Chris drives. He always drives: the van belongs to his father, and anyway, neither Johan nor Simon have their licenses yet. It takes about an hour and a half to reach Le Havre from Les Petites Dalles if you take the old road from Étretat, which passes through Octeville-sur-Mer, the valley of Ignauval, and Sainte-Adresse before depositing you at the estuary.

The boys have stopped shivering now. The van’s heating is turned up as high as it will go; likewise the volume on the stereo. The heat pouring from the vents in the dashboard is, for them, probably another thermal shock. They are probably beginning to feel tired now too, mouths gaping in yawns, heads nodding gently, trying to find a comfortable position against the headrest of the seat, rocked by the vehicle’s vibrations, noses swaddled in their scarves, and probably too they are starting to feel numb, their eyelids closing intermittently. And so perhaps, after they had passed Étretat, Chris accelerated without even realizing, shoulders slumping, hands heavy on the steering wheel, the road straight. Yes, maybe he thought, all right, we’re on our way home now, and the desire to get there quickly, to knock back the aftereffects of the session, its violence, weighed down upon the gas pedal, and he let it happen, cutting through the dark fields, the empty fields where nothing moved, and maybe the sight of the long, straight highway—an arrow plunging through the windshield as on the screen of a video game—ended up hypnotizing him like a mirage. Maybe he felt like he was already home, practically there, and relaxed his vigilance, though everyone remembers that it had frozen the night before, winter leaving its traces on the landscape, turning it into wax paper. Everyone knows about the patches of black ice on the asphalt, invisible under this dull-gray sky, blacking out the edges of the road. Everyone can see the compact patches of fog that hover above the road at irregular intervals, the water evaporating from the mud as the sun rises, dangerous pockets of mist that blind you as you drive. Yes, everyone knows all that, but what else might there be? An animal running across the road? A lost cow? A dog that has scrambled under a wire fence? The sudden appearance of a fire-tailed fox or a ghostly human figure at the edge of the road that you must swerve to avoid at the very last moment? Or maybe a song? Yeah, maybe the girls in bikinis plastered across the van’s bodywork suddenly came to life and climbed up the hood, lasciviously smearing the windshield with their bodies, their green hair falling over their shoulders, and their inhuman—or too human—voices filling the air, and maybe Chris lost his head, fell into their trap, hearing that song not of this world, the song of the sirens, the song that kills? Or maybe Chris just made one false move? Yes, that’s it, a simple mistake, like a tennis player missing an easy shot, like a skier losing an edge, something dumb like that. Maybe he didn’t turn his steering wheel when the road curved? Or maybe—because the possibility has to be raised—maybe Chris fell asleep at the wheel, left the drab countryside and entered the tube of a wave, entered the glorious and suddenly perceptible spiral that flashed past under his board, siphoning the world away with it, the world and the sky of the world.

*   *   *

The emergency services arrived at about 9:20 a.m.—ambulance, police—and signs were placed on the road in front and behind, directing traffic to smaller collateral roads. The main task consisted of removing the bodies of the three boys, imprisoned in their vehicle, mixed up with the bodies of the sirens who smiled on the hood or grimaced, deformed, crushed into each other, thighs, butts, and breasts all shredded and crumpled.

It was easily established that the little van was traveling too fast, at an estimated speed of 57 mph (12 mph above the speed limit for this section of the road), and it was also established that, for reasons unknown, it had swerved to the left and had been unable to straighten out again, that the driver had not braked—no tire marks on the asphalt—and that the van had smashed head on into this post. The absence of airbags was noted (this model van being too old), as was the fact that of the three passengers sitting in the front seat, only two were wearing seat belts—those sitting next to the doors, in the driver’s seat and the passenger’s window seat. It was established that the third person, sitting between the two others, had been propelled forward upon impact, his head colliding with the windshield. It had taken twenty minutes to extricate him from the wreckage, and he had been unconscious, but his heart still beating, when the ambulance arrived. His student meal card having been found in his jacket pocket, it was lastly established that the third person’s name was Simon Limbres.