Chapter Twenty-Seven
M athias was barely awake when Rayan left the house that morning.
The man had kissed the crook of Mathias’s neck and murmured something in his ear about Laurent and the center, the words just touching the fog of half sleep.
After he was gone, Mathias lay in bed and found his thoughts returning to his mother’s surprise appearance, not for the first time in the days that had followed it.
To Marguerite’s credit, after the initial shock had worn off, she’d become unusually animated.
They’d sat at the kitchen table while Mathias smoked and Rayan made coffee, and she’d regaled them with tales of her father and their family growing up—spending summers at the sea as a little girl, breaking her wrist falling out of the tree in the backyard.
Then she walked through the house room by room, making astonished exclamations and murmuring to herself.
She showed them a hidden doorway to the attic that Mathias hadn’t known about and her name carved in a child’s scrawl on the inside of the wooden frame.
It was his mother as he’d never seen her, and Mathias didn’t know how to reconcile this one with the version of the woman he’d spent his life reviling.
When she finished her impromptu tour, she made her way back downstairs and announced that she was leaving.
True to form, she’d discussed nothing salient, but she did ask him if she could visit again.
Mathias shrugged. “We’ll see.”
And she beamed as if he’d issued her an open invitation. He remained by the door after she’d left, his fingers lingering on the handle. Rayan stood watching from the hallway.
“That was unexpected,” he said finally.
“Hmm.”
“If she comes again…?”
“Lock the door.”
Rayan frowned, and Mathias gave a short laugh.
“I think I can handle my own mother, Rayan.”
“Do you think—”
“She knows.”
Rayan let out a slow breath. “And are you…?”
“Fine.”
They exchanged a look, Rayan clearly as caught off-balance as he was. “At least this time, she didn’t ask where I was from.”
“That woman, I swear…” Mathias said.
“You know, I’m probably not…” Rayan stopped, his eyebrows pulling together. “Someone she’d approve of.”
“What a relief,” Mathias said, stepping away from the door and reaching out to give Rayan’s shirt collar a tug. “I’ve always considered it fortunate we don’t see eye to eye.”
Yet that wasn’t what Mathias had gathered from his mother’s visit. In fact, he’d had the distinct impression that she understood that neither Rayan nor their life together would ever be up for discussion.
Mathias rolled out of bed and stretched his stiff limbs. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, he saw that the bruises on his face had already begun to fade. He showered and dressed then pulled out his phone and headed downstairs to the study. He took a seat at his desk before dialing.
Heylen picked up almost immediately. “Mathias, it’s been a while.”
“Here are my terms,” he said, wasting no time on small talk. “I’ll agree to the partnership, but ownership is split clean down the middle—none of this sixty-forty shit. I want full day-to-day control and compensation proportional to profits.”
Heylen chuckled. “You’re not saying anything I wasn’t expecting.”
“And I want to relocate the business to Calais.”
There was a pause. “Now, that might be harder for the board to get behind.”
The corners of Mathias’s mouth curved upward. No need to make it too easy for Heylen. He wanted to see how far he could push. His terms, or he’d walk—simple as that.
“It’s a decent port. Not Bruges, but big enough to meet the margins you’re after. And this way, you’d be diversifying. Something shuts down operations in Belgium, and you’ve got a nice little alternative ticking away over here.”
Heylen appeared to be thinking it over. “It’s a fair point.”
“You’ll get your results. There’ll be a longer lead-up, but I’ll deliver.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Heylen said. “Look, with me, you’re golden. I just need to run it by the board. But, Mathias, this could be big.”
Mathias allowed himself a smile. He felt it again—the rush of ambition, the thrill of the hunt. “It will be.”
The fire that started during the riot swept through a large section of the Jungle, destroying tents and shelters and leaving hundreds of people homeless.
They began to spread out into the city, squatting in parks and other public spaces.
The camp hadn’t even been closed yet, and Calais was already feeling the effects of what would happen if no thought were given to the future.
Rayan took no pleasure in the fact that the predictions they’d given the mayor were becoming a reality.
And that reality didn’t truly hit home until Rayan ran into Amer on his way back from the center one evening.
The elderly schoolteacher had moved with his daughter and her children to a park near the beach after their shelter had gone up in flames.
Rayan offered to help them find alternative arrangements, but Amer politely refused, too proud to accept his charity.
Amer bid him good night, and Rayan walked the rest of the way home with a rock in his stomach.
“Patience,” Mathias counseled him when he’d returned to the house, frustrated and disheartened. “I’m meeting with Durand on Friday. Things will get underway soon enough.”
Mathias’s certainty rankled him. Rayan remembered how powerless he’d felt standing in the mayor’s office, listening to Durand refuse to commit city resources to a problem that wasn’t his. “I don’t think you realize how adamantly against this he is.”
“I’m about to bring a nice chunk of Belgian profit to our fair city. The mayor won’t want to see that go up in smoke.”
“You’ve accepted Heylen’s offer?”
“That’s the plan, provided the board agrees to my terms.”
Rayan was unable to hide his amusement. “Why am I not surprised you’re making him come to you on his knees?”
“It wouldn’t be a deal if he didn’t.”
Mathias had already taken care of the money.
The stacks of cash had quietly disappeared from the house and were replaced by a folder that appeared on the kitchen table one morning.
Inside the folder was a certificate of registration for a Canadian charitable trust and, beneath the certificate, a series of backdated statements detailing over a dozen meticulously recorded donations of varying amounts into the trust’s account.
Rayan didn’t need to do the math to know that together they would equate to a tidy sum of seven million euros.
Later, when Mathias came downstairs, dressed for work, Rayan pushed the folder across the table toward him. “What’s this?”
Mathias lifted the coffeepot and took his time filling his mug. “You didn’t think I’d just drop it in your bank account, did you?”
“No.”
“The lawyer’s details are in there. If you want to move things around, give him a call, and he’ll arrange it. You’re not connected to the trust publicly, but you have executive control as the grantor.”
Rayan felt a swell in his chest. He looked at Mathias. “You don’t know what this means.”
The man held his gaze, and Rayan could see that Mathias knew exactly what it meant. “Now she has no choice but to be proud.”
While Farhan’s tent had remained intact following the riot, the violence he’d seen that day had strengthened his resolve to find another place to live, for the sake of his daughters.
At the center, Rayan had been working with Asmarina to put together a list of charitable organizations and private volunteers willing to open their doors to migrants waiting on immigration appeals.
Among them was Madame Laborde, an eccentric widow who owned a large estate just outside of Calais and had been a longtime supporter of Asmarina and her work.
She’d offered several of the rooms in her stately home to young families, providing them with a temporary place of refuge until other arrangements could be made.
With Asmarina’s help, Rayan had managed to secure a room for Farhan and the children at Madame Laborde’s estate.
They’d moved out there several days earlier.
When Asmarina called Rayan with an update about the progress of the family’s application, he decided to deliver the news to Farhan in person.
He took a taxi from the city and met Farhan at the door to a towering country house.
“The girls think they’re living in a fairy tale,” Farhan said with a laugh as he led Rayan through the sprawling villa.
Farhan’s family had been assigned a room on the second floor.
He and Rayan passed a handful of other residents on their way up the stairs.
Amina and Zahra squealed when Rayan stopped in the doorway to the room.
He had brought along another bag of goodies and was aware he’d practically purchased their affection by this point.
While the girls pulled each item from the bag and arranged them in a careful display on the floor, Rayan sat with Farhan on the window bench and retrieved his folder of paperwork.
“The good news is that you’ve been granted provisional residence status while your asylum application is being adjudicated,” Rayan said, taking out the letter the lawyer had received from the immigration department on Farhan’s behalf.
He passed it to the man, who scanned the clunky legal terminology with a frown of confusion.
“It means you can start accessing some basic social services and enroll the girls in school.”
“School?” Zahra exclaimed from the floor, a box of colored pencils in her hand.
“That’s right. We can get you both enrolled in one of the schools nearby.”
This was exciting news for Zahra and less so for her younger sister, who was busy sorting the selection of fruit Rayan had brought in order of size.
“But how will we afford it?” Farhan asked, lowering his voice so his daughters didn’t hear.
“The public schools are free.”
“Even if the asylum claim isn’t approved?”
“These things take time—sometimes years—and there are multiple steps involved. But with temporary residence, you can start applying for housing, even a job. You’re not waiting around in limbo.”
Farhan allowed for the slightest of smiles as he better understood what this meant. “So, I can work?”
Rayan nodded. “At the center, we have listings for jobs in several local industries—construction, hospitality, seasonal agriculture. Not exactly what you’re used to back home—I don’t think there’s much going in the way of scientific research.”
Farhan gave a laugh. “Work is work. I’d be happy to do something again. Madame Laborde has said we can stay here for a little while, but I’d like to find somewhere more permanent. Build something for the girls.”
Rayan thought of the plans for the residential complex and the trust account with the eye-watering balance.
Laurent and Asmarina had been wary of his suggestion to fund the remaining cost of the build privately, mainly because they didn’t believe the center was big enough to draw the kind of mainstream appeal that larger aid agencies commanded.
But Rayan had no intention of making a flashy bid for support.
As far as he was concerned, the less buzz, the better.
There was no need to draw attention to where the money came from.
All he had to tell Asmarina and Laurent was that he’d been approached by some old contacts in Canada who’d seen coverage of the Jungle and wanted to help.
Rayan would have no choice but to honor their request to remain anonymous.
After all, it wasn’t unusual for wealthy philanthropists to avoid the public eye.
Many people preferred to do their good work on the quiet.
“Working toward something’s important,” Rayan agreed. “And there is hope—you’re not alone. We’re looking to make things better one step at a time.”
Amina appeared at her father’s side, a half-eaten apple in hand, and Farhan tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He turned to Rayan and shook his head, perplexed. “Rayan, you’ve done so much already.”
Now it was Rayan’s turn to shake his head. “There’s more to do yet.”