On the other hand, she could never forget that moment. As she was listening to the concert, she turned her head without really knowing why. Is it possible to sense the vibrations of a person who will stir our feelings before we even see them? As if the human body has a sort of emotional ESP. She noticed a shadowy male figure in a corner of the smoky cellar. All she could see of this man was his silhouette. He was smoking while calmly nodding his head. Madeleine felt helplessly drawn to that mysterious human form. She went over to him, pushing her way through the crowd of spectators. The frantic bebop rhythms gave the scene the feel of a fever dream. The closer she got to this man, the more clearly she could make out his face. Yves couldn’t help but notice this young woman who was quite openly staring at him. Finally, they smiled at each other. Madeleine found an excuse for having walked over there: ‘It’s so hot in here. I needed to get some air.’ And yet, if there was one place in the world where she found it hard to breathe, it was standing in front of this man. Exactly as if she’d spent her whole life running and then suddenly stopped.

Their first moment together began with a misunderstanding. Yves suggested they go outside to get some air. She thought he wanted to get her alone, when in fact he was just worried about this young woman who said she was suffocating. She remembered conversation being easy between them, as if they instinctively understood each other. In the end, they decided not to go back to the club, and went for a drink in a nearby bar instead. Caught up in the moment, Madeleine forgot to tell the girlfriend she’d gone to the club with about this change of plan. As for Yves, he’d gone there on his own to listen to the music, and that image suited him perfectly, thought Madeleine.

They quickly became inseparable. Yves was captivated by Madeleine’s vivaciousness, her ability to make life more intense. He didn’t realise that he was responsible for this; since meeting him, Madeleine felt she’d become the best version of herself. He loved their afternoons in bed, their bodies pressed together. Running his hands through her hair, he finally felt at home; his earthly wanderings had come to an end at the nape of her neck.

Normally a secretive man, Yves found himself opening up to Madeleine. He felt less reserved. His anxieties, and his blue moods, grew rarer as he discovered the simple joys of life. What more could anyone want from existence than the pleasure of a hot chocolate at the Café de Flore? Even then, it would sometimes cross his mind that this idyllic time would have to end at some point.

Madeleine was already working in the fashion industry, and her heart would race when Yves came to fetch her from the atelier in the evenings. She now lived in constant anticipation of her moments with him. They would go to the cinema or for a walk, and the time would just fly by. Yves had received an inheritance after his father’s death, and he wanted to write. He had tried poetry, novels, plays, even songs, before settling on screenplays. He was trying to create a film noir, and that was part of the reason he went to jazz clubs: in the hope of finding, if not inspiration, then at least an atmosphere. He would always slip to the back of the club to get a wide-angle view of the scene. Sometimes he would feel dejected, doubting his own talent. When he was in one of those moods, he preferred to be alone for days at a time. It drove Madeleine crazy to find herself in competition with her lover’s writer’s block. She tried to help him any way she could, racking her brains to come up with a nice line of dialogue or the start of an exciting action scene.