Suzie was not interested in the symbols that were so important to Madame de Cazalle. ‘Who is Sabine?’ she asked.

‘Sabine is …’ Madame de Cazalle sighed. ‘Sabine is a strange person. I hope you will like her. Here’s our train.’

The strange person looked ordinary enough. She had a cloud of curly dark hair and a round pale face too large for her features, round, brown eyes, a button nose, a tight little mouth, like marbles on a board.

When they had been introduced Madame de Cazalle said, ‘Sabine, would you take Suzie to Micheline for your tea. She’s very tired and she’ll need something before dinner.’

The idea that one could eat ‘something’ that wasn’t counted as dinner seemed staggering to Suzie. But it was not important to Sabine, because, instead of leading her to the promised food, she ran ahead into the farmyard, into a green enclosure dotted with fruit trees under which a scattering of hens were pecking. Suzie marvelled at them. It was such an extraordinary place that even the hens were unusual: dull gold, or shining black with a green glaze, or white with shaggy feathers like fur. She stood still, looking round her. Below them was a lake, sky and clouds reflected in its perfect upside-down world, over which black swans, ducks and moorhens sailed, as if the water was the air.

‘Come on, come on.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘I’m going to introduce you to someone. There’s someone you must meet. Come in here.’ Sabine wrenched open the wooden door of a little house barely high enough to admit her, shutting it firmly behind Suzie.

After the glare of the sunshine on the emerald grass, the interior darkness cut off Suzie’s vision with the abruptness of a hand over her eyes. She could only hear a soft snorting, and smell straw and ammonia, a sour vegetable tang. There was a presence, large and solid, moving in the straw, barging questingly against her knees.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s Lou Moussou, Lou Moussou.’

Sabine spoke crooningly. She was slapping it, scratching it. Suzie could hear flesh on flesh, rasping. The creature was naked, huge, mottled, pinkish, with sparse hair sprouting from its body. It grunted in ecstasy. She could make out its snout swinging towards her, its pink eyelids rimming its pinhole eyes, which looked straight at her. Its ears twitched intelligently, listening to Sabine’s voice.

‘He’s my friend, my friend.’ She had an odd habit of repeating her phrases. ‘And now you’re here, he can be your friend too. Look, scratch him here. He likes it.’

Rahel extended her hand gingerly to touch the firm rind with her fingertips.

‘He’s called Lou?’

‘No,’ said Sabine. ‘It’s not his name, it’s who he is. It’s a respectful way of speaking about him. It means the man, the master, the gentleman in the patois. He’s always called Lou Moussou, the pig. Now he knows you.’

She was already on her way out, fastening the latch with swift skill. ‘I’ll show you something else too.’