And Valérie found herself obliged to reassure her: ‘No, of course not, I know you would never do anything like that!’ But her doubts remained.

They both ended up at the Sorbonne. Because Valérie refused to apply to Sciences-Po again, despite her parents’ encouragement. The wound had been too deep, and she couldn’t face waiting a whole year to get on with her life. And, in fact, she was happy at the Sorbonne. She’d just turned eighteen and she loved her new life, with its oceans of free time. At least the first few months had gone quite well, Valérie told me. She became close to her sister again, and it was almost the way it had been during their adolescence. Stéphanie passed on the previous year’s class notes and helped her. It was handy, having a big sister who’d already cleared the way for her. But one day, there was a photocopy missing in the folder Stéphanie gave her, and Valérie’s life was changed forever.

She couldn’t stop thinking about that missing page. It was like a blank page in a story: an absence that makes it impossible to fully understand the succession of events. She went to her sister’s bedroom in search of that page. Stéphanie’s room was so neat and tidy; she was a methodical person, with a tendency to keep everything. Was that why she’d kept the proof of her crime? It made no sense. Unless, perhaps, she subconsciously wanted to be found out? A way of confessing her sins. In any case, when she discovered the delivery receipt for her invitation to the Sciences-Po oral exam at the bottom of a drawer, Valérie fainted. She lay there on the floor for a long time, unconscious. When she came to, she went to the bathroom and took a long shower; she needed to wash away what she’d learned.

She wished she could hide her discovery to avoid the consequences, but that proved impossible. Her face told the story. Her mother asked her what was wrong, and Valérie had no choice but to reveal the truth. That evening, there was a long discussion between the two sisters and their parents. White-faced, Stéphanie tried to justify what she’d done. It was an impulse, she said, beyond her control. Valérie pointed out that the months of lying afterwards could hardly be explained as an impulse; indeed, they were proof of a remarkably cool head. Stéphanie begged for her sister’s forgiveness; and Valérie would probably reach that point one day, but nothing could alter the seriousness of what had happened. Something between them had been broken. For now, Valérie refused to speak to her sister, and Stéphanie left France a few months later.

They had seen each other only once since then: at their father’s funeral.

Valérie admitted to me that she hardly ever talked about this subject. Back then, many of their mutual friends had tried to reconcile them, in vain. Everyone had attempted to understand what Stéphanie had done, even finding excuses for it. But it was all over. Her mother kept her updated on Stéphanie’s life, but Valérie felt nothing as she listened to news of her sister. That was perhaps the most awful sensation, in fact: that numbness. She felt no bitterness or anger; nothing more than a vague nostalgia for the time when they had still been close. Stéphanie had tried on several occasions to make peace; she’d sent gifts for Lola’s birth, and then for Jérémie’s, but Valérie had not replied; she couldn’t say ‘thank you’ to her sister.