Isabelle D’Anjou—Roger Bolduc

Isabelle D’Anjou—Roger Bolduc is a marriage marked in the novel’s later episodes by absence and uncertainty: Roger disappears in New York during the 2001 attacks, while Isabelle remains within the family’s public and private aftermath. Their connection resurfaces through Loïc’s chance recognition of Isabelle in Varadero and her later news that a cameo has been recovered in New York, linking the missing husband’s fate to the family’s still-unsettled story of the object without resolving either mystery.

Marriage and Roger’s Disappearance

Isabelle is identified as Roger Bolduc’s wife when Loïc recognizes her in a Varadero nightclub in March 2003. The narrative presents her as a widow by then, but the evidence here gives no account of their marriage’s beginnings or of the circumstances in which she learned that Roger was missing. What it does establish is the rupture at the center of their relationship: Roger disappeared in New York in 2001, during the attacks on the World Trade Center. That disappearance returns to public view amid the scandal surrounding the D’Anjou family. A journalist unearths Roger’s case, and its exposure adds another shock to the family’s troubles. The novel stresses the gap between the facts and the scale of the resulting uproar: the story of Roger’s disappearance broadens the controversy and draws further attention to the family, but does not disclose what happened to him.

Isabelle in Varadero

Two years after Roger’s disappearance, Loïc recognizes Isabelle among the dancers at a nightclub in Varadero. Her auburn hair first catches his attention; when the shifting lights briefly reveal her face, he realizes that the woman is his cousin, the judge’s daughter and Roger’s wife. The recognition makes an ordinary holiday scene suddenly carry the weight of family loss and unresolved questions. Loïc is in Varadero with Laurence, having gone to escape the March gloom for Caribbean sunshine. He hesitates to approach Isabelle: she appears to be enjoying herself with a young Cuban man, and he does not want to intrude on what may be a romance or make Laurence uncomfortable by abruptly bringing an unfamiliar cousin into their holiday. The encounter therefore remains an act of recognition and restraint, rather than a conversation that clarifies Isabelle’s circumstances or Roger’s fate.

The Cameo and the Continuing Uncertainty

Later, Isabelle calls Loïc with news that a cameo has been found in New York and that she has just received it in Québec City. She says it appears intact, having survived the explosions, fire, and collapse of the towers. The report astonishes Loïc and reopens his interest in the cameo after he had largely turned away from its fate since becoming a couple with Laurence. The recovery does not settle the object’s identity or history. Loïc considers whether there might be two cameos, one genuine and one false, or whether American police recovered the stolen cameo that had spent time in Cuba. Isabelle’s news thus reconnects her and Roger’s New York story to the family’s mystery, but only by placing another unexplained fact beside the first: Roger remains missing, while the cameo has apparently emerged intact from the same catastrophe.