I had nowhere to be at that moment, so I walked back along the rue de Babylone, where I lived when I was young. I used to walk to work from there, and brought girls home to the apartment with the purple bathtub sunk low into the tile. Each job and each girl, at that time, was the most important thing in the world, and demanded everything. I was still young enough to play guitar not so well.

My second wife is young, the age of my first son, who played guitar too long and has made nothing of his life. She is beautiful, and sparkles like jewels when she is wearing none: skin like gold, white teeth and clear blue eyes. We have two small children. The more I see other children, the more I think mine are the most attractive. Since I realized I was too old for guitar and married, I have had two good lives, with two good wives. I am a lucky man. When I ride in the country, not in circles but moving forward, all alone, I think what could happen, to leave behind a widow. Nothing much would have to happen; my brother is younger than I, and already dead. But sometimes I think I will fall from the horse, hit my head or break my spine, with no one to help. I would leave the widow that much sooner, and she would marry again and have two lives, too, with two husbands. She is young enough for that, the way she shines. And then sometimes I think I can outlive them all.

When I reached home, and walked into the courtyard below our apartment, I could hear my son screaming at his sister from the windows above. The elevator is tiny and slow, and when the children race it on the stairs, they win. I took the stairs, too many at a time, and reached the third floor with my heart in my ears and a dizziness across my eyes. I opened the apartment door and climbed the last steps past the umbrellas. The keys fell from my hand at the top. My son Gaétan looked up and slid to a halt in his socks, surprised to see me standing there. Gaétan is seven, the age of reason, the age of charm.

“What is going on here?” I demanded, waiting for the dizzy feeling to go. “What is the purpose of this noise that shakes the building?”

His sister Alix ran out from her room, and there came an absolute chaos, both arguing at once, and the dog barking. Tati the Filipina came from the kitchen and started, too. Three voices, like angry bells, plus the dog. “Aqua Boulevard … Gaétan ne veut pas … Oliver … la merde … Maman … comme les autres—”

“Stop!” I said.