Outside my building, Nick stopped to light a cigarette. Even on that summery day, the smell of cold stones persisted. From the far side of the street I looked up at my apartment, where minutes earlier I’d closed and fastened my blue shutters. Candlewoman was smiling down at me. I saw her face at the W.C. window, which was too high for a shutter or a face. ‘What’s up?’ said Nick, tilting his head back to look at my apartment. But there was no one at the window, only a smudge of sunlight against the glass.

A tangy breeze gusted through the car as we sped along the coast, the Goddess exercising her lungs. The sea shone like spit, and all the little waves were wearing lace. I can’t say exactly when it dawned on me that the outing was a mistake. Nick sang, ‘“Some velvet morning …”’ He’d forgotten; then he broke off. Minna was there anyway, chewing her nails in the back seat, invisible, outlandishly dressed, throwing out silent commands. Nick and she must have told each other the things that people in love say. They must have believed that they were unique, like no other lovers in history. Two days after she left, he’d followed me to my bed. Rocking inside me, he said that it was what he’d wanted to do from the first time he saw me. Lucio had said the same thing. I wondered if an Italian girl had gone away leaving him only a letter. I wondered if she bit her nails.

In Sète the restaurants along the waterfront were crowded with families. At last we found a table under an awning. ‘Monsieur, madame, je vous écoute,’ said the waiter, preparing to take our order. He brought us a carafe of icy white wine while we waited for our food. What would happen if I wrote our names in the condensation on the glass, enclosed them with a heart and transfixed it with an arrow? I saw myself rushing about on a station platform that stretched forever, trying to dispose of a telltale red rose. Sex was a cover story for someone like me – it obscured a craving for affection. A white-haired accordionist was moving slowly along the street, pausing at tables. He was playing ‘Le temps des cerises’. That song, associated with the Paris Commune, was another thing heard everywhere in those May weeks. I don’t know why – the cherries that it described fell like drops of blood. It was said to inspire hope, but it was a song about a defeat.