“The hole? Two years, give or take.”
“You were only nineteen. A boy.”
“I was old enough.”
Simon went on to tell Nikki how the worst experience in his life had turned into the best, all because of one man.
The monsignor.
He related the miracle Paul Deschutes, SJ, had wrought, a lifetime of education in one year, days that were too long, suddenly not long enough. The new and ineffable joy of learning. The wonderment of knowledge for knowledge’s sake and the power that came with it. Eureka. Simon had found his purpose.
“What happened to him?” Nikki asked, her eyes lit with Simon’s enthusiasm. “Did you stay in touch after he got out?”
“He didn’t get out. He was sick. He knew he was dying. I never saw him after I was let out.”
Simon slowed as he drove through the commune of Rognac. To their right, an inland lake, the Étang de Berre, spread to the horizon. They crested a hill, and he could see the Mediterranean, twenty miles in the distance.
“Then Coluzzi showed up. I can’t remember what he’d done. All that time I’d dreamed how I was going to kill him. It was the thought of revenge that had kept me alive until I met the monsignor. But when I saw him, I couldn’t do it. The monsignor wouldn’t have allowed it. The last day we were together in the yard, one of those Sundays, he told me he had no one else in the world. His daughter had died ten years earlier. He hadn’t seen her mother since long before that. He said I was the only one he had left. I remember him looking at me…looking into me with his blue eyes…he told me he had only one thing of value to give anyone. It was in a safe deposit box in a bank in London. He didn’t have the key. He couldn’t remember the box number, just the name and branch of the bank. He told me that it was very valuable, that it would, in effect, leave me rich for life. Before we went back inside to our cells, he made me promise that I would find a way to open the box and take possession of what belonged to me.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“How?”
“There was really only one way. I went to college. I earned my degree in economics. I applied for a job at the bank. I made sure I was assigned to the private banking department. Even then, I had to work for years before I could gain access to the files that showed which box was his and to convince someone to break the rules and open it for me.”
“But you managed it? You opened the box.”
“I did.”
Simon narrowed his eyes, remembering the moment, standing alone in the small, cramped room deep in the ground beneath the bank. From one cell to another, he’d thought. For a while he sat on the hard metal chair, staring at the box, afraid to open it. Afraid of being disappointed. Afraid of discovering something that would change his life just when it was the way he liked it. Mostly, he realized he was afraid of all that the box represented. It was, after all, the end of his journey with the monsignor.
And then, remembering that his colleague was waiting for him, and that he was due back at his desk in a few minutes’ time, and he must prepare for a client arriving just after lunch, he inserted the key, gave a crisp turn to the right, and opened it.
“Well?” asked Nikki. “What was inside?”
“Nothing. The box was empty.”
“Empty? There was nothing in it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But he lied to you. He said it would leave you rich for life.”
“It did.”
For a moment Nikki didn’t answer. Simon looked at her and saw the disappointment in her eyes. Like everyone, she had expected a different ending.
“Don’t you see?” he continued. “The box held my future. Its contents had given me purpose, a goal to strive for. I had an education. I had a job with unlimited prospects. A career on the right side of the law. That empty deposit box made me richer than I ever could have imagined.”
“I think I see now.”
“It was like the book by Dumas. I had found my treasure. The rest was up to me.”
“So here you are.”
Simon nodded. He kept his eyes straight ahead, offering a prayer to whoever or whatever was listening, thanking them for putting the monsignor in his life. The road dipped and began the long descent into Marseille. Already he could see the tips of the apartment buildings on the northern edge of the city.
