Gessen cleared his throat and posed the question again. It shouldn’t be this difficult to extract an answer, but however many times he asked Vidor about his family, the man spun and wove like a matador, shutting down in anger if Gessen even hinted there had been discord of any kind.

A vein pulsed in Vidor’s throat. ‘My father was a hero, and my mother a saint,’ he said, biting off each word. ‘You may doubt all you want, but that’s the truth.’

Gessen held up his hands, palms out. ‘I don’t dispute your description of their characters. But it would help to know more about your relationship with them. Jean-Claude tells me that in one of your Movement & Meditation sessions you mentioned a visit to an apple orchard. How you rode on your father’s shoulders and plucked apples from the trees. It sounds like a wonderful memory. Why don’t you share something similar with me? Or a few details, perhaps, about your early days in Paris.’

They were fifteen minutes into a game of chess. A tactic Gessen had hit upon after their last fruitless session as a means of tricking Vidor into revealing a snippet of memory from one part of his brain, while concentrating on the game with another.

The mountains, shrouded in mist, were framed by the half-drawn curtains. Earlier, Mathilde had brought in a tray of coffee and pastries and set them on the table. A homely touch designed to induce Gessen’s patient to drop his guard.

Vidor swooped in to capture Gessen’s queen. ‘Check.’ His smile was triumphant. ‘You want a memory? All right.’ He stared into the distance, as if trying to conjure the perfect anecdote to get Gessen off his back. ‘My first memory of Paris was the sound of the dustmen in our street.’ He sipped his coffee and examined the chessboard. ‘Our flat was on the first floor and with the windows open we could hear everything that went on in our little quarter. The greengrocer stacking the wooden crates on the shelves outside his shop. The knife sharpener pushing his bicycle with its squeaky wheel. Cats mewing around the fishmonger. It was a typical Parisian street.’

He looked at Gessen and sighed. ‘I assume you know the city? Though there weren’t so many cars in those days, and in our working-class neighbourhood, none of the elegance that people associate with Paris today.’

Gessen waited, his eyes on the chessboard.