“Oh hell” Marcus snapped and slid a thick envelope across the table to the chair where Alex was sitting. “At least you won’t be some damn backpacking hippie in jeans and sandals. If you are going to do this, do it with some style.”
Alex opened the envelope while thinking that the backpack approach would have been fine with him. Examining the contents he could see that a better alternative had just become available. Airline ticket, first class from San Francisco to New York to Paris, a nice stack of hundred dollar bills and an American Express credit card in his name. The only thing tempering Alex’s pleasure at the prospect of his long anticipated journey was the galling realization that he would now have to express some appreciation to his father. He did not actually grit his teeth but the temptation to do so did pass through his mind.
“Thank you, Father” Alex’s voice was flat. If there was no hostility in his words neither was there any overt warmth. “This is quite generous of you.”
“Damn right it is” Marcus responded with a note of triumph. “I just hope that when you come back you will be ready to do something serious with your life.”
Well, so much for the heartfelt exchange, Alex thought. He caught a glimpse of Christie standing behind Marcus just as he was about to snap off a response. She subtly shook her head. Let it go, she was telling him. Let your father win this one.
If Marcus had known when to stop, Alex might have accepted Christie’s telepathic advice. Unfortunately, Marcus rarely knew when to stop, particularly when dealing with his son. “Hang on to some of that cash. The whores in Paris don’t take credit cards.”
Alex folded his hands, raised his forefinger to a peak and thoughtfully touched his chin as if engaged in profound reflection. “And you know that how, Father?”
Before Marcus could respond, Christie lightly cleared her throat. Startled by the sound, Marcus looked over his shoulder and then back at his son who allowed a taunting smile to flash across his face. With an incoherent rasp, part angry growl and part frustrated embarrassment, Marcus turned and stormed away. Christie looked at Alex with an air of weary resignation. She shook her head once before winking at him, following Marcus out of the room.
The verbal blows the Mckenzies, Pere et filis, threw at each other hit hardest when they struck on areas of concealed truth. In that regard, Marcus had probably won the most recent exchange. His insight into Alex’s motivation for his European excursion was far closer to reality than Alex cared to admit. Tourists of all ages went to France, everyone went to Paris. A trip of the type he was planning was almost cliche in nature. There was no reason to think it had anything to do with a personal fantasy as Marcus claimed.
Of course it did, Alex thought, as he sorted again through the contents of his . . . how should he characterize it? His graduation gift or a get out of jail free card? The trip ,as he envisioned it, was not so much a pilgrimage as an attempted exorcism. Sitting alone in his room in the dark gray shadows of a sleepless night, feeling the crushing pain of a longing that could never be fulfilled, he had more than once acknowledged to himself, if to no one else, that there was something profoundly unsettling in his continuing fascination with Mireille Marchand. Why could he not put her out of his mind? Why did she haunt him?
Finally, he had concluded that the remedy for his obsession might lie in the physical world where she had lived. He would walk the ground she had walked, touch the things she had touched, see the place where the fatal car accident had occurred, and perhaps put flowers on her grave. If he could to those things, he might transform her from a possessing spirit into just another human being. Perhaps, if he could see her as simply a lovely and promising young actress who had tragically died too young, then she might fade from his mind. The passage of time would claim her as it did all old memories. She would let go of his heart.
Except that it had not worked. If anything, strolling through the streets of the 11th Arrondisment north of the Seine, particularly the Quartier Saint Ambroise where she had lived when she first came to Paris just after her eighteenth birthday, had only tightened her hold on him. A small wine bar on the Rue Oberkampf had photographs of her on the wall. Giles Paiget, the fashion photographer who had discovered her on an Avignon street corner and who reputedly had become her first lover had taken the pictures. He had photographed her on the narrow streets around the Quartier and in the more expansive area of the Place de Bastille. Her exquisite beauty had been there in the beginning. In the later photographs Mckenzie could sense the growing sophistication in her eyes as her days in Paris were passing. It was not cynicism, but rather a sparkling and mature reflection of her happiness in experiencing an exciting new world.
Reluctantly, he moved on to the TGV high speed train to Lyon. Racing through the French countryside on this sparking new innovation - the Paris to Lyon line had only opened in 1981, he experienced the intoxicating sensation of flying without leaving the ground. He could have actually flown if he had chosen - fly to Avignon or to Marseille but Lyon was to be the starting point for his driving excursion. After renting the car, he started south on the A7, the principal highway to Avignon. At Valence, he turned east and followed the road toward Grenoble for almost twenty miles before turning south again.
It was only a short drive from there to St. Aubert. At another time, he might have found it worth further exploration. The hand-carved stones of a medieval castle dating from the late 14th century rose up on the outskirts of the village. The streets were narrow and joined at a picturesque cobblestone square in the town center. A few art galleries and restaurants bespoke an interest, but not an obsession, in attracting tourists.
She had started her last trip from here. According to the newspapers, she had left at approximately 3:00 a.m. driving south. The fatal crash had occurred nearly 45 minutes later. Now he was retracing her steps following her toward that final rendezvous with an unkind fate. The beams, bright from the bright September sun, were only slightly deflected by a few random clouds in the deep blue sky. The road twisted and turned, rose and fell as it snaked through a rich variety of olive groves, vineyards, forests and well-tilled farms. As lovely as it was, Mckenzie could not free himself from a gnawing curiosity. Why had she come this way? Why drive this curving road in the dark? If she was in a hurry to return to Avignon to catch a morning flight, why not go back to Valence and pick up the main highway?
The questions in his mind grew when he reached the point where her rented auto had spun off the road. He might have missed it if he had not been carefully monitoring the accumulation of kilometers on his car’s speedometer. The press accounts had been sufficiently specific and detailed. This undistinguished spot on a minor rural roadway had been the scene of her death.
Mckenzie stopped his car beside the road and got out. On one side of the highway a hay field rolled up to the edge of the pavement. There was no height variance on that side. A car leaving the road in that direction would simply have ground to a stop in the soft soil of the field. Her car, however, had gone off on the other side. The land there was unimproved and almost raw in appearance. It sloped precipitously down into a small valley-like depression. A twisted collection of trees, bushes, untamed weeds and rocks had apparently dissuaded any effort to exploit this area for agriculture. It had been left as little more than wasteland.
He stood on the roadside looking down into that tangled morass and shuddered. His plan to go down to find the resting point of her car was abandoned. He simply could not generate the will, could not force his body to walk down that slope.
Why here? The road approaching this point had been winding and twisting but a quarter of a mile back it suddenly uncurled into a long stretch of perfectly straight highway. This segment continued for almost another quarter of a mile ahead before it began a long swooping curve to the south. She had been traveling for less than an hour. She shouldn’t have been overly tired or sleepy. She had driven in the dark past other places where a loss of control would have been much more likely. Why here?
The Cemetery of Saint-Martin on the western side of Avignon was to be his last stop - the one he postponed as long as possible. Unfortunately, he had run out of time for delay. He had already turned