We all met at the check-out counter of Le Commensal, having our food weighed amid widespread giggling that seemed to puzzle Mathieu. I couldn’t explain to him here and now the contradiction that for years had made us ­giggle at this neighbourhood restaurant with its wan granola-­eating clientele and its excellent food, heavy but delicious, too stodgy perhaps but all-natural, it would have taken too long and might have sounded cruel. Zouzou or Arielle just had to jerk her chin in the direction of a long-haired girl in Roman sandals and a flowered skirt that trailed along the terrazzo floor, and groans of pleasure would rise up from the entire family, with heads dropping towards plates and shoulders shaking in uncontrollable spasms. Unlike Mélène who was pure granola but whom we forgave because we loved her, the genuine post-hippie article drove us to bitchiness that was unprovoked and, I have to say, ­generous—in the sense that it was neither held back nor openly malicious. This bitchiness was perfectly good-natured, open and almost affectionate, probably contemptuous and patronizing, the sort you might feel for a sick ­person who’s dependent and complaining. We’d play busy nurse with these poor, peace-loving creatures, motionless and pale, who’d never done anything to us, as calmly, like satisfied monks, they devoured their tofu steaks and carrot cake.

Mélène, in her role as Mother of Us All, and Jeanne, the moderator of the group, took places on either side of Mathieu as soon as we’d picked our table; the others arranged themselves like obedient apostles, leaving me the seat across from him, between Zouzou and Arielle, who were exchanging knowing looks as usual. The complicity between those two girls is stupefying; you sometimes feel as if they’re communicating through a sixth sense they don’t share with anyone else for the simple reason that they don’t realize they possess it: you’re always catching them in the midst of a silent conversation, the eyes of one riveted on the other’s and an almost tangible electric current passing between them, little signs of complicity being traced within their secret world, subtle and ethereal, understood by them alone and excluding any possibility of a third source of ­energy.