In his work, he kept his friends’ legacies alive, and all the while he waited for Laila to keep her promise.

IN OCTOBER OF 1990, Séverin got off the Paris Métro and headed for his home in Paris’s eighth arrondissement. Frost whispered in the air. Artists sang on the streets, and schoolgirls walked past fighting over the use of a Walkman.

His apartment was the penthouse level of the now-renovated L’Eden Hotel. The government had named it a monument historique a few years ago for its past as a renowned nineteenth-century institution with exceptional architecture, and the birthplace of the L’Enigme rose which was one of the most popular flowers in Paris.

To Séverin, his home was L’Eden in name … and nothing else. The gardens were gone. The library had become a coveted wedding venue, and the hidden suites of his office had been converted into a swanky bar that was filled with supermodels and actors on the weekends. And yet, as he did every day, he paused outside the doors he had designed himself … and he hoped that today would be the day when she came back to him. He had been hoping for what felt like an eternity, and with every year, his hope only grew stronger. Hope led him by the hand as he continued his work in various museums. Hope tilted his chin to the sky. Hope coaxed him to wake up in the mornings and meet the day with his shoulders thrown back and his spine straight.

And so, as always, and with hope in his heart … Séverin pushed open the doors.

THE MOMENT HE stepped inside L’Eden, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He stared warily around the lobby, but nothing was out of the ordinary. Even so, the light seemed to waver through the windows. Without knowing why, his heartbeat began to race as he entered his private elevator. Inside, he steadied himself. Perhaps he was light-headed with hunger, or else coming down with a fever … but then the elevator doors opened.

The first thing Séverin noticed when he stepped into his hallway was not a person but a perfume. The unmistakable lilt of rose water and sugar. He held his breath, unwilling to release it in case none of this was real. But then the door to his apartments opened. A slender shadow fell across the carpet. Séverin could not bring himself to lift his gaze. His hope was too heavy, too painful. When he was forced to breathe again, it felt as if it were the first breath of a new life.

FOR YEARS, HE has lived not as a god or as a man, but as a ghost, and in two words, he finds himself gloriously resurrected. Two words, which make him almost believe in magic, because time, so still to him for so long, now lifts its head eagerly at the sound and begins to move forward once more.

“Hello, Majnun.”