember when flags got burned. I saw it happen once. There was a guy lighting matches in Union Square, and a crush of students were cheering him on.

“You know him?” I asked Matt.

“That friggin’ dickhead? No!” he said.

Flames were catching and spreading, gnawing their way through the cloth and blackening each stripe: red, white, red, white, then the field of blue at its furthest end, star after star after star, and I thought, I don’t understand the world. Now with my rolling pin in hand, I understand far less than I did then.

***

She wondered who it was who’d lit that match, and, if he were still alive, what he would think today. She thought of Matt, how he’d wanted to kill that guy. She could just imagine the two of them, staking out turf like a pair of cowboys, ready for a gunfight on the pyre in lower Manhattan. As if her mind were a hostel for two lonely men, taking the measure of each other.

Cut the bullshit, she told herself. Andre’s still missing.

Come to think of it, Matt, you’re missing, too.

Valerie pushed her full weight downward, rolling out the dough into a thin and tidy circle. James, she thought, watch how I do this. She draped it over the rolling pin, easing it into the baking dish. Practice makes perfect. After she trimmed the pastry at the edges, she put the dish in the fridge to chill.