Beautiful(17)

Véronique read the letter several times, combing it for any overly personal references, or anything he might find offensive. It was a letter that even a secretary could have read. She wondered if he’d ever see it, or if he would welcome contact with her, but she knew she had to try, for her own sake and her mother’s. Her mother had finally disclosed who her father was, and Véronique had the feeling that she had opened that door so that Véronique could contact him if she wished, once her mother was gone. She sealed the letter carefully, and asked one of the nurses to mail it for her. She had included the date that she would be returning to Paris, and said that she had been at the airport with her mother, without providing any details of the injuries she had sustained herself. She didn’t want his pity, but she wanted a better sense of who he was. Her mother had referred to him as remarkable and extraordinary and said he was a wonderful man. Véronique wanted to know if it was true, and how he could have left them out of his life for so long. She guessed that his three children were at least twenty years older than she was, and she could easily have been his grandchild when she was born, and he could have been her mother’s father.



* * *



—

She spent her final days in the hospital doing practical things to prepare for when she got home. She bought a cellphone and reactivated her old number. She turned it on a few times, but there were no messages and it never rang. Since she was no longer modeling or active at her agency, it appeared as though everyone had forgotten her, which seemed just as well now. There was no longer any question of her modeling again. She was one of those tragic stories people would tell one day of the supermodel who had been blown up in a terrorist attack and never returned. The photographs of her would surface again now and then, as one of the biggest models of her day, with a brief career that lasted only a few years.

She wore the surgical mask when she went to buy her cellphone, and the salesman looked at her questioningly but didn’t comment. She felt like one of those neurotic women who were germophobes, but better that than the truth, that half of her face looked like something out of a horror movie. The doctors assured her that the brightness of the worst scars on her face would fade somewhat with time, but for the moment, after her most recent surgery, the scars were still very vivid. She tried not to look at herself in the mirror when she brushed her teeth or combed her hair, but her eyes always traveled there and she stared at her face, as though hoping that by magic it would have radically improved, or the scars be gone. She still found it hard to believe that she would look like that forever, but it was equally hard to believe that she would never see her mother again.

Bernard called a few days before she was due to leave the hospital, to make sure she was all right, and ask how she was getting home. He had offered to accompany her, although she knew he was very busy, and she had told him she preferred to make the trip alone.

Two days before she left, she had an answer from Cyril’s mother. It was measured and polite, and expressed her condolences for the loss of Véronique’s mother, but the letter wasn’t warm. Reading between the lines, she had the feeling that Lady Buxton blamed her for Cyril’s untimely death. If he hadn’t been with her, he wouldn’t have been in Brussels or anywhere near the attack. She said that his death had been a terrible shock for them, and an immeasurable loss. She expressed the hope that Véronique had recovered from her injuries. Everything about the letter was an example of good manners and good breeding, but there was nothing affectionate or even barely compassionate in it for the last woman in their son’s life. She was sure that his mother had asked herself the same question she had asked herself a thousand times. Why had she survived and he hadn’t? He didn’t deserve to die any more than any of the others, nor did she deserve the appalling injuries she had sustained. She had been to hell and back in the last six months, and still had a long way to go to recover from the trauma.

All of her psychiatrists had reservations about her going home, particularly with no one to go home to, and no family to support her through the inevitable difficulties she would face. But medically there was no longer any reason to keep her in the hospital, which was depressing for her too. Their overall decision was that she needed to get back into a more active life, to the degree she was able. She would have to return for further surgeries to effect some slight improvement to the scars on her face. There was still the potential risk that the shifting of any of the shrapnel still in her body could cause a life-threatening situation, but there was no way to predict that. They had done very little cosmetic work on the extensive scarring on her body, but Véronique had opted not to. She could always deal with that later, if she wanted to. The wounds were still very fresh. For now, she preferred to wear long-sleeve shirts and sweaters and trousers to conceal the scars on her body, rather than undergo additional surgeries. She said it didn’t matter to her. She wasn’t modeling anymore, and beauty was no longer a professional necessity, or of importance to her. The only scars that mattered to her were those on her face, so that she wouldn’t be so shockingly disfigured, but they were the ones they were the least able to improve. They had done their very best, but even they were disappointed by the results. The unmarked half of her face served as a cruel reminder to them as well as Véronique of how perfect and flawless her face had been before.

She made a point of visiting the other victims she had met in the hospital before she left, although she hadn’t gotten to know many of them very well. Most of them were too ill and damaged to leave their rooms, even six months after the explosion. She saw some of them occasionally in wheelchairs in the garden, missing limbs and accompanied by nurses. And for many months she hadn’t been well enough to leave her room either, after her constant surgeries.