She had agreed to meet Naël’s family, caving in after much insistence, because her parents told her this wouldn’t commit her to anything but would at least bring some peace to her future in-laws.
Naël had told Valérie a lot about them, describing what they were like and which subjects of conversation were appropriate, which taboo. In fact, he’d gone directly to his parents’ house on Friday evening to lay the groundwork, and she was taking the high-speed TGV train to Lyon on Sunday morning. They would return together that night after spending the day with Naël’s family.
The bells of Saint-Jean-de-Montmartre brought Valérie back to reality.
“Damn, it’s seven—if I miss the train, all hell will break loose. Thank goodness my bag is packed and I’ve already bought my ticket,” she thought, finishing her cup of tea. She ran to the bathroom.
Five minutes later she was at the elevator, suitcase in hand. She would put on some makeup on the train. But only very little, because Naël’s parents disapproved of too much. Good thing Lyon was far away.
Soon she was unlocking her scooter. She planned to leave it in the motorcycle parking space across from the station.
Valérie thundered across Rue des Trois Frères on her loud red rocket. She eased off the gas as she crossed Rue Ravignan, just in case another vehicle was approaching, though this was unlikely on a Sunday at this time in the morning.
For a fraction of a second, her eyes caught the gleam of the sun on the golden dome of Les Invalides. “Paris is so beautiful!” she thought, looking back at the road.
4
Henri bit off half of a delicious croissant. He had to think seriously about going on a diet. He couldn’t go on like this.
Henri had moved out of his aunt and uncle’s place a few months after starting his job. When they buried Maurice, Henri devoted himself to looking after Odette. He had moved several times, always within Paris, but had never bought a house because he couldn’t afford it. He’d had plenty of girlfriends and even lived with one for seven years, but she was much younger and didn’t want children. When she finally got pregnant, it was thanks to the next-door neighbor—apparently they’d been in a “stable relationship” for a few years. This coincided with Odette’s death, and Henri decided to move back to Montmartre.
He watched as the rising sun lit up Les Invalides. It started on the little cross crowning the dome, descended down the pole, and illuminated the whole structure.
This phenomenon lasted around ten minutes, and Henri was absolutely spellbound the entire time.
He lifted his cup to take a sip of coffee and make the moment even richer.
5
Etienne looked away from the dome, tugging on his handlebars to land on the back wheel and cushion his landing, giving him better control of the final skid.
A pigeon that had been hiding by the fifth step flew suddenly into the boy’s arms and flapped in his face. As the pigeon took off, a bewildered Etienne found himself free-falling.
Henri Pichon, before managing to sip his coffee, received the entire weight of the flying boy as he crashed into Henri, sending him—along with the chair, table, and dishes—into the middle of Rue des Trois Frères, four yards away. Though semiconscious, Henri tried (always the good programmer) to analyze the situation.
A fraction of a second later, a loud red scooter, charging ahead at full throttle, slammed into the wreckage.
Henri drifted out of consciousness as Valérie landed in the middle of the street. Etienne, terrified of being punished for cycling down the stairs again, wondered how he was going to explain all this to his mother.
6
La Défense—Monday
Jean-Philippe Maillard left the conference room and entered his immense office. He stood opposite the glass window occupying the entire back wall and watched people come and go on La Défense esplanade, fifteen floors below.
The people wandering around the modern business district looked like ants, and they always gave him a sense of deep superiority. Up here, he felt godlike. He made a call on his cell phone.
“Tash, sweetie, it’s your dad.”
“Hi, Dad. What’s up? Where are you?”
“At the office. Listen, is your husband still interested in working at the bank?”
“Of course. You know he’s not happy where he is now.”
“Nobody forced him to resign from the position I got him a decade ago.”
“What would you have done if, after ten years of effort and waiting for a management position to open up, you didn’t get it—and instead they gave it to an incompetent dimwit you always covered for so he wouldn’t get fired?”
“Well, that’s all in the past. I have a job for him. Nothing important at the moment, but it will get him on the payroll.”
“I thought you weren’t hiring.”
“One of my systems engineers was in an accident and hasn’t come to work today, and he probably won’t be back for a while.”
“He works on Sundays?”
“Yes, and we’re going to miss him. He’s been here for more than twenty years, and he is the most competent person we have. So tell Pierre-Gabriel to be prepared to work the odd weekend. I’ll need to hire a few people to cover the vacancy and the work he used to do.”
“When this guy comes back, what will happen to Pierre-Gabriel?”
“I don’t know if he will be back; he’s in a coma. Severe concussion, several broken ribs, and—”
“Don’t tell me the details, it makes me feel sick.”
“Well, even if he did come back, he shouldn’t work alone. I can’t risk having one person in charge of so many things. We have a big problem with the management of closing transactions.”
“Pierre-Gabriel’s specialty!”
“Get in touch with him and send him to me.”
Jean-Philippe hung up and gazed through the window again. He could see almost the entire set of skyscrapers of La Défense studding the esplanade. He looked at the old forty-four-floor Fiat tower, where he started his career and his brilliant trajectory. His bank still had a computer room on the dingy and poorly lit fifth floor where all the bank transactions were handled. Henri Pichon worked there, and that’s where Pierre-Gabriel would go.
Jean-Philippe didn’t like his son-in-law—he belonged to that pretentious class of decadent old French nobility who allowed themselves to look down on all the mere mortals from their sky-high position. Pierre-Gabriel tolerated the existence of the lower classes solely because he would inherit a Renaissance castle in the old province of Poitou. Even Jean-Philippe felt the younger man’s condescending arrogance, although it was very subdued because of the respect Jean-Philippe commanded.
In any case, he still had to think about the future and the generations to come. He was planning to retire in a few years, and it wouldn’t be a bad investment to leave his son-in-law well positioned for the benefit of his daughter and his projected grandchildren—who, by the way, were taking their time to arrive. But they were young: Natasha was thirty-two, and Pierre Gabriel was thirty-seven. They both worked in IT, she in management and he in systems, but Tash had looked for work on her own, away from the influence of Jean-Philippe. Pierre-Gabriel, conversely, had allowed his father-in-law to pull strings at one of the subsidiaries of his bank group.
Henri Pichon, on the other hand, belonged to the race of submissive workers, just like his uncle did. It had been a while since Jean-Philippe thought about Maurice. Henri Pichon had never asked for a raise and didn’t complain. He was content with what the annual salary index imposed—which was next to nothing, considering the importance of his work. If he’d really wanted to, Henri could have multiplied his salary by ten. Some engineers at this level even earned more than Jean-Philippe himself.
Now he would have to replace Henri with two or three senior programmers, which was going to cost a fortune. Not to men
tion the technical and organizational problems that could arise.
7
Anxious faces filled the little waiting room of the intensive care unit of Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. Among them was Valérie, who had taken the day off to look after the man who had barged into her life involuntarily.
She remembered yesterday’s events with horror, and she was still in shock over what had happened when she was on her way to Gare de Lyon to catch the train that would seal her future with Naël. She’d been going too fast for the narrow Montmartre streets, but even at a more prudent speed, it would have been impossible to avoid the crash.
When she managed to regain focus, she was sitting on the cold cobblestones, the back tire of her scooter turning slowly as it pushed the mess of chairs, tablecloths, and broken plates along.
A young boy with a bicycle at his feet watched the scene with wide eyes, pacing from the wreckage to her and back, and a dumbfounded waiter attempted to restore order.
“Are you OK, madam?” he asked her.
“I think so,” she said, picking herself up from the ground with some effort—not because anything hurt, but because she was afraid it might hurt. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.”
After pushing the motorcycle away, the waiter removed a chair and a table, revealing the body of a man who seemed to be dead.
“Oh God!” exclaimed Valérie, on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“Calm down, he’s only unconscious. If you have a cell phone, please call for help.”
“I already have,” thundered the baker, a stocky man with a fat, childlike face and a Charlie Chaplin–style moustache. “What happened, Marcel?” he asked.
“A cruel trick of destiny. The boy was going down the stairs on his bike when a pigeon made him lose control—”
“Damn rats with wings!” muttered the baker.
“Destiny,” continued the waiter. “He lost control and landed on top of poor Monsieur Henri, who was peacefully watching the sunlight hit the dome of Les Invalides.”
“Not bad to have that be the last thing you see before you die,” philosophized the baker.
“He’s not dead, only unconscious,” repeated Marcel.
“And the girl?” inquired the baker, pointing at Valérie.
“Unfortunately for her, she was coming down Rue des Trois Frères at the wrong time and couldn’t do anything.”
The baker looked at the boy, then at the girl with the scooter, both pale as ghosts, and admonished, “You were both going too fast.”
Valérie burst into tears, and Etienne, who didn’t know what else to do, did the same.
Marcel threw a contemptuous glance at the baker. Without moving from his place by Henri’s side, he said, “Calm down. It was just bad luck. He’ll recover in no time, you’ll see.”
But Henri was still unconscious, and the right side of his head was still bleeding quite a bit, despite the fact that Marcel was applying pressure to it with his napkin.
“The ambulance will be here any minute, and they’ll take him to the emergency room. Madam, take care of the boy and see if you can call his mother.”
Minutes passed and nobody spoke except the baker, who explained to a few bystanders what had happened.
A couple of policemen arrived. One of them knelt down close to the wounded man, and the other asked what had happened.
As the baker narrated his own embellished version of the story, Marcel whispered to the kneeling policeman: “He didn’t see anything. He was in his bakery, taking out a batch of bread.”
The policeman stood up and interrupted the baker’s rant, saying, “Are you sure you witnessed everything you’re telling us? This statement will go to court, and you will have to stand by what you’ve said.”
The policeman fixed his eyes on the baker until the other lowered his gaze, admitting, “Marcel told me all this. He saw everything.”
“Very well, monsieur, thank you for your help. Please go back to your business.” The policeman looked around and added in a commanding voice, “People who have nothing to do with this matter should go back to what they were doing. Now!”
The ambulance arrived at the same time as Etienne’s mother, who started crying even more when she looked at the boy, saying, “What have you done now?”
Valérie calmed her down and explained. When Etienne’s mother wrapped her boy in a strong embrace, saying everything was all right, that it wasn’t his fault and Monsieur Henri was going to be fine, she wished she had someone to do the same for her.
The paramedics took Henri away on a stretcher after securing his neck and giving him an IV.
Marcel stayed in the middle of the street, looking in the direction of the ambulance, his arms hanging down, his apron and napkin drenched in blood. He felt exhausted.
One of the policemen approached him. “Come with me. Let’s go sit in the van and take your statement.”
Marcel walked in front of Valérie as she was getting off the phone.
“Bastard! All he cares about is his family. Well, he can stay with them for good, for all I care.” Then she burst into tears again.
Marcel put his hands on Valérie’s shoulders to comfort her. Sensing what the crying was about, he said, “Sometimes events can shed light on things we were used to because of routine, and everything becomes clear.”
Valérie realized that destiny had just ended a phase of her life.
8
A tired-seeming young doctor wearing an unbuttoned lab coat barged into the waiting room. Everyone looked up with fear and hope.
“Relatives of Henri Pichon?”
Valérie raised her hand, feeling like a schoolgirl.
“Follow me, please.”
She followed him nervously through a door, her eyes fixed on the floor tiles, which were polished from countless footsteps. After walking for a little while (it seemed to last forever), they entered a small office with green walls and Formica furniture.
“Sit down, please.”
He looked at her calmly while Valérie took a moment to try to explain her situation. “I’m not really a relative of Monsieur Pichon. The thing is—”
“They’ve let me know. Monsieur Pichon has no close relatives. It seems life has divested him of all his loved ones. After evaluating the case, we have decided, as an exception, to overlook the visitors rule.”
Seeing Valérie’s surprise, he added, “Henri Pichon has a severe TBI.”
Valérie looked confused.
“Sorry—a TBI is a traumatic brain injury. Henri has been in a stable coma for twenty-eight hours. We’re transferring him to the ICU. In these cases, there’s a better chance the patient will wake up when they’re accompanied by someone.”
“I can be available for a few days, but I’ll have to go back to work.”
“I understand. You’ll also have to carry on with your life—”
“My life! My life has just taken a 180-degree turn, thanks to Henri Pichon.”
“Henri Pichon’s life has, too,” said the doctor.
“I’m very sorry. I’ve had a part in all this.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Valérie told her story under the soothing gaze of the young doctor. As she spoke and calmed down, she started to notice how good-looking he was. She told him about the accident and ended up psychoanalyzing her relationship with Naël. “I hung up on him, and after all the paperwork I had to fill in because of the accident, I called a friend and stayed at her house. I collected all my clothes and things, and I came here to wait.” She spoke very seriously in the tone of a woman who knows where she’s going and what she has to do.
“Have you been here since yesterday morning?” asked the doctor.
“No, no. Yvette, Marcel, and I have been taking turns.”
The doctor looked confused.
&
nbsp; “Yvette is the mother of Etienne, the boy who sent Monsieur Pichon flying; and Marcel is the waiter at Relais de la Butte who witnessed everything. He has known Henri since Henri moved to his aunt and uncle’s house in Montmartre as a child, after he lost his parents.”
“And do you think you could continue to take turns for a while?”
“How much longer do you think he’ll be in a coma?”
“It’s hard to tell. The brain presents with a hematoma that extends from the frontal lobe to the occipital lobe. Because we noticed an increase in intracranial pressure, we gave him a CT. The scan showed he has an edema—an excess of fluid—in the occipital lobe.”
“What does that mean?”
“The edema is being reabsorbed. It may be that within a few days, it stops pressing on his brain and he wakes up. He may also wake up before the full reabsorption, or he could get worse and have complications. But I wouldn’t expect that in a clinical picture like his.”
“What will happen when he wakes up?”
“Concussions are usually due to deep injuries in the skull or the fast acceleration or deceleration of the brain, which injures the tissue at the point of impact and sometimes slightly on the inside of the frontal and temporal lobes. The nervous tissue, blood vessels, and meninges tear and break, causing nervous interruptions, ischemia, or bleeding and edemas inside or outside the cerebrum. But in Henri’s case, for some unknown reason, the scanner has not shown any damage, except for this edema pressing on the occipital area, which is rapidly reabsorbing. When he wakes up, he shouldn’t suffer any aftereffects. But I can’t guarantee it—his case is classified as severe, and the brain is still a mystery to us.
The Penny Thief Page 2