I cross the avenue and walk down the even numbers. There’s no passage. Then I try the underpass to the odds. I retrace my steps to the concourse and go back onto the platform. I know it’s absurd, but you never know. Worn out, I ask again. Three people give the same answer: they don’t know where the center is, and I should return to the street and ask there. On the street, I’ve had it with asking. I call Michel from a public telephone.

“For goodness sake,” he says, “it’s right by the exit!”

“I can’t see it. Where were you yesterday? Where have you been for the last five days? I said I’d probably be calling you for help.”

“Where are you?”

“I just told you.”

“Can you see a glass building opposite the metro?”

“There’s no glass building. Where have you been?”

“Yes there is. Are you sure you’re at Carrefour Pleyel? Under the Pleyel Tower?”

“I’m under the Pleyel Tower.”

“So maybe I’ve got it wrong. Let me think. Do you want me to come there? I’m sure I’ll remember when I see it.”

“Where were you yesterday?”

“I’m not answering that. Today’s the deadline, and if you want us to be together you’d better get a move on.”

“I know.”

“Wait for me. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“I don’t want you to come.”

I hang up. I have no more coins. It’s over. I think that I don’t think about Michel, that I’ve never in my whole life thought about him. Or better: that in the time I have left on this earth he’s not even going to be a memory. I have memories of cows and sheep. Even of pulsating green gobs on the sidewalk. But of him, zilch. No memories. I’d like to shout that out loud and laugh. It’s a frightening coldness, a liberating coldness. I’m on the point of leaving when I take a last look at what lies beyond the freeway. Just as happened the day before, the sight of Saint-Denis shrouded in fog produces a jolt that seesaws between fascination and dread. I tell myself that I can take a stroll into that vision I find so attractive and if I happen to come across the center I can ring Michel and say that I’ve found it, but that I’m leaving. That I’ve got all the documents for the grant in my hands, and that I’m sitting on the toilet about to piss on them.