“What a sad name,” she said after a while. “It sounds like a lost battle.” After the day I’d had, I didn’t feel up to rebutting that, so all I did was search my pockets for a cigarette. As always at that hour of the night, I was betrayed by the fluid in my lighter. I struck it a few times without success. She told me to have a look on the backseat, where I found a few cheap cigarettes, a copy of Swann’s Way, and a bottle of French perfume.

“Coeur Joyeux,” I read on the label. “You mean, not only do you have a heart, it’s actually joyful?”

There was something grateful about her laugh. “It’s my antidote,” she said. “Do you live with someone, or what?”

“Or what,” I said.

“Do you always talk this way?” she said.

We had reached the avenue where I’d left the old Alfa Romeo, so I didn’t reply. Nobody had stolen it and it was grazing in solitude. “This is it,” I said. “Thanks for the ride.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “And I’m sorry about that scene in the hallway. I’m hysterical tonight.”

She’d finally said it.

“Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” she said, switching off the engine. A glassy silence fell over the avenue. Around us, the buildings seemed to huddle over the sidewalks, and although the sky was still uniformly black, there was a sense that night was slowly orienting itself toward dawn—it’s from three o’clock onward that night rises from its own abyss, dripping with dreams. Any night watchman can tell you that. “Want one?” she said, holding out a pack of very strong French cigarettes. “They’d kill a running buffalo.”

“No,” I said, “I’ve already had a weird enough day.”

“Don’t talk to me about weird days,” she said. “Are you sleepy?”

I was at the end of my tether, truth be told. “Not so much,” I said.

“I’m not sleepy at all,” she said. She was silent for a moment, then threw me a hesitant glance. “Are you ever scared you’ll forget to breathe while you’re asleep?” That’s what she said, and when I started laughing she looked embarrassed.

“Well,” I said, “bars are good places when you’re scared. I know one that’s open all night, although the clientele’s a bit dubious.”

“You know,” she said, starting the car again as if she hadn’t expected anything else, “my demands are few when it gets to this time of night!”

“Are you referring to me?”