They left a huge pile of newspapers on the table, “For the fire,” they said as they left. Jacques would quite like to have kept them, as they told the whole story of the hurricane they had lived through.

His invisible house was now empty, and he and his wife were alone together again. He looked out at his garden, at his wind turbine, at the slow and silent life that he had chosen for himself. He saw the bed of dying hollyhocks, the plump lettuces, the purple artichokes in front of the door, the light fading over the peaks and the footpaths winding above past the caves and tombs that had served as hiding places in so many wars over the centuries.

Jacques had built a lot of sets during his working career. He could produce a ship’s hold, a minister’s antechamber, a school dormitory, an eighteenth-century boudoir or a colonial brothel; he could plan it all, the moment when the door would slam, the wind rise, or a bomb would explode – that was what filming was all about. And yet he could not understand what had just been happening in his own house. He had seen Nwankwo marching down to the village with a telephone card at exactly four o’clock in the afternoon, and returning an hour later. And then that evening Versailles had exploded and the government had become engulfed in scandal.

The following morning they had all gathered around the radio, beaming and laughing. Dmitry had returned. Official denials were pouring in. Specialists were analysing the revelations; the opposition was calling for heads to roll; all the talk was of corruption; it looked as though Douchet would resign; Louchsky’s shares had gone into free fall; the Kremlin had removed him from control of the Russian state naval-construction company. And the United States had declared him persona non grata.

When Félix had translated one leader-writer’s question: “But who or what is Uche? Some kind of secret organization?” Nwankwo had cried.

The judge had laughed hysterically when he found a small box in Nice-Matin referring to Linda Stephensen’s death in Nice. “Was this story filed away too quickly?” the paper asked.

 

Jacques couldn’t help thinking that as well as being dishonest they were pretty stupid to have left so many traces, but he kept that thought to himself. Because as the hours went by something seemed to be happening to his guests: the curious osmosis between them took the form first of a rush of ecstatic happiness, which grew fast and then seemed to wither away almost at once, as though crushed under mounting anxiety. Their new-found leisure allowed a hitherto forbidden question to be asked: what now?

One by one, they left. Lira, Polina and Dmitry had been the first to go, like a normal family, back up to Paris in their car. The university term was about to begin, Polina was enrolled again but under a different name. Then Félix had set off towards Nice with the judge. Nwankwo had gone alone, taking the bus to the station. Jacques had driven him to the bus stop. There were a lot of things he would like to have asked, starting with who Uche was, but he just shook his hand for a long moment, and told him that he would always be welcome.

As he climbed back up to his house, he had the feeling that he must now empty his mind. He thought he might go walking the next day, or the next, he would go past the Lac de Pise and climb up to the Col de l’Homme Mort: up there you felt so small and yet so high up, you wondered who the dead man was and why he died, and then you went down again without ever knowing. A neighbour shouted as he went by: “Hey you’re getting a lot of visitors these days.” He didn’t reply, he just smiled and thought to himself that it might be a good idea to burn those papers after all.

 

St Petersburg, 12th October

 

My dear Lira,

We all miss you here at the magazine. We’ve been thinking of you, and of the darkness that surrounds you. How I wish I had never let you go.

The next edition will be out next week. You probably heard from Dmitry that soon after you were attacked our offices were ransacked and all the computers were stolen. The magazine has not appeared for two months. But now everything is back in place. Your office is intact and looks as though you are just about to walk in. But your desk is covered in letters, dozens arrive for you every day, from all over the world, from people you have met and from total strangers. They all express their admiration and sympathy for you. We will publish a selection in every future edition. There won’t be a single one in which you are not mentioned. I must also tell you that your salary will go on being paid, 25,000 roubles per month. As long as I am in this chair, you are on my staff.

Dmitry tells me that you hate our country and that you will never set foot here again. I can understand that, but things might change. Everything can change.

Louchsky did not suffer any public humiliation, there was no pen thrown at him in front of the cameras, no pictures of him signing his resignation with a lowered head. Such images would have done nothing for those in power, bribery doesn’t shock anyone here – nobody cares if the French government had been bought. We learnt from a communiqué that Louchsky was no longer at the head of the naval company.

He’s still got a huge empire, he’s very rich but no longer powerful. Here people laugh at him, that never happened before, everybody was too scared. And meanwhile there are incredible stories going round about the dinner at Versailles, some so extraordinary that they can’t possibly be true. But it doesn’t matter, it does people good. Something fundamental has changed in the way people regard him, both in and out of the Kremlin. Nothing you have done has been in vain, Lira. You ruined his coronation.

All the same I would do anything to turn the clock back, and to see you again marching into the office in a rage, like before, and this time I would say no, a hundred times no, to all your demands.

I was unable to protect you from the rage that devoured you then. I hope some of it is still there, making you as strong as ever, but this time, please, keep it for yourself alone.

I hug you, Lira. And so does everybody here.

Igor