by Olivia Lara
She did. Slowly. Her eyelids were heavy as rocks.
‘Thank God. You gave me such a scare. Don’t ever do that again, you hear me?’
Her throat hurt. She could barely speak.
‘I was right, JJ. I was right. I saw him. I saw him in my dream.’
‘Please relax now. You need your rest. Whatever it is, we’ll talk about it later.’
A doctor walked in and checked a monitor next to her bed, asked a few basic questions and seemed satisfied.
‘You have severe hypothermia. If Monsieur D’Angers hadn’t found you when he did, you would’ve died. You shouldn’t have been out there in that blizzard. You’re very lucky.’
She felt lucky. On that hospital bed, hooked to machines, she felt lucky.
She was the luckiest woman in the world because she knew something nobody else did.
Alexander was alive.
She’d seen it with her own eyes. She’d seen it in her dream.
DOMINIQUE
11 DECEMBER 1969
PARIS
JJ came to pick Dominique up from the hospital, to drive her home. They both sat in the back seat of his car, as JJ’s driver pulled up the screen between them.
‘I didn’t tell Vincent what happened. I said you had to go to Colmar for a couple of days. Family matter. He doesn’t need to know. It’ll just stay between us,’ he said.
Dominique stared out the window.
‘JJ, I have wanted to tell you something for two days now.’
‘I don’t know if I want to hear it.’
‘It’s about Alexander.’
‘I had a feeling.’
‘You know I always said that I don’t believe he died in the plane crash, that I had this feeling he was somewhere out there—’
‘Not this again, Dominique. I don’t have the strength for it anymore,’ growled JJ.
‘Please listen to me. I had a dream when I was at the cemetery. I’ve had it many times in the last five years, but only now have I remembered it fully and understood it. Alexander didn’t die in the crash. All these years when I kept saying he wasn’t dead, all these years,’ she said, with tears in her eyes.
‘What dream? Why are you doing this? Is it because of what we discussed? About you and Vincent? You can just say you don’t want to marry him; there’s no need for all this.’
‘Please believe me. I know you think I’m in denial and I’m mourning. But I am telling you, now, more than ever, I know I am right.’
He looked exasperated. ‘Be reasonable. What do you think happened?’
‘I don’t exactly know what happened. In my dream, he seemed scared. He seemed disoriented. Maybe he just—’
‘What? He just got up and left the crash site? You know as well as I do that’s not possible.’
‘No, not the crash site. I think he made it to the hospital and when he was a bit better and he could move, he—’
‘Dominique, please. For my sake, stop. You bringing this all up again is tearing me apart. I loved that boy like my own son. I buried him five years ago. I mourned for him.’ JJ sighed. ‘I lost my wife. I know how hard it is to accept it, how life doesn’t seem to make sense anymore. I buried myself in my work, because that was the only way I knew how to cope. You keep imagining he’s still alive somewhere. That is your way to cope. But just like it didn’t help me, and it cost me my relationship with Nicole, this isn’t helping you either. You’re a smart woman, but you’ve allowed yourself to believe in this fantasy for far too long and you’re forcing all of us to go along with it.’
‘I’m not crazy, JJ. He is somewhere out there. I can feel it.’
‘I’ve known Alexander all his life. I know the kind of man he was. He wouldn’t have just left the hospital and not reached out to us. Why would he? He loved us. He loved you, more than anything. If he could, he would’ve come back to you even if he had to walk all the way from Le Havre to Paris. Do you see how irrational you’re being?’
‘I don’t know why he left the hospital or why he didn’t come back. I don’t know. But what I do know is that when I got to the hospital after the crash, everyone was searching for a patient who had just disappeared in the middle of the night from their bed. A man. A man who had survived the plane crash. It has to be him, JJ. It has to be.’
‘It has to be? Why? Because you had a dream? I have all sorts of dreams; none of them ever come true.’
‘They’re not like my dreams,’ she said.
As close as they were, she had never told JJ about the dreams. He was a very rational, practical man who didn’t believe in such things. Besides, she wouldn’t have known how to explain her dreams about ‘the one’ to him, when she was still trying to understand why she dreamed about two ‘ones’. Leon and Alexander. JJ surely wouldn’t have taken her seriously and the dreams were such a big part of who she was, she didn’t want to expose herself to those kinds of conversations. Nobody but the women in her family knew about them. Nobody but them could understand.
‘Why can’t you just let it go? Let him go? What do you want from me, Dominique?’ asked JJ in an exasperated tone.
‘I want you to believe me. I want you to support me.’
‘Support you in doing what?’ he asked. ‘We buried Alexander. If a man did disappear, it wasn’t him. Do you understand?’
‘You don’t know if the man you buried is Alexander,’ she pushed back. ‘There’s no proof. Did you ask for proof? Why didn’t you let me see him? Why didn’t anyone let me see him? Because it wasn’t him.’
‘Oh, Dominique,’ he said sadly. ‘There is proof. Listen to me,’ he tried but she wouldn’t have it. Enough with everyone fighting her on this. She knew what she felt.
‘I’m going to look for him. What if he needs us? Something must’ve stopped him from getting in touch. Something really serious, really bad.’
‘This is madness. You know I would do anything for you, but not this. This scenario is all too convenient because it is what you wish for. The reality is harsh, my dear. He is gone; he has been gone for five years. You have Vincent who loves you; you have Anne. You should be happy. Marry this man, have this beautiful family both of you have built. Enjoy them; enjoy life. Let go of the past that’s been eating you inside for so long. Let go of your fantasies. He is gone, and he is not coming back,’ said JJ.
‘I will not give up on him. If there’s even the smallest chance I am right, I will go to the end of the world and back for him. Until I have exhausted all possibilities.’
*
When Vincent came home later that day, Dominique’s bags were packed.
‘I need to go away. It’ll be a few days, maybe more. I don’t know,’ she said.
‘Where are you going?’ he said, as he sat on the sofa, his hands on his knees. He seemed tired. A bit defeated. Like he already knew the answer to that question.
‘There’s new evidence showing Alexander didn’t lose his life in that crash. I need to find out; I need to go there and make sure. You understand, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know if you can ask me to understand. I will not stop you, if that’s what you are worried about. But I can’t really understand or accept either. You’re chasing a ghost. You’ve been chasing a ghost for years and it’s been weighing heavily on me. On us. Our family. You are here, but you’re never truly, fully here.’
It wasn’t the first time he had heard from her over the years that she thought Alexander was alive. And, in a way, she had hoped Vincent somehow learned to accept the idea as one of her oddities. But, hearing the pain in his voice, she realized how hard it must’ve been for him to keep hearing she loved another man, even though he was there, next to her, and the other man was nowhere, dead by all accounts.
‘You can’t fight ghosts, Dominique. I’ve tried for many years but I’ve failed miserably.’
‘Vincent, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to hurt you. It’s just—’
He stopped her. ‘Look. I will not stand in the way of what you believe.
Not because I don’t want to, but because I realize that if I do, I risk losing you for good.’
He held his head in his hands, quiet for a few moments.
He sighed. ‘If you want to get it out of your system, go! Go, find out what you need to find and end this already. But I want you to promise that when you come back, we put this behind us and if you do decide to give us a chance, it’ll be a real chance. I can’t compete with ghosts, but I am here, and I love you and Anne, and I will do everything I can to make you happy.’
‘I know you will, and I love you too,’ she said, then suddenly it dawned on her. If she loved him, then why was she leaving him to go chase an illusion? The answer was as simple as it was a heartbreaking realization. Because she loved the illusion more. Because she had never let Alexander go. Because maybe some ‘ones’ are more than others.
Vincent smiled sadly, almost as if he’d heard her thoughts.
‘Who knows? This trip and the time apart might be good for us. Maybe then we’ll finally be able to start our life together,’ he said sadly.
Dominique hugged him, grabbed her bags and left, not knowing what awaited her once she stepped outside of her home.
*
‘Grandpa Vincent’s always loved you, hasn’t he? Even when you didn’t love him back?’
‘He was a patient man. He did everything he could to make up for his mistakes and, through the years, through all my searches, he never stopped being kind and loving. And I loved him too. I wasn’t lying when I said it. I just didn’t love him like he deserved to be loved.’
DOMINIQUE
12 DECEMBER 1969
LE HAVRE
Dominique took the night train and arrived in Le Havre early in the morning. It pained her to be there again; in that place that brought back incredibly distressing memories of a dark and confusing time when all she had loved was taken away from her in an instant.
She went straight to the hospital and asked to see Dr Thomas, the doctor she had talked to after the plane crash.
Minutes later, she came over to talk to Dominique.
‘We met five years ago,’ said Dominique.
‘I’m sorry,’ the doctor said. ‘I don’t remember. How can I help you?’
‘I wanted to ask you a few questions about a former patient, one of the survivors of Sainte-Adresse,’ said Dominique, allowing herself to feel hopeful again.
‘That was a long time ago, but I’ll do my best. Which patient?’ she asked.
‘A man in his twenties. Dark hair, tall. I believe he ran away from the hospital a few days after the plane crash.’
‘Oh, I remember, yes. Are you family or a journalist? We’ve had several reporters come by in the last few days. With the fifth anniversary and all.’
‘Journalist.’ Last time when she said she wasn’t family, everyone refused to talk to her. So she had to lie.
‘I didn’t know his story made the papers.’
Dominique didn’t respond. ‘What happened to him? Did you find him?’
She was trying to make it all sound like professional curiosity, asking questions as she imagined a journalist would, but she was having a hard time restraining her nervous energy.
‘We looked everywhere in the hospital and searched the grounds. And I know that a few phone calls were made to inquire about him, but we didn’t find him.’
‘What about the police? Didn’t they get involved?’
‘The police? No. Not then anyway.’
‘What do you mean not then?’
‘A few weeks later, a gendarme discovered the body of a man who died of hypothermia a couple of kilometers away, on the side of the road. We all thought it was the missing patient and many of us felt guilty for not searching for him more. But the police identified the man as a local homeless person, and the case closed on that one.’
Dominique breathed, relieved. It wasn’t him. There was still hope.
‘Is there any way he could’ve survived, in your opinion?’ asked Dominique.
‘It’s hard to say. Not likely, I am afraid.’ She looked pensive. ‘I mean, he was hurt, with no papers, no money, on foot in the middle of winter. The odds were stacked up against him.’
‘If you knew all this, why didn’t you search for him? How could you just leave Alexander out there like an unwanted dog?’
‘We had a lot to deal with those days. Our hospital was over capacity. As much as we felt bad about his situation, a lot of other patients needed us. And, after all, he left of his own accord. Even if we would’ve found him, we had no right to forcibly keep him here—’
The doctor stopped talking suddenly. ‘Alexander? That was his name?’
‘Is, not was. Is his name. Alexander Roberts, yes.’
Dominique was furious and frustrated. What kind of doctors left a patient wandering out in the cold in his condition?
‘Alexander Roberts,’ the doctor repeated, then without any explanation went to the front desk, opened a drawer and started going through files.
Dominique was confused.
‘Aha. I knew I had seen that name before. Alexander Roberts. You must be mistaken, mademoiselle. Alexander Roberts is not the man who ran from the hospital; that would be impossible, because Alexander Roberts died on impact in the crash.’
Oh, how much it hurt to hear those words again. But they weren’t anything new. They said he died; she said he didn’t. And just like always in the last five years, she went on her rant. She knew it by heart.
‘You have no proof that the man you identified as Alexander Roberts was indeed him. I was told his body was—’
She tried to be strong.
‘His body was beyond recognition. Nobody could actually identify him. That man could’ve been anyone. Any other man you mixed up on the passenger list. There were quite a few unaccounted for. I don’t need to hear this again. I know it all too well. You have no proof.’
‘That’s incorrect. There was an investigation done, I can assure you. It’s him, mademoiselle. It says here, in the file: he matched the physical description we got from the police – approximate age, height, hair color.’ She flipped a page. ‘And we found his passport and other papers in the jacket he was wearing.’
‘This must be a mistake,’ Dominique said, feeling faint. ‘You’re wrong.’
The doctor took out a few papers from the folder. ‘We have copies of his documents,’ she said and showed them to Dominique. Copies of his passport, his business card from AngeD’Art, a photo of his wallet.
Dominique was shaking. She had tears in her eyes.
‘He’s gone,’ whispered Dominique. ‘The dream didn’t mean anything. None of the dreams meant anything. It’s all a lie. It’s all—’ She stopped, unable to breathe. ‘They were all right and I was wrong. How could I have been so wrong?’
‘Mademoiselle,’ said the doctor, concerned.
Dominique took one look at her, then darted out of the hospital, running until her legs failed her, until the physical pain was greater than the mental anguish and she couldn’t cry anymore.
*
‘It wasn’t him. So he died after all,’ says Valerie and her voice is so sad, it breaks my heart all over.
‘So many people had told me that Alexander was dead, yet I persisted in my belief they were wrong. That time, though, I’d reached the end of the road. Yes, a man had survived, just as I thought, but it wasn’t my Alexander. It was just a random man. I had nothing else to go on. Was it time? Time to put an end to the suffering I had caused myself and the people around me? How many times did I lose Alexander over the years? How many times did I have my heart broken into millions of pieces? How many nights did I cry myself to sleep? I didn’t regret trying, I was right to believe, but it was time to stop. I remember walking down the street, looking back at the house and feeling a huge part of my life, the most important part, was ending. A part I’d wished, hoped and prayed would last forever. It was over and I had to accept that it doesn’t always end with happily ever
after. I had to break my promise and “give up on us” to save what was left of my life. But Alexander had broken his promise too… He was not coming back to me.’
Valerie is in tears. I pat her hand and she attempts a smile.
PART IX
‘There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists or simulate it where it does not.’ — François de La Rochefoucauld
ANTHONY PELTZ
9 DECEMBER 1973
CAMBRIDGE
‘Cheers all for tuning in on 106.7 this fine day. It’s Sunday, ten past six – time to look back at the week in history,’ said a chirpy voice on the radio.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked Mary.
‘Confident. If all else fails, I’ll use my charm,’ said Anthony, and smiled, knowing that wasn’t what she meant. She worried about him, especially around the holidays, although he’d stopped mentioning the dreams a while back and did his best to pretend everything was fine.
Anthony watched Mary move around the kitchen, getting everything ready with the precision of a Swiss clock. He smiled.
‘What would I do without you?’ he asked and winked.
‘You’d be just fine,’ she said returning the smile. ‘You know you would.’
Mary had been the one constant in Anthony’s life ever since he moved to Cambridge five years ago and he wasn’t exaggerating when he said he’d be lost without her. She was his assistant, his friend, his mother, his confidante, the shoulder he cried on. Mary cooked for him, cleaned his house, helped him with his work, did his shopping, washed his laundry, and when he felt lonely or tired, she stood by his side, comforting him.
In her late sixties, but with the energy of a twenty-year-old, she was a war widow who, just like Anthony, had had to reinvent herself and build a new life from nothing. She had helped him in too many ways to count because she knew it had been hard for him all those years, but she didn’t know how hard. Anthony tried to shelter her from the darkest corners of his mind, from the thoughts that still kept him up at night and tormented him.