The Forest Secret - Chapter 4
Sandra had uploaded to her phone everything the research department could find on the fire and the identity of tour guide that had died tragically. It wasn’t much. She had read through it all even before she boarded the direct flight from JFK airport to Charles De Gaulle in Paris.
But the flight had given her time to think. The paper’s travel department had managed to secure Charley an upgrade and she now felt a little woozy from the delicious red wine that accompanied the Beef Bourguignon and cooked vegetables. Now halfway across the Atlantic, all she wanted to do was sleep.
Yet her mind kept churning. Charley knew she had lucked into the dream assignment, the kind any good reporter would have craved. The chances of writing a long piece on the old man and the fire was something no newspaper would have assigned or funded. The Times Sunday Magazine had earned its reputation in its earlier years with accounts like this, however - before it had become more of a fashion and style magazine than anything else. It had worked until all the other competitors came along, some of them online and very hungry for success. Fortunately, people like Sandra had read the tea leaves and positioned the magazine back to its historic strength. It was now being viewed once more as a powerhouse of prose - talented writers determined to use words to convey what images and video couldn’t
She smile to herself, realizing that she was part of it and that what she would write in the next week or so would beep to the standards the magazine had been known for. It was a good feeling.
Which wasn’t bad for someone in her forties. She had received attention even in her final year at Emerson College, when she was awarded the George Polk award for journalism for her writing on the lonely deaths frequently suffered by women channeled into human trafficking in America’s major cities. It was unusual for someone still in college to be recognized, but her writing had been of such a high level that the selection committee knew they little choice but to recognize talent like that, even in one so young. By the time she graduated from Emerson College in Boston, the New York Times had already approached her and brought her on staff. She never worked anywhere else except for the Times, and now she was elevated to its Sunday magazine.
Charley instinctively understood that this story of the old guide and the cathedral fire wouldn’t be her most important work, but something in the way Sandra had phrased it - the love affair between a guide and the ancient structure - had fired her imagination, making her desire the assignment.
By the time they arrived on the de Gaulle tarmac she was tired, having drifted in and out of slumber for the last four hours of the trip. After clearing Customs, she hailed a small yellow taxi that took her on the lengthy journey to downtown Paris and the Hotel Europe Saint Severin, only a five-minute walk from the great cathedral.
It was mid-morning by the time she entered her room - a boutique layout that she rather fancied, and with a view of Notre Dame and its charred ruins and Seine running its eternal course below.
Charley took the time to set up her laptop to the wi-fi network and plug in her iPhone to be fully charged. She unpacked her suitcase - a canvas affair that could expand with extra baggage and then fell into the delicious feeling bed. She looked out the window to see the giant towers of the cathedral and then quickly nodded off
She was surprised to see that the bedside clock was displaying the time as 6:10 p.m. She quickly rose, showered, and checked her computer. There were a number of emails from Sandra and Cliff, providing contact numbers and research assistance.
It paid to work for one of the world’s great newspapers. In 2013, the New York Timeshad purchased the International Herald Tribune,headquartered in Paris. By October 2016, the two offices - New York and Paris - were fully integrated, with the Paris edition being called The New York Times International Edition. For all intents and purposes, it would be just like working in her New York office - tho0ugh not quite as well resourced.
Prior to heading down for something to eat, Charley made the necessary calls to her European counterparts, arranging to be at the newspaper office downtown by the Seine at 9:45 the next morning. She placed all the numbers on her contact list for her iPhone and then headed for a walk close to the cathedral, perhaps finding a place to grab a quick bite to eat.
Once outside, she journeyed straight down the rue Saint Jacques in the old Latin Quarter until she reached the quay by the Seine, only a block away. There, directly across the river stood the hulking remains of the great cathedral. Any floodlights that had once illuminated its impressive superstructure were shut down, leaving the building’s eerie presence dominating the entire area like some kind of spectre, it lifeless eyes scanning all before it. She tried to cross the narrow bridge over the Seine but it had been blocked off, with yellow-vested police officers making sure that gawkers understood that it was still a fire scene and under investigation. She took some photos with her phone to get some bearings and then thought to walk around the perimeter to see the damage from all sides.
It was only then that she realized the entire edifice had been constructed on an island in the middle of the Seine. For clarification, she looked it up on her phone and learned that the small island was called Île de la Citéand that construction on the cathedral had begun there in 1163 and was completed in 1345.
Charley spent the better part of an hour gazing at the charred structure from across the river, surprised that she knew so little of such a famous place. Like many Americans, she had been to Paris previously and had even taken photos of the cathedral from a tour boat that had passed beneath its towers. But she had been young, more interested in the boys of her tour group than anything that had happened hundreds of years previous. She shook her head at her impetuousness. Where those photos were now she had no idea.
Eventually, she moved away from the Seine and took a quaint side street back to the hotel. Once in the room, she jotted a few notes into her laptop before the jet lag began causing her eyes to droop. She closed the lid and slid under the glorious comforter. Only then did she realize that she overlooked getting something to eat. It didn’t matter; she was sound asleep within a minute.