“Lot 240, an unpublished and unique shot by Julius Shulmann in a departure from his usual Californian villas . . . The Little Fireworks Collector, 1972. This is an original print given to the actress and not catalogued in the Paul Getty collection. Everybody will have recognized Audrey Hepburn next to that pretty little blonde girl with the blue eyes in front of her beautiful ice cream. I have 10,000 euros . . . 11,000, 11,500, 12,000, 13,000 . . .”

I panicked. I felt like screaming: Stop! That little girl with the golden skin — that’s me! Look at me, look what I’ve become! Can I not at least be allowed this?

At 14,500, the bidding stalled.

“Once, twice . . .”

“Fifteen thousand,” I cried.

“Fifteen thousand at the back of the room.”

My rival, a guy who looked young enough to be my son, gestured that he was done.

With the fees I got it for 19,000 euros. Me, the little court translator, who prided herself on never using credit — I’d cracked for a photo.

I went home with my treasure and hung it opposite my desk. My daughters simply couldn’t understand why on earth I’d suddenly bought this portrait of a cheerful little blonde girl to decorate the living room, when the rest of our apartment — apart from the pink carpet with orange flowers — had always been so grim. Had I told them I’d indebted myself for the next five years, they would have thought I’d lost my mind. Not for one second did they make the connection with their mother.

How sad is that?

I started my career as an interpreter in the summary courts.

You should have seen me in those days. I put such heart into my work. I thought I was indispensable, bending over backwards to translate each nuance and register, everything the defendants wanted to express to those who sat in judgement over them.

I felt infinitely sorry for many of the Arabs whose words I reproduced in those trials. Men who were extraordinarily poor, with little education; impoverished migrants looking for an El Dorado that didn’t exist, forced into a life of small-time skulduggery and petty theft so as not to die of hunger.

It didn’t take me long to realize that nobody was interested in my nuance or my register. The interpreter was simply a tool to accelerate the act of repression. You only have to listen to how the magistrates speak during these hearings, not varying their delivery one iota regardless of whether or not the interpreter is keeping up, regardless of whether or not the guy in the box is following.

I was an evil rendered necessary by the principles of human rights, nothing more. My presence was given barely a grudging acknowledgement — Is the interpreter here? Yes? Good, then we can start — before the process got underway. You’re charged with having committed in Paris and, in any event, within the relevant statutory limitation period . . . blah . . . blah . . . blah . . . And so on, without drawing breath, for the next ten minutes.