L'Affaire Read Online Free PDF Page B

used-looking tie of a boy who went to a boarding school somewhere.
    A profile emerged of the victim, for he was a relatively well-known figure, flamboyant for a publisher, and well off, perhaps rich, several times married. An Englishman who had founded, in the Luberon, the arty press Icarus, which had made its name at first, in the nineteen-fifties, by printing works not allowed in England, published by Maurice Girodias at the Olympia Press in Paris; later by introducing remarkable facsimiles of famous rare editions of Blake or Dalí or Breton or even Gutenberg.
    The victim was located by means of a glove that had floated on top of the crushing snow mass. He was not carrying his wallet, but his Barclay card was in the zipped pocket of his parka, and the twenty-four-hour help number was able to assist with details of his identity and give his rescuers an address in England, and this was the reason relatives in England had heard about it first and were already on their way. Barclay had not offered a way of finding which hotel he was staying in here in Valméri. Luckily, the skis, only one of which was found, were marked with the name of Jean Noir, a ski shop he had rented his equipment from. The trouble was, many hotels in the area used the services of this agency, so it had taken some time for the shop to track down the renter ...
    Yes, it was through the magic of the computer that relatives somewhere else heard first of the catastrophe that had befallen Venn.
    It was known there were older children, other wives. What a tragedy for them all. How unwise for a man of that age to be out skiing!
    There were other details, repeated from one party toanother around the room. ‘His face was covered with an ice carapace formed from his breath freezing; his breath had suffocated him.’
    ‘His hands were extended before him, as the sinners of Pompeii had tried to avert the fiery ash, or perhaps he had tried to claw against the filling trough of snow the force had tumbled him into.’
    ‘Beneath the icy mask his face had the congealed resignation of a mummy.’
    Kip took Harry up to Kerry and Adrian’s room, where the crib was, and stuffed his little limbs into some sort of too-small pajamas with feet. He didn’t know if Harry was too young for a story. He started to tell him ‘The Three Bears,’ but Harry wanted to climb down off his knee and wouldn’t listen, and began to run around. Kip plunked him into the crib, where he cried for a little while, without conviction, and fell asleep sucking his thumb. Kip supposed turning on the television would wake him up, so he sat there in semidarkness awhile in silence. But he didn’t like sitting there with his thoughts of Adrian and Kerry, remembering the horrible cauls of tube and mask over them. With a sense of life boiling downstairs, or ebbing in the hospital, when he thought it was safe, he tiptoed out and down to the comfortable stone-walled lounge, one floor below the lobby.
    Here in the center of the room stood a circular bar, from which waiters filled their trays, and around the perimeter, banquettes and low coffee tables invited the guests to loll or mingle. The walls were still festooned with pine branches from Christmas. It was here peoplestood around after dinner with their coffees, moving on to brandies, and beyond to whiskey sodas, and a small combo of musicians or a pianist played cocktail tunes and café oldies.
    Kip felt the friendly, pitying smiles. ‘Terrible thing,’ a man called out as he went by. ‘Reinhardt Kraus from Bremen,’ said another man, sunburned and bald, standing near him. ‘My wife, Berthilde. Terrible thing.’
    Everyone wanted to know what had happened, even though they seemed to know already, and when Kip began to tell what he knew, others drew nearer. ‘Still in the hospital. They have to thaw them out very slowly. My sister is still unconscious but she might be all right. My brother-in-law is not doing too well…’
    It was comforting but