She breaks up the white stones and crouches to crumble them against other rocks. The light annihilates the slightest shady hole. Jo is envious of the tiniest creatures, the rustling insects. She dreams of setting fire to all this dryness so nothing will be left and the scorched earth will save itself by cracking open. And if the fire spreads as far as the villas and sets them alight, she wouldn’t care if it also destroyed their house. She’ll dance for joy on their mixed ashes.

Jo tumbles down a long, wild slope, scrapes her feet and ankles on the brambles and lands in a field of olive trees. She walks along a row of trees to the road and the houses where she lives. There’s nothing to do here. Without two wheels, without a car, it’s death. Even to go to Cavaillon – what for, anyway? – you need transport. She could have asked Saïd to drive her to the Watershed and they could have gone bathing. But facing a horde of bathers doesn’t exactly turn her on. Actually, perhaps she feels better here, wandering around the countryside like an animal from the south, a lizard or something of the kind. The land still calms her outbursts, and, in spite of herself, anchors her to this area she so often hates. The land that extends its widespread power even despite her revulsion. Not the land she owns but the one that witnessed her birth and has trapped her like she’s in a cradle.

She reaches the house via the road, clicking her flip-flops on the badly paved edge, her bare thighs warm and smooth like an otter’s back, tanned by a relentless sun. The house is empty; she knows that and doesn’t stop. She walks a little further. The door is open, so she goes into Saïd’s house. She takes a while to find her bearings in the dark room; she’s still blinded by the outside light. She finally makes out Saïd, leaning over a stack of fabric where a cat and a litter of kittens are lying. It’s true that the black creature has been dragging herself around for weeks, fat as a pig, a swarm in her belly. The other day, Jo saw her come crashing down while trying to jump onto the wall enclosing the garden. She must have had her litter last night: the kittens are tiny. The young man looks up, smiles and motions to her to come closer. Jo takes two steps forward and freezes, her eyes glued to the basket. There’s sudden nausea when she understands, revulsion at what’s about to follow, but the disturbing lure of the scene forces her to look. She sits on the very edge of a gold-coloured seat.

When Saïd grabs one of the kittens in his large dark hands, the mother lifts her slitted eyes at the human she knows well, with a combination of total trust and pleading. The kitten he’s just caught is whining in the palm of his hand. It’s grey, a soft grey, almost blue, and its eyes, still blind, open and close, trying to grasp the world. Its pathetic cries reveal tiny little canines that are already sharp. Jo can almost hear its little animal heart beating against Saïd’s fingers, its protruding ribs beneath the thin skin. She stands up and follows the young man, unable to take her eyes off that bundle of fur burning with life.