Jules paused and lit a cigarette with a shaky hand. He inhaled, his cheeks collapsed from the effort, and he looked more skeletal than ever. And dazed too, Stanislas thought, alarmed. Without his Anna beside him, he appeared terribly alone and lost. After another puff he said, “Let’s go.”
They were the first words he had uttered since he had arrived hours ago. They were the few words Stanislas had heard that afternoon. Anna’s death had stunned most into the silence of disbelief.
A EuropaNews film crew finished packing their equipment into their van. A Mercedes idled next to it, and its chauffeur had hopped out and pulled open the rear door. Jules crouched, gripped Stanislas’s hand for support, bobbed his little head down, then pulled in one leg, finally the other. The limousine drove awa
