After the Crash (3 page)

Marc Vitral waited a few moments for Mariam to move away.
Then he bent down over his backpack, which he’d left on the
floor next to his chair, and took out a small cube wrapped in silver
paper.

‘Happy birthday, Emilie,’ he said cheerfully.
He handed her the package.
Emilie rolled her eyes.
‘Marc!’ she scolded him, ‘you’ve wished me happy birthday three

times in the last week. You know I don’t need all that . . .’
‘Shhh. Open it.’
Frowning, Emilie unwrapped the present. Inside was a piece of

silver jewellery: a complicated-looking cross, with each arm ending
in a little diamond shape, except for the top one, which featured
a large circle surmounted by a crown. Emilie held the cross in her
hands.

‘You’re mad, Marc.’
‘It’s a Tuareg cross. Apparently there are twenty-one different
kinds. One shape for each city in the Sahara. This one is from
Agadez. Do you like it?’
‘Of course I like it. But . . .’
Marc went on, unstoppable: ‘Apparently, the diamond shapes
represent the four cardinal points. Whoever gives someone a Tuareg
cross gives them the world.’
‘I know the legend,’ Emilie whispered softly. ‘ “I offer you the
four corners of the world because you cannot know where you will
die.” ’
Marc smiled, embarrassed. Of course Lylie already knew all
about Tuareg crosses, just as she knew about everything. There was
silence for a moment. Emilie reached out for her cup of coffee.
Instinctively, Marc did the same. His fingers moved towards hers,
hoping they would touch. Suddenly, Marc’s hand stopped dead.
Lylie was wearing a ring. It was gold, beautifully wrought, and
set with a pale sapphire; a magnificent antique, and undoubtedly
worth a fortune. Marc had never seen it before. He stared at it in
confusion for several seconds, overcome by the jealousy he always
felt when confronted with something that seemed to distance him
from Emilie. Finally he managed to stammer: ‘That . . . that ring,
is . . . is it yours?’
‘No, I stole it this morning from a shop in the Place Vendôme!’
Marc still felt floored and his eyelid fluttered slightly. The Tuareg
cross he had given her had cost him all the money he’d earned
from two days and three nights working as a switchboard operator for France Telecom, his student job, but it looked like cheap
tat compared to that ring. And Lylie had already put the African
jewel back in its canvas box, whereas the ring sat proudly on her
finger.
He forced himself to swallow a mouthful of coffee, then said:
‘That . . . your ring . . . Was it a birthday present?’
Emilie lowered her eyes. ‘Sort of. It’s a bit complicated . . .
Beautiful, though, isn’t it?’
She paused, trying to find the right words.
‘I’ll explain it to you, don’t worry, at least not about this
ring . . .’
Emilie put her hand on Marc’s.
Don’t worry. At least not about this ring . . .
The words reverberated inside Marc’s head. What did she mean?
Lylie looked awful this morning, as if she had not slept all night,
even though she was trying to smile at him. Suddenly, as if she had
made an important decision, her eyes lit up. She took a few sips
of coffee then bent down over her school bag. She pulled out a
notebook with a pale green cover and slid it across the table towards
Marc.
‘Now it’s my turn, Marc. This is for you.’
Marc felt another wave of vague anxiety rise within him.
‘What is it?’
‘Grand-Duc’s notebook,’ Emilie replied instantly. ‘He gave it to
me the day before yesterday, the day after my birthday. Well, actually, he left it in my letter box, or got someone else to leave it there.
I found it in the morning.’
Marc cautiously touched the notebook with his fingertips. His
eyelid was fluttering again.
That notebook. Grand-Duc’s investigation . . . Now he understood. Emilie had spent the last two days reading and re-reading
it. The eighteen-year investigation carried out by that mad old
private detective. A lifetime’s work. Emilie’s lifetime. Almost to
the day.
Some fucking birthday present!
Marc looked for clues in Emilie’s expression. What truth had
she discovered in the notebook? A new identity? A calm acceptance
of everything, at last? Or nothing at all? Only questions without
answers . . .
Emilie was not giving anything away. She was too good at this
game. She poured a few drops of water into her coffee, her little
ritual, and drank it slowly.
‘You see, Marc, he did give it to me in the end, just like he
always promised. The truth. For my passage into the adult
world.’
Emilie laughed nervously. Still Marc did not pick up the
notebook.
‘And . . .?’ he asked. ‘What does he say, in this notebook? Anything important? Do you . . . do you know now?’
Emilie looked away, out through the window, where small groups
of students were crossing the Paris VIII forecourt.
‘Know what?’
Marc began to feel exasperated. The words formed in his head
but he did not say them aloud:
Know what that stupid detective was
paid, for so many years, to find out! Know who you are, Lylie. Who you
are!
Emilie played distractedly with her ring.
‘Well, now it’s your turn. You need to read it, Marc.’
Marc’s mind was in turmoil. He picked up the notebook and
heard himself say: ‘All right, little dragonfly. I’ll read your damn
notebook . . .’
He was silent for a moment, then added: ‘But what about you?
Are you OK?’
‘Yes, don’t worry, I’m fine.’
Emilie sipped her coffee again. She looked as if she were forcing
herself to drink it.
‘Did Grand-Duc leave a note?’
‘No, nothing. But it’s all in the notebook.’
‘And . . .?’
‘It’s better if you read it yourself.’
‘So where is Grand-Duc now?’
Emilie’s eyes clouded over again, as if she was hiding something.
She made a show of looking at her watch.
‘Are you leaving already?’
‘I don’t have classes this morning, but you do. At ten o’clock.
Constitutional European Law. You have a tutorial with the young
and fascinating Professor Grandin. I really have to go.’
Emilie poured the last drop of water into her coffee, drank the
rest slowly, then bent down over her bag again.
‘I . . . I have another present for you.’
She handed him a little gift-wrapped packet, slightly larger than
a box of matches.
Marc froze. He was filled with foreboding.
‘You mustn’t open it now,’ Emilie continued breathlessly, ‘only
after I’ve gone. One hour later. Promise me? It’s like hide-and-seek:
you have to give me time to disappear. So close your eyes and count
to, let’s say, a thousand . . .’
Emilie seemed to be putting all her energy into convincing Marc
that her request was just some foolish lovers’ game, but Marc was
not fooled.
‘Promise?’ Emilie insisted.
Resigned, Marc nodded. They looked at each other for a long
time. Emilie blinked first.
‘No, you won’t do it. You’re stubborn, Marc, I know you. You’ll
tear into it as soon as my back is turned.’
Marc did not contradict her. Emilie lifted a slender hand.
That damn ring sparkled in the light.
‘Mariam?’
The landlady reacted instantly, as if she had been watching them,
just waiting for such a command. She stood in front of Marc and
Emilie’s table.
‘Mariam, I have a favour to ask you. I want to leave this packet
with you. You must give it to Marc in one hour, and not a moment
sooner! Even if he begs you, bribes you or blackmails you. And,
now that I think about it, you must send him off to his class in one
hour too – room B318!’
Mariam looked at the package in her hands.
‘I’m trusting you with this, Mariam.’
She had no choice. Emilie leapt up from her chair, shoved the
jewellery box containing the Tuareg cross into her backpack, and
kissed Marc chastely on the cheek. Her lips landed halfway between
his cheek and the corner of his mouth. An ambiguous kiss, as if
placed deliberately to taunt Mariam.
Emilie pushed open the Lenin’s glass door and walked out onto
the square in front of the university. In seconds, she was swallowed
up by the swarm of passing students, vanishing like a ghost.
The door banged shut.
Mariam closed her fingers around the package. She would do as
Emilie had asked, of course, but she did not like this game. Mariam
had seen many couples break up: in such a situation, women could
be amazingly determined and imaginative.
Emilie was one of those women.
This whole scene stank of a lie. Emilie had run away as fast as her
legs would take her, and the gift she had left in Mariam’s hand was
a time bomb. Marc should never have let her leave like that. That
boy was too naïve, too trusting . . . Mariam still couldn’t decide if
the girl who was fleeing from him was his sister, his wife, his mistress, or his friend; she could not figure out what connected the
two of them; but she was certain that Emilie had only one goal
in mind.
To break that connection.

Marc stared at Mariam as she stood behind the counter. The
landlady had put Emilie’s gift in her cash register, while shooting
Marc an unequivocal look. There was no point getting his hopes
up: nothing would happen before the hour appointed by Emilie.
Female solidarity. In desperation, his eyes fell on Crédule GrandDuc’s pale green notebook. Emilie had known what she was doing.
Marc was stuck here with an hour to kill before his first class of the
day: a soporific tutorial with a young professor who spent half the
time answering his mobile phone. Emilie had trapped him.

The Lenin was packed now. A tall guy asked Marc if he could
take the empty chair from his table. Marc nodded distractedly. The
red and white Martini clock on the wall told him the time was 9.03
a.m. Marc had no choice, but all the same he hesitated even to open
the notebook. His fingertips stroked the shiny cover.

An elderly professor, standing at the counter with a glass of
beer and a copy of
Le Parisien
newspaper, was eyeing Marc’s place.
He wasn’t wrong – Marc had only one desire at that moment:
to run out after Emilie and throw this damn notebook in
the bin.

He looked through the window, as if he might spot her familiar outline amid the increasingly dense crowd; as if the swarm of
humanity might stop moving and part like the Red Sea, so he could
run after Emilie. His vision went blurred. His heartbeat accelerated. His throat tightened. He knew the warning signs so well: the
tachycardia, the respiratory problems . . . He turned his gaze away
from the square.

As soon as he did so, he began to breathe more easily.
His hands touched the pale green notebook again.
So Emilie had won, as she always did. He too was going to have

Marc took a deep breath and opened the notebook. Grand-Duc’s
handwriting was small and dense. Slightly jumpy, but perfectly
legible.

It all began with a disaster. Before 23 December, 1980, I doubt if
anyone – or hardly anyone – had ever heard of Mont Terri. I certainly hadn’t. Mont Terri is one of those little peaks in the Jura
mountains, on the border between France and Switzerland, a peak
located inside a loop of the Doubs river. It is a mountain where
cows are pastured, a long way from anywhere, with the nearest
towns being Montbéliard on the French side, and Porrentruy on
the Swiss side. Although it is not especially high – 2,638 feet, to
be precise – it is nevertheless not always accessible, particularly in
winter, when it is covered with snow. Mont Terri is known, above
all, for having been a Franco-Swiss
département
– known as Mont
Terrible – during the Revolution. Since then, it has been forgotten
by everyone except the hundred or so people who live there. When
the Airbus 5403 from Istanbul to Paris smashed into its south-west
flank on the night of 22-23 December, journalists opted to use the
name ‘Mont Terrible’, rather than Mont Terri. You have to look at it
from their point of view: ‘The Tragedy of Mont Terrible’ is a much
better headline than ‘The Tragedy of Mont Terri’.

Perhaps people still remember the accident today. Perhaps not.
There are so many such disasters, and they are all alike. A few
months before I began to write this, a Boeing 747 crashed near
Tenerife in the Canaries, killing one hundred and forty-six people.
The year after the tragedy of Mont Terrible, on 1 December 1981,
a DC-9 from Ljubljana to Ajaccio crashed into Mont San Pietro,
killing one hundred and eighty: the only air accident in Corsican
history. But everyone has forgotten about that, apart from the Corsicans. Today, everyone remembers the crash at Mont Sainte-Odile
. . . until the next crash takes its place in their memory.

At the time, in 1981, people were talking about a chain of disasters.
What a load of rubbish! All you have to do is look at the statistics. Trust me: I spent hours reading websites about plane crashes.
They are staggeringly detailed, providing numbers of deaths plus
other facts and figures about the moments before the final dive.
This may seem unbelievable, but the statistics show that in the last
forty years, there have been more than 1,500 aeroplane crashes, with
more than 25,000 fatalities. A quick calculation reveals that this
makes nearly forty crashes per year: almost one per week, somewhere in the world.
So it’s not surprising that everyone has forgotten about the trag

At the time, I too didn’t pay much attention to the Mont Terri
disaster. That morning, I barely even registered the news. I was staking out criminals on the coast near Hendaye: a case involving the
embezzlement of casino profits, against a backdrop of Basque terrorism . . . It was pretty dangerous stuff, but exciting: my specialty
at the time. I had gone solo as a private detective five years earlier,
after almost twenty years acting as a mercenary all over the world. I
was nearly fifty years old, with a bad hip and a spine as twisted as a
caduceus. Each week of stake-out, I put on over two pounds, which
I would then take at least a month to lose. In short, being a private
detective, even if it was rather a half-assed plan, definitely seemed
to suit me just fine.