‘He’s not that old,’ said Nick.

‘His father’s Austrian – they’re the worst. They have swastikas under their lapels. As for the French, you’ve seen what Dieter’s thieving landlord is capable of. You know Dieter isn’t out to his family, don’t you? Adalbert isn’t allowed to answer the phone – they don’t know he exists.’

In the street, Minna zipped up her jacket. It was made of synthetic fur in a jubilant shade of green. I had to take a taxi back to the school, dipping into my vanishing savings. Minna and Nick walked me to the rank. When they said goodbye, they kissed my cheeks once, twice, three times in the southern way. ‘So stupid,’ said Minna. ‘It takes forever to leave anywhere.’ She rubbed at the lipstick she’d left on my face, saying, ‘Don’t take that room.’

A furnished apartment came up for rent in le centre historique, in a street near the cathedral that smelled of cold stones. The building, which was the smallest in the street and seemed to be the oldest, had blue wooden shutters at the windows. A date was engraved over the entrance: 1703. The landlord, Monsieur Laval, met me there, and I followed him up a twisting stair. It spiralled around a massive column of roughly plastered stone that rose up from the lobby. What purpose did it serve? When I asked, Monsieur Laval said that it was a very old building, unlike any other and altered over time.

The apartment was on the top floor. Its two thick-walled rooms were like rooms I’d visited in dreams. They contained a few essential things, chairs, a table, a big, high bed that jutted from an alcove in the main room – my search for somewhere to live had taught me that in France ‘furnished’ was only a label used to evict tenants without a fuss. The kitchen had hexagonal tiles on the floor, uneven with use and a soft, blurry red. There was a shower stall there, in a corner, and a round-shouldered fridge. The toilet was a cubicle at the top of steps that corkscrewed up from the landing. It had a small window above head height, a wooden seat, and an enamel W.C. sign on the door. Not so long ago it must have served the whole building, but Monsieur Laval said that it would be for my exclusive use. The other apartments had their own toilets inside.

He also told me that he’d inherited the property and was gradually doing it up. It contained only four apartments, one on each floor – it was ‘very calm, very quiet.’ He’d done all the renovations himself, he went on, and still had one apartment to tackle, on the floor below. He’d just completed this one – the fresh-plaster smell reached to the foot of the stairs.