I was more surprised by my father’s reaction than by the notion that my mother was off gallivanting somewhere. In the early 2000s, she had been involved with an NGO that was teaching young girls in Africa and she was often away from home, something that had never seemed to bother her husband.

“No,” Richard said. “We have guests coming over for dinner. She’d never leave me in the lurch like this.”

“If you’re really worried, you could start by calling the hospitals.”

“All right,” he grumbled.

By the time I hung up, I had finally reached the pedestrian area. The village of Biot was even more picturesque than I remembered. Although there were still vestiges of the Knights Templar here, the architecture owed more to people who had come from northern Italy. At this time of day, the ocher glow of the façades warmed the cobbled streets, giving the casual visitor the impression that he was strolling through an alleyway in Savona or Genoa.

The main street was lined with shops selling the usual wares of Provence (soaps, perfumes, handicrafts made from olive wood), but there were also galleries exhibiting the work of local glassblowers, painters, and sculptors. Outside a wine bar, a girl with a guitar was murdering the Cranberries’ back catalog, but she was surrounded by people clapping along, adding to the easy atmosphere of early evening.

And yet, in my mind, Biot was linked to a very specific memory. In sixth grade, when I was about twelve, I had done my very first presentation on a piece of local history that had always fascinated me. In the late nineteenth century, a huge building in the village had suddenly collapsed. The tragedy had occurred one evening when all the inhabitants were gathered there for a meal to celebrate a child’s First Communion. Within seconds, they were all crushed and buried. Rescuers had pulled almost thirty corpses from the rubble. It was an incident that had left a lasting impression on the town and that, even a century later, was still evident, since no one had ever built over the ruins. Obdurately desolate, the site was now known as la place de la Catastrophe.

When I reached the place des Arcades, I was stunned to find that it was exactly as I had last seen it, twenty-five years earlier. The long, narrow plaza extended as far as the church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine and was flanked by twin arcades of colorful two- and three-story buildings.