The World Trade Center is the New York landmark whose towers collapse amid the attacks in which Roger Bolduc disappears. Though the location is recalled rather than described as a present-day scene, it becomes a point of connection between Roger’s unknown fate and a mystery from Loïc’s childhood in Touladi.

The Site of Roger Bolduc’s Disappearance

In autumn 2001, Loïc is preoccupied with Roger Bolduc’s mysterious disappearance. He realizes that Roger had turned forty-two only days before the attacks in New York. The collapse of the World Trade Center towers is the circumstance in which Roger disappears, making the complex central to Loïc’s attempt to interpret what has happened to his cousin.

A Place Linked to an Earlier Mystery

The news draws Loïc’s attention back to an unexplained event in Touladi on September 11, 1959, just days after Roger’s birth. Loïc had been kept in Touladi by rubella and learned there that Grébiche had disappeared. The shared date does not explain either disappearance, but it makes the World Trade Center’s collapse echo an older, unresolved loss.

Retrospective Significance

The World Trade Center functions in this passage as both a real site of catastrophe and the starting point for Loïc’s retrospective recognition. Its collapse prompts him to connect Roger’s disappearance with the 1959 event and with Grébiche’s curse on the Bolduc family. The connection is presented through Loïc’s recollection and interpretation, not as proof that the events share a cause.