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out de son nez et ses boucles blondes que venait animer un pâle rayon
du soleil levant; il la serra étroitement dans ses bras sans qu’elle s’éveillât,
puis ferma les yeux, devenu en cet instant l’égal de lui-même et l’amant
le plus constant que la jeune femme aurait jamais.
THE 25TH OF October, 1992, was a very nice day, neither too
cool nor too hot. It would have been perfect for a stroll
across Centennial Park, or even a long, nostalgic walk on
the shores of Botany Bay. Jacques had done most of the marking before
the accident, a couple of his colleagues would share the burden of reading
a few late essays and the three Honours theses he had been supervising
this year. Since the opening of the new tunnel, traffic flew a lot better
both ways between North and South. You could almost imagine Claudia
Valentine aboard her old Daimler trailing an unsuspecting Dragonhead
at a safe distance, from Cabramatta to North Sydney. On the Spit bridge
there was no trace of blood, not a single splinter of windscreen glass or
orange blinkers. The DMR had become very efficient lately at clearing
debris. In another world close at hand, it would smell airy and healthy
sailing toward the open sea on one of the slim yachts moored in Pearl
Bay and Middle Harbour.
Margaret had flown from Perth, Jenny from Melbourne, Freddy
Jennings from Brisbane. Babette Northrop, Peter Brower, Hubert
Jeannot, Juri Kupka were all there, with a good number of Jacques’
former students, including Marele Day, Maureen Meagre, Andrew Young...
Joël, Sylvie, John Silverman, the Robinson and the Duplantier families
formed a thick, meaningful group of their own. It was quite a little crowd
on the beach who silently watched Kathy empty the urn in the light
breeze at the edge of the Long Reef cliff and then throw it into the sea.
The girl broke down after that, Ginette and Wolf carried her away. Few
people knew about M., nobody was shocked that she was nowhere to be
seen. Only Peter thought he could make out the shape of that old light
in the glimmer of the sun, still high in the sky above the dark skyline of
Collaroy Plateau. He said to Margaret, who happened to be standing in
the sand next to him: “It seems that ‘l’impardonnable’ has caught up
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