PART V

FRANCE

35

The only direct flight to Europe was the Air France jumbo jet, and Lara soon found herself in Paris.

For months she avoided her usual hangouts. In the past she’d always stayed at the Ritz or the Plaza-Athenee, but she didn’t want to run into anyone she knew, anyone from what she considered her former life, the life she wanted nothing to do with ever again.

She lived at the small but charming Hotel Brighton, directly across the street of the Tuileries, those mile-long gardens behind the Louvre. It wasn’t quite the luxury she was used to, but it was far from unpleasant. Her suite on the fifth floor—it was the top floor, but she didn’t consider it high enough to think of it as a penthouse—possessed a pair of small balconies, and when she stood on either of them, she could not only see the Louvre and its glass pyramidal entrance, but also the d’Orsay, the Orangerie, the Place de la Concorde, and, far off to her right, the Arc de Triomphe. Not for nothing was Paris called the City of Light; at night the museums and government buildings were so bright that she could have read a book on one of the balconies.

It was an empty life, devoid of meaning or excitement. Whenever she saw someone she knew she would turn away and head off in an opposite direction. She never ate at Taillevant or Maxim’s or Arpege, those $200-a-plate restaurants that she used to frequent. Instead she went to local bistros like the Bar de l’x or Carr’s or Le Sablier.

When she ate she ate alone; when she shopped she shopped alone; even when she went to the opera, she went alone. There would be no more adventure for her, no more world traveling, no more hidden treasures that were never what they seemed—and no more friends dying simply because they had the misfortune to know her. She made no plans for the future. She lived her life one unhappy day at a time. Paris was as good as any other city; when it wasn’t, she’d move on.

One afternoon she took the tiny elevator down to the lobby of the Brighton, picked up her daily copy of Le Figaro from the desk, went out the door, turned to her right, walked about forty yards up the rue de Rivoli, and entered Angelina’s. It had become her daily ritual.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” the hostess greeted her. “I will take you to your usual table.”

“Merci,” Lara replied, falling into step behind her.

She sat down, ordered the espresso that had replaced tea in her affections, opened Le Figaro, and began scanning the various articles.

Then a name caught her eye, and she paused and read more carefully. One of the society columnists mentioned that Von Croy was in town. It was the one bright spot in her months of bitterness and isolation. Maybe she would pay him a visit. If anyone could assuage the pain and disillusionment she felt, could convince her that she was not responsible for her friend’s fall from grace, it was Von Croy. Yes, she’d definitely see him tonight.

She was just about to put the paper down when something else attracted her attention and she began reading avidly. It was an interview with Dr. Kevin Mason, the famed archaeologist. Toward the end he was questioned about the strange Circassian who had, for a time at least, masqueraded as his dead son. The man had walked boldly into the Seychelles Airport, claimed to be the reincarnation of the Mahdi, announced that nothing could kill him, demanded that he be supplied with a plane to the Sudan, and had actually wounded two of the guards who tried to subdue him before he was shot and killed. They later determined that he had killed more than a dozen men on Praslin Island that morning. Dr. Mason expressed his astonishment at the story, but knew no more details than the reporter did.

She placed a few euros on the table, folded the paper in half, and stood up. Suddenly she felt the need to visit with friends, to go to the theater, even to get out in the field again. Somehow the belated news of el-Shakir’s death had finally brought closure to her self-doubt, her crisis of faith. Yes, friends had died, and yes, friends would probably die again—but wasn’t that what soldiers had been doing for eons, to make the world a better and safer place?

“Pardonez-moi, madamoiselle,” said a Frenchman at a nearby table. “If you are through with your newspaper, I wonder if you might consider leaving it with me?”

“Help yourself,” she said, handing it to him.

“Is there anything interesting in it?” he asked.

“Not a thing,” said Lara, walking out into the humid Paris afternoon with a new spring to her stride.

Yes, she thought, feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, it was time to rejoin the world. Tonight she would take Von Croy out for the best dinner he’d ever had, and later, as he sipped his sherry, she would tell him a tale of intrigue and magic and murder that had begun more than a century ago.