After the Crash (29 page)

The train stopped at Vernon. Marc watched the passengers disembark and walk along the platform. There were no tearful farewells
or happy reunions, just a dozen busy people rushing off to their
homes. When the train started up again, the platform was empty
and the cars were already lining up to leave the station car park.

The sun had not yet set behind the hills on the horizon. Marc
drew the curtains so he could read Grand-Duc’s notebook without the glare of sunlight in his eyes. The detective had now been
investigating the case for ten years. Marc’s memories of the events
described were no longer vague and imprecise. He had his own
personal version to set alongside Grand-Duc’s.

In September 1991, Emilie Vitral was about to go to secondary
school. I have not mentioned Emilie very much so far in this
account, but it is important to understand how she changed during
those years, to the point where Nicole Vitral would finally yield and
Mathilde de Carville would triumph, in her way.

Emilie was about to turn eleven. I think she always liked me.
And the feeling was mutual. I think she liked my gruff, solitary side.
Kids tend to enjoy talking to adults who don’t say very much.

For her, I was Crédule-la-Bascule.
I think Marc was fascinated by me too. Not only because I knew
a lot about football, but mainly, I think, because of my job. Private detectives hold a sort of glamour for young boys. I would tell
him tall tales, and Nicole would laugh at my exaggerations and
inventions. And while we enjoyed this time together, I would watch
Emilie closely.

Secretly, I was hoping to see some kind of physical resemblance.
If only she could have woken up one morning and suddenly looked
as if she belonged to one family or the other. All I wanted was something definite; it didn’t matter to me which side won.

But there was nothing. The colour of her eyes still favoured the
Vitrals, but that was all.
Not all resemblances are physical, however. Nicole Vitral did her
best to hide it, at least to begin with, but over time it became obvious: in Rue Pocholle, Emilie was so different from those around
her that you might easily have believed she had been left next to
the burning Airbus by extraterrestrials. For a start, she loved school.
She was first in her class every year, while Marc struggled to achieve
mediocrity. Emilie loved music. Emilie loved art. Emilie loved stories. She quickly consumed all the records, pictures and books she
could find in the Vitral home. There were a reasonable quantity of
these, but they were there almost out of obligation, rather than any
personal need, the way people keep a bicycle or a set of bowls in
their garage. Just in case.
Emilie grew up different; you could see it from a million miles
away. She became adorable, adoring and adored, but she was suffocating. The mobile library would stop in Dieppe every Tuesday
evening and little Emilie would clean it out, so desperate was she
for new literary and artistic experiences. She would ask her grandmother about Roald Dahl, Igor Stravinsky, Rudyard Kipling, Sergei
Prokofiev and dozens of other foreign names that meant nothing to
Nicole.
It is not unusual for one person in a family to stand out from
the rest. That is what I told myself. The flower that flourishes surrounded by weeds. The autodidact from a poor State school. The
French version of the American Dream. The gifted youngster who
climbs every ladder, without any helping hands, without a safety
net below, to graduate from one of the best universities. Reaching
so high, from so far below, yet remaining proud of their origins.
Because that domestic prison in which they grew up marks them
forever as different from all the ‘sons of ’ who surround them, the
well-born children from the poshest Parisian arrondissements, the
clones from Lycée Henri IV. Their background is the fuel that drives
them onward, forward, upward. Their standards. And that is what
they become: the standard-bearer for their family, their neighbourhood. And how proud their family and neighbours are of them. The
kid who made it. Is that why the poor have so many children? To
increase their chances of a winning lottery ticket?
Anyway, that’s enough of my half-arsed ode to social determinism. All I wanted to say was that Emilie flourished. The little girl
with the big talent, protected by her family. And by Nicole in particular. But you have to imagine the nagging doubt that lay just
below the surface of Nicole’s pride and admiration.
Did Nicole have the right to be proud of her granddaughter?
Was
she her granddaughter? Ten years after the Airbus tragedy, the Vitral
family was still living in its shadow. If this girl really was Emilie
Vitral, Nicole’s own flesh and blood, then yes, it was wonderful – a
true miracle. But what if she were Lyse-Rose de Carville, erroneously sent to live with a poor family, in a very different world to the
one that was her birthright? What if she were being stifled by her
environment? What if she did not belong there?
‘It’s normal,’ Nicole would say to me sometimes. ‘A child raised
by her grandmother. Alone. There’s bound to be a difference, a gap
between us.’
And she was right. Partly.

At eleven years old, when she finished primary school, Emilie
became more demanding. Well, no, that’s not true: Emilie never
demanded anything. But she expressed her desire to see further than
the end of Rue Pocholle. She wanted to discover new places, do new
things. Most of all, she wanted to advance in her piano-playing.
Not because she was talented, or because her teachers were encouraging her, but simply because it was something she wanted to do.
Or, more accurately, something she needed to do.

The dilemma was a simple one. Emilie could not continue to
progress as a musician unless she was able to practise every day. But
that meant having a piano at home. Emilie did her best to persuade
her grandmother. She took measurements in the living room, and
she knew that there was – just – enough space for a piano. And it
would look nice. You could even put a vase on top of it.

A good piano would cost about thirty thousand francs. Say
twenty thousand for a second-hand one.
Nicole tried to explain the reality to Emilie: ‘A piano! My poor
Lylie, it’s already difficult enough for me to clothe you and feed
you. I had to work every Sunday in May and June just so we could
go on holiday to Saint-Quay for a week, and I still don’t know how
I’m going to pay for your school things. And now I have to pay for
your music lessons too, because they’re not free anymore. So, darling, you can see why it’s not possible . . .’
Emilie could see. She understood, and she did not complain.
She was almost preternaturally mature. At least, she appeared to
understand. She went to her room, and through the thin dividing walls Nicole heard a tune, played on the plastic recorder that
they had bought for Marc. It was the only instrument in the house.
Nicole recognised the song, a hit at the time: ‘Leidenstadt’ by
Goldman.
Her heart ached.
When Marc came home from his rugby training, he found his
grandmother in tears on the sofa. Marc was thirteen years old.
He did not know how to react. He could hear Emilie playing the
recorder. It sounded nice. And a bit sad . . .
Nicole patted the cushion next to hers on the sofa. Marc sat
down and she hugged him tightly.
‘You mustn’t be jealous of Emilie. Ever.’
Of course not, Marc thought. Why would he be jealous?
‘You have to keep behaving the same way towards her. She will
always be your little sister . . . Even if I treat you differently. You’re a
big boy now, Marc. I think you’re old enough to understand.’
Treat them differently? What did she mean?
Nicole stood up, and so did Marc. She was smiling again, or pretending to. She asked Marc to help her move the sofa.
‘I need to check if we really
can
fit a piano in here.’

The purchase, in cash, of the brand new Hartmann-Milonga piano
barely made a dent in the pile of money that had accumulated over
the years in Emilie’s bank account.

And Emilie was right: it did fit in the living room, between the
sofa and the television, even if it was a tight squeeze.
Everything followed from that. Music courses in Paris, first of all,
lasting a few days. Then longer stays in the capital. Then concerts,
and tours, in France and abroad: London, Amsterdam, Prague.
Records and books were bought for Emilie. And clothes, of course.
Why should Emilie be deprived of the latest fashions? It was only
human. She deserved the best. Nicole no longer felt able to deny
her anything. Just in case . . .

Now you understand Mathilde de Carville’s strategy. She had
known what she was doing, right from the start. The bank account
she opened for Emilie was a cuckoo’s egg left in a sparrow’s nest.
Now it had hatched, the bird that emerged was big enough to kill
the nest’s other inhabitants.

A gulf opened up between Emilie and Marc. I mean, a gulf in
material terms. I will talk more about the other differences between
them later on in this account. Emilie could ask for anything she
wanted, no matter how silly or how costly. Nothing was too much
for her, whereas Marc had to make do with hand-me-downs and
second-hand things. The neighbours’ clothes. His grandfather’s
bicycle. Rugby boots from his older teammates.

Emilie had insisted that she wanted to pay for Marc’s things too,
at first. It was her money, after all, as Nicole had explained to her.
But on this point her grandmother refused to budge. For her, it was
a question of honour. She had made a moral commitment with
Mathilde de Carville.

Not one centime of the de Carville money would be spent on
her grandson.
This may seem strange, I grant you. But how would you have
acted, in Nicole’s place? The decision is not as easy as it seems. Yes,
Mathilde de Carville knew exactly what she was doing, that evening
in May 1981, when she gave the cuckoo’s egg to Nicole Vitral. Along
with the sapphire ring.
Yet there is an unexpected moral to this story. As far as I was
able to tell, the cuckoo’s egg did not actually hatch. Marc was not
jealous. Ever. And his attitude had nothing to do with the desire to
obey his grandmother. Jealousy was simply not in his nature. He
was happy for Emilie, and that was all.
And there was another miracle, perhaps even more curious still:
in spite of all the gifts she received, all the gold and sweetness that
enriched her life, Emilie was not transformed into a spoilt brat. She
remained the same lively, humble, happy, straightforward girl she
had always been, never feeling the slightest scorn for the cramped
living room, the tiny houses of Rue Pocholle, the grey sea and the
hard pebbles beneath her bare feet.
Emilie grew up. She had the Vitrals’ blue eyes and the de Carvilles’ refined tastes. The kindness of the Vitrals . . . and the money
of the de Carvilles.
Go figure . . .

Marc looked up from the notebook. There were tears in his eyes.
The train sped past the ponds of the Poses. Barges loaded with
sand floated the other way back up the Seine. He saw it all again:
the recorder, the sofa, the piano with Emilie sitting at it, playing
Chopin, Berlioz, Debussy. He did not know any of the music, but
it moved him all the same. Emilie sitting straight-backed, her fingers moving constantly over the keys. The piano was silent now.
Still in the living room in Dieppe, but covered in a thick layer of
dust. Marc remembered Lylie’s clothes too. How could he forget
them? Her dresses and skirts, becoming more beautiful with every
year.
How could he have been jealous?
Nobody ever understood that. Not Grand-Duc, not Nicole, and
certainly not Mathilde de Carville.
The train stopped at Val-de-Reuil, the station in the fields, a long
way from the town. Marc hesitated. He would be in Rouen in fifteen minutes. He took out his mobile phone. There was time for
him to call a few more clinics. He tried three – without success.
No one by that name had been admitted. Oh well. Marc no longer
believed in this line of inquiry. More than anything, he wanted to
finish reading Grand-Duc’s notebook.
His adolescence, narrated by a private detective. As if his own
diary had been written by someone else.

Nicole Vitral walked slowly towards the stall at the end of the fishing port.
‘What do you have today, Gilbert? Nothing too expensive.’
‘Sole,’ the fishmonger replied. ‘Straight from the boat that came
in last night. Just one?’
‘Two.’
Gilbert’s eyes goggled like one of his dead fish. ‘Two? Is Emilie
home? Marc? Or do you have a lover?’
‘It’s for Marc, you idiot!’ said Nicole.
‘All right, I’ll give you a nice one then. How is he?’
Nicole gave an evasive answer, something banal, then paid for
the fish.
‘Thank you, Gilbert. I’ll be round to bring you some leaflets
from the town council later this week. About the future of the port.’
The fishmonger sighed. ‘Not more of that rubbish! Those councillors should be worrying about us shopkeepers, instead of the
dockers. We’ll be the first to go bust, believe me, even before the
fishermen . . .’
Nicole had already turned to go. Gilbert Letondeur was the best
fishmonger in Dieppe, but he was also a right-wing arsehole, in
league with the ship-owners and the Chamber of Commerce and
Industry. Nicole knew that her view of things was rather black-andwhite, but that’s just how she saw things. Dieppe, for her, could be
divided into two opposing camps. And, in spite of the van from
which she had sold chips on the seafront, she had never aligned
herself with the forces of capitalism. A traitor!
Doubly a traitor, in fact, because she ate the enemy’s fish.
She walked on, towards the seafront. She was glad of the dry
weather, the calm wind. The seafront was a hive of activity and
colour, covered with white marquees, each draped with a foreign
flag – for ten days every two years, Dieppe played host to the International Kite Festival.
The sky was already full of multicoloured objects in all shapes
and sizes, some floating motionlessly high above, some circling and
swooping. Looking up above her, Nicole spotted a Chinese dragon,
an Inca mask, a gigantic blue cat . . .
She watched them and felt a wave of nostalgia. Back in the 1980s,
Dieppe had been the first port in France to stage a kite festival.
Since then, the event had been replicated on every windy beach in
northern Europe. Nicole had been there with Pierre for the first two
festivals, in 1980 and 1982. How joyful it had been. And lucrative,
too. Their daughter-in-law Stéphanie had been heavily pregnant
during the first festival, but she had still helped them on the first
weekend. Pierre and Pascal, her doting father-in-law and husband,
had had to persuade Stéphanie to sit down and rest. Emilie had
been born a few days later, on 30 September.
And then there had been the Airbus crash . . . and then the trial,
and the verdict. Pierre Vitral had lived through one more festival,
in 1982, before falling asleep for the last time on 7 November, in
Le Tréport. The festival had become part of Nicole’s life, a symbol
reminding her that life and death hung by a thread, at the whim
of the wind. Nevertheless, Nicole continued to work on the seafront during the festivals that followed, without Pierre to help her.
She had no choice: the kite festival was the biggest earner on her
calendar.
Marc and Emilie were too young to remember all this. For them,
the festival was always like an early Christmas: something they
looked forward to for weeks ahead of time. It gave Marc the opportunity to impress his little sister with his kite-handling skills. He
had been given a kite in the shape of a giant red-and-gold insect by
a neighbour. It had a long, beribboned tail and transparent paper
wings. Marc called it ‘Dragonfly’, of course. Some people – fools
– still called Emilie by that name sometimes. Some of the shopkeepers in Dieppe, for instance.
Emilie would run from stand to stand, sampling all the different countries. Peru, China, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Ecuador, Yemen,
Quebec . . . The kite as a tight cord linking all the children of the
world: all they needed was a bit of a breeze, nothing else.
The art of taming the sky, purely for the fun of it.
Flying ever higher. No passengers. No crash. After 1980, Nicole
had never been able to look at the sky in the same way.
Little Emilie would run for miles. Japan, Mali, Columbia. She
would come back to the van, her eyes ablaze. All the world’s tribes
meeting here, in her backyard. ‘Grandma, have you seen, have you
seen it all?’