‘The thing is … he’s getting on a bit. He had an accident. I kept him … out of kindness.’

‘That’s the one I want.’

The woman reached into the cage to pull out the animal, who still did not wake up, and placed him in his hands. He was soft and warm, proof that he was not dead.

‘All our animals are vaccinated and chipped. Even him.’

The cat deigned to raise an eyelid, casting a slit of green at the hand that stroked him, yawned revealing a largely toothless jaw, and curled up again, as if to say, ‘It’s all the same to me.’

‘I’ll take him.’

On the metro, the plaintive meows emerging from the cage drew tender glances from female passengers. Marc knew he had made the right choice.

‘You bought it?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Were you looking for one?’

‘Not especially. Let’s just say we had a meeting of minds. Do you mind?’

‘No, it’s just … a bit surprising. He’s very fat. What shall we call him?’

He had not thought about that. People gave animals such stupid names, by and large.

‘I don’t know. Do we have to name him?’

‘Of course! Has he had anything to eat?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I’ll get him something. Come here, little chap.’

‘Today, I bought a cat.’

Ten times he had picked up the pen and ten times Boudu had swiped it off the desk again. The pair silently appraised one another like chess players, the cat curled up in a circle of lamplight, Marc haloed with the smoke from his cigar. Boudu (as Chloé had christened him) did not have a particularly playful disposition. He slept, ate and crapped. And sometimes, like now, he climbed up on the desk, nestled under the lamp and stared at Marc with an unfathomably vacant look in his golden eyes. One day, Boudu accidentally knocked the pen off the desk and Marc picked it up. Boudu had just invented the pen game. That flash of inspiration, a fortuitous connection between neurons that usually lay dormant, was still a surprise to Marc. Now the cat never missed an opportunity for a game. Marc was always willing. Despite feeling a twinge in his back each time he bent to pick up the biro, he never complained or gave the slightest hint of annoyance. It was not in his nature.