In my dream I was back on the streets of Paris, not far from Notre-Dame, on the left bank, near the English bookstore Shakespeare & Co. I wore a yellow slicker, the kind with a reflective silver stripe, even though there was no rain. I stood outside an Orange mobile phone store. The store was packed with customers, unhappy customers. They had all taken numbers and were all visibly displeased. Just outside the door, sitting on the sidewalk, back against the wall, was a Roma woman. She held a spotted puppy, perhaps the cutest puppy I had ever seen. The open box she had put beside her for money was empty. The puppy hardly moved in her arms. She looked at her empty box and then at me. She sighed, stood, and walked away. I followed her. I was just five or so paces behind her, and either she was remarkably oblivious or completely indifferent to my presence because she did not once turn to eye me, suspiciously or otherwise. I followed her through the busy 6e and into the Jardin du Luxembourg, where she sat next to another woman dressed as she was, who could have been her twin or her. She handed over the puppy. The second woman, the new woman, shot me a hard glance that, frankly, more scared than startled me. I followed her anyway, followed the puppy, recalled in my dream how in movies everyone says to follow the money. I followed her the long walk to Montparnasse. The woman sat on the cold ground outside the station and positioned the docile puppy on her lap, wrapped her shawl around it. Then it was no longer a puppy, no longer a dog but a child, a little child. Girl or boy I could not tell, but it was docile like the puppy had been. There was no puppy now, only the woman and the child. She put her open box beside her and put a few of her own euros into it. Still, no one else dropped any money into her box. I walked up to her. I emptied my pockets of all the money I had. It filled the box. The woman stared at me. I could not see the child’s face. I wondered if it had a puppy’s face.

“I wish I had more to give,” I said.

“Je m’en fou!” she shouted. “Je m’en fou!”

Gewoben vom verblendenden Geschicke