open window, a test, before he turned and said it out loud. “I don’t hurt people.”
“Bullshit.”
“I protect people.”
“But not your daughter.”
His legs could barely hold him.
“All right.” She pulled on a pair of imitation leather pants and the disobedient nipples of her small breasts peeked through the white cotton of her polo shirt. “All right,” she said again, and walked out of the bedroom and down the hall, down the stairs.
Kruse leaned out the window and watched her glide up Trogue-Pompée in the pale street light. In her right hand she carried Lily’s bamboo fairy wand. She swiped it once like a riding crop, whipped the air, and then she started to run.
On his way back to Vaison-la-Romaine from his daughter’s cremation, he took the wrong exit from a roundabout and passed Gare d’Orange. A block later, he pulled over in front of a tavern decorated with a mud-splashed Père Noël from the previous Christmas. Orange station was the closest to Vaison, connected by the regional bus system. It was not yet five in the afternoon. His daughter’s urn sat on the passenger seat, a silver box with her name engraved on the front. He briefly debated taking it, taking her with him. He pulled the emergency brake and left the car in front of the tavern, jogged to the station past the clipped and leafless branches of the plane trees that reached, tortured, for the sky. Lily, who so adored Halloween, called them witches’ hands.
There were cameras in front, inside, and on the platform behind the station, a whitewashed mid-century modernist rectangle attached to a more substantial building in the back. An armed security guard stood near the door, his huge arms crossed. When they had renewed theirpassports, they were forced to buy six photos. Only two had been necessary, so the rest, of Lily and of Evelyn, were in his wallet.
The security guard suffered from the syndrome that affects all security guards: he daydreamed for a living. He barely looked at Evelyn’s photo. Her hair in the photograph was newly dyed and especially blonde. She had not wanted to smile but both Lily and Kruse had tried to make her laugh. The dimple on the right side of her mouth seemed to be the only thing holding the frown in place. The guard invited Kruse to speak to the supervisor on duty, who had an office through the heavy metal door. All he had to do was knock.
“Harder,” said the security guard.
The door opened a minute later and a somewhat less-bored security guard stood before him. Kruse asked for the supervisor by name: Madame Aubanel. Keys jangled as she walked out of her office and into the hallway. She was nearly six feet tall and shaped like a pear, a tawny-haired woman with glasses that magnified her eyes. He introduced himself, they shook hands, and he pulled out a photograph of Evelyn. Unlike the other security guard she listened to his pitch before telling him no, with a detailed explanation why. After six months in France he had come to see how bureaucracy had replaced Catholicism.
“I promise it won’t take long, and I’ll pay for my time.”
“It’s absolutely against the regulations, Monsieur, to show security footage to non-security personnel. I am forbidden.” She lifted her right hand to her mouth, to catch a cough, and said with a whisper, “How much?”
“Whatever it takes, Madame.”
She asked him to come back at nine o’clock and to bring five thousand francs.
The mistral had finished blowing. The sky and the air were blue and sharp. The quality of light now, as dusk began its long sigh over Orange, most resembled early May, the month of their arrival. Northern Provence wasn’t nearly as fragrant or as green, as drunk with itself,as it had been at the height of summer. But now, in this season and through his fatigue and anxiety, every colour, every late-blooming flower and evergreen, every stained stone building, every man and woman and baby and bird was sharp with contrast.
It was
“Bullshit.”
“I protect people.”
“But not your daughter.”
His legs could barely hold him.
“All right.” She pulled on a pair of imitation leather pants and the disobedient nipples of her small breasts peeked through the white cotton of her polo shirt. “All right,” she said again, and walked out of the bedroom and down the hall, down the stairs.
Kruse leaned out the window and watched her glide up Trogue-Pompée in the pale street light. In her right hand she carried Lily’s bamboo fairy wand. She swiped it once like a riding crop, whipped the air, and then she started to run.
On his way back to Vaison-la-Romaine from his daughter’s cremation, he took the wrong exit from a roundabout and passed Gare d’Orange. A block later, he pulled over in front of a tavern decorated with a mud-splashed Père Noël from the previous Christmas. Orange station was the closest to Vaison, connected by the regional bus system. It was not yet five in the afternoon. His daughter’s urn sat on the passenger seat, a silver box with her name engraved on the front. He briefly debated taking it, taking her with him. He pulled the emergency brake and left the car in front of the tavern, jogged to the station past the clipped and leafless branches of the plane trees that reached, tortured, for the sky. Lily, who so adored Halloween, called them witches’ hands.
There were cameras in front, inside, and on the platform behind the station, a whitewashed mid-century modernist rectangle attached to a more substantial building in the back. An armed security guard stood near the door, his huge arms crossed. When they had renewed theirpassports, they were forced to buy six photos. Only two had been necessary, so the rest, of Lily and of Evelyn, were in his wallet.
The security guard suffered from the syndrome that affects all security guards: he daydreamed for a living. He barely looked at Evelyn’s photo. Her hair in the photograph was newly dyed and especially blonde. She had not wanted to smile but both Lily and Kruse had tried to make her laugh. The dimple on the right side of her mouth seemed to be the only thing holding the frown in place. The guard invited Kruse to speak to the supervisor on duty, who had an office through the heavy metal door. All he had to do was knock.
“Harder,” said the security guard.
The door opened a minute later and a somewhat less-bored security guard stood before him. Kruse asked for the supervisor by name: Madame Aubanel. Keys jangled as she walked out of her office and into the hallway. She was nearly six feet tall and shaped like a pear, a tawny-haired woman with glasses that magnified her eyes. He introduced himself, they shook hands, and he pulled out a photograph of Evelyn. Unlike the other security guard she listened to his pitch before telling him no, with a detailed explanation why. After six months in France he had come to see how bureaucracy had replaced Catholicism.
“I promise it won’t take long, and I’ll pay for my time.”
“It’s absolutely against the regulations, Monsieur, to show security footage to non-security personnel. I am forbidden.” She lifted her right hand to her mouth, to catch a cough, and said with a whisper, “How much?”
“Whatever it takes, Madame.”
She asked him to come back at nine o’clock and to bring five thousand francs.
The mistral had finished blowing. The sky and the air were blue and sharp. The quality of light now, as dusk began its long sigh over Orange, most resembled early May, the month of their arrival. Northern Provence wasn’t nearly as fragrant or as green, as drunk with itself,as it had been at the height of summer. But now, in this season and through his fatigue and anxiety, every colour, every late-blooming flower and evergreen, every stained stone building, every man and woman and baby and bird was sharp with contrast.
It was
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