THE BOMB, OR BOMBS, not nuclear, but powerful enough to cause massive damage, went off in the first arrondissement, near the Louvre. The entire area, a maze of lanes and dead-end streets, was nearly flattened. Close to a thousand people died immediately, or at least within a few seconds. The terrible multiple explosions were heard, and felt, all over Paris.
The Louvre suffered only minor damage from the blasts, but the three-block area covering rue de Marengo, rue de l’Oratoire and rue Bailleul was almost completely destroyed. As was a nearby bridge—a small one—crossing the Seine.
A bridge. Another bridge. In Paris this time.
Not a word of explanation was heard from the Wolf. He didn’t take credit for the wanton and despi
cable act, nor did he deny it.
He didn’t need to explain his actions, did he? He thought he was God.
There are other supremely arrogant people who labor inside our government in Washington, and also some who work in the national media, who believe that they can accurately predict what will happen in the future because they know, or think they know, what happened in the past. I suspect it’s the same in Paris, London, Tel Aviv, and everywhere else in the world: all these basically intelligent, maybe even well-intentioned people who proclaim, “That couldn’t happen,” or “Here’s how it would happen in the real world.” As if they really know. But they don’t know. Nobody knows.
All bets are off nowadays. Anything can happen, and sooner or later, it probably will. We don’t seem to be getting any smarter as a species, just crazier and crazier. Or at the very least, a whole lot more dangerous. Unbelievably, unbearably more dangerous.
Or maybe that was just my mood as I flew back from Paris. A terrible, terrible tragedy had occurred there after all. The Wolf had won, if what he did could be called winning, and it hadn’t even been a close contest.
A power-mad Russian gangster had adopted the tactics of terrorism, or so it seemed. He was better than we were—more organized, more cunning, and far more brutal when he needed results. I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d had a victory in our battle with the Wolf and his forces. He was smarter. I just prayed that it was over now. Could it be? Or was it another calm before another storm? I couldn’t bear to think about that possibility.
I arrived home a little before three on a Thursday afternoon. The kids were back; Nana had never left Fifth Street. When I got there I insisted on cooking dinner, wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was what I needed: cook a good meal, talk to Nana and the kids about anything we wanted to talk about, get lots of hugs. Not have a single thought about what had happened in Paris, or the Wolf, or any kind of police work.
So I made my interpretation of a French-style dinner and I even spoke French with Damon and Jannie while the meal was being prepared. Jannie set the dining table with Nana’s silver, cloth napkins, a lace tablecloth that we used only for special occasions. The meal? Langoustines rôties brunoises de papaye poivrons et oignons doux—prawns with papaya, peppers, and onions. For a main course, chicken stew in a sweet red wine sauce. We drank small glasses of wine with the meal, a delightful Minervois, and ate with enthusiasm.
But for dessert—brownies and ice cream. I was back in America, after all.
I was home, thank God.
Chapter 90
HOME AGAIN, home again.
The next day I didn’t go to work and the kids stayed out of school. It seemed to satisfy everybody’s needs, even Nana Mama’s, who encouraged us all to play hooky. I called Jamilla a couple of times, and talking to her helped, as it always did, but something seemed off between us.
For our day of hooky-playing I took the kids on a day trip to St. Michaels, Maryland, which is situated on Chesapeake Bay. The village turned out to be a lively snapshot of quaint, coastal charm: a thriving marina, a couple of small inns with rockers set out on the porches, even a lighthouse. And the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where we got to watch real shipwrights working on a skipjack restoration. It felt as though we were back in the nineteenth century, which didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
After lunch at the Crab Claw Restaurant we embarked on an actual skipjack charter. Nana Mama had taken her school classes there many times over the years, but she stayed home this trip, protesting that she had too much work to do around the house. I only hoped she was really feeling okay. I still remembered the way she used to teach her students on the field trips, so I took over as the guest lecturer.
“Jannie and Damon, this is the last fleet of working sailing vessels in North America. Can you imagine? These ships have no winches, just manpower and blocks and tackles. The fishermen are called watermen,” I told them, just as Nana had told her classes years before.
Then off we went on the Mary Merchant for a two-and-a-half-hour cruise into the past.
The captain and his mate showed us how to hoist a sail with a block and tackle, and soon we had caught a breeze with a loud whoosh and the rhythmic smack of waves against the hull. What an afternoon it was. Gazing up at a sixty-foot mast made from a single log shipped all the way from Oregon. The smells of salt air, linseed oil, residual oystershells. The closeness of my two eldest children, the look of trust and love in their eyes. Most of the time, anyway.
We passed stands of pine woods, open fields where tenant farmers raised corn and soybean, and great white-columned estates that had once been plantations. I almost felt as if I were back in another century and it was a good break, much needed R & R. Only a couple of times did I drift into thoughts of police work, but I quickly pulled myself back.
I half listened as the captain explained that “only boats under sail” can dredge for oysters—except twice a week, when engine-powered yawls were allowed on the bay. I suspected that it was a clever conservation ploy to make the watermen work hard for their oysters; otherwise, the supply might run out.
What a fine day—as the boat heeled to starboard, the boom swung out, the mainsail and jib filled the air with a loud smack, and Jannie, Damon, and I squinted into the setting sun. And we understood, for a little while anyway, that this had something to do with the way life was supposed to be lived, and maybe even why such moments needed to be cherished and remembered.
“Best day of my life,” Jannie told me. “I’m not even exaggerating too much.”
“Same here,” I said. “And I’m not exaggerating at all.”
Chapter 91
WHEN WE GOT home early that evening I saw a scuffed-up white van parked in front of the house. I recognized the bright green logo on the door: HOMECARE HEALTH PROJECT. What was this? Why was Dr. Coles there?
Suddenly I was nervous that something had happened to Nana while I was out with the kids. The fragile state of her health had been on my mind more and more lately; the reality that she was in her mid-eighties now, though she wouldn’t tell exactly how old she was, or rather, she lied about it. I hurried out of the car and up the front steps ahead of the kids by a couple of strides.