The thunderstorm is too heavy to stay out in. These downpours are like showers, they know them well: might as well take shelter and wait for it to pass. Pulling their shirts or jackets over their heads, they run for the protection of the awning, enjoying the escape, already taking out their packets of cigarettes. They snort like animals, hand around a lighter, complain for the sake of it.

“Where are you going?” a worker asks Jo when she leaves the shelter.

“I need to pee.”

“Can’t you wait for it to calm down?”

“No, besides, I like the rain.”

In fact, it’s more than that: Jo is fascinated by the thunderstorm, and she’s already running through the groves to distance herself from the others and take advantage of the rain.

Jo looks like a twig. She’s kept the golden tint of the summer and her skin glows despite the grey-green that casts a shadow over the valley and colours the sky. Golden and, all things considered, wild rather than fierce. In large strides on her long legs, she cuts across the paths through the copses like an animal. The soil smells so strong that she feels an exquisite unease – as if treading on a body. She’d like to take off her shoes, heel-sole-toes in the moss, the mud, the uneven curve of the white rocks. She’d like to but doesn’t dare yet. It’ll come.

For now she runs, gets out of breath, breathes noisily, then stops, hands on her knees, and catches her breath with her head down. She’s come quite a long way. She straightens up and removes her T-shirt, already drenched, and offers her torso and face to the sky. The rain hammers on her shoulders, her forehead, runs in gullies down her head, the small of her back, between her breasts. And yet she doesn’t shiver once. The warmth comes from inside, making her euphoric. And if she does feel the rain running inside her, then it’s still a full, refreshing sensation. She’s not cold.

She hasn’t seen Garance again. Nor Côme. Nor any of them. The bag is still in her room; Céline wanted to try the jacket on, but Jo exercised a veto: nobody’s going to touch the contents of the bag. Since her fierce opposition seemed like a strange fixation, Céline gave up. She looked her sister deep in her left eye, shook her head, and said, you’re a bitch.