He laughed. ‘Same for you,’ he said. ‘Stand still.’ Very slowly he ran his finger up Laure’s body, staring at the knee. ‘Lovely brown legs, haunches that the poet should write an ode to, shoulders and arms to match your legs. A face that has seen the sun but, somehow, is as luminous as the moon and a mouth for which men would gladly die.’

‘Sounds like a song,’ she said.

‘In a way, it is.’

He took her hand and drew her down to the water’s edge. ‘Be careful of your feet.’

The ground was rock hard but turned to mud at the water’s edge. Her toes sank into it and she tried not to imagine which insects or worms would scurry around her flesh. A root caught her around the ankle and she clung onto Tomas.

Thus entwined they waded into the river, sliding and slipping over the uneven river bed. At first tepid, the water was cooler in the middle of the river where the undertow was strong and the water deep. The colder water was silk on her heated body.

It took her two seconds to recognize that Tomas was not a good swimmer. But she was and easily negotiated the current as she swam upstream.

She raised her hands and let herself sink below the surface.

Bubbles drifted surface-wards, her hair streamed behind her, the outlines of her flesh wavered and refracted and, on the river bed, ribbons of weed flowed towards the mother river.

For one second, she asked herself if it would be better if she never resurfaced and broke the perfection of it. She imagined the struggle as her lungs filled and how she would search for the comfort and sweetness of Tomas’s image as the darkness took over.

Gasping, she rose to the surface and swam back to him. ‘Do you know the legend of Rusalka?’ he asked.

Weightless, she hung onto him. ‘Tell me.’

‘She is an unquiet, dangerous being who lives in the river. She lures men to their deaths.’

Laure found a foothold and stood up. ‘Have I lured you?

He wrapped his arms around her. They smelt of heat and river water, of underwater things. ‘Not to my death, Laure. But you have cast a spell.’

He drew her towards the riverbank.

At that moment, she was washed clean of doubt and worry and sensed that Tomas was too. Here in this tree-fringed, water-lapped place with the birds making free with the sky, she groped towards an understanding… that her spirit had undergone a rebirth. That bones, flesh and spirit had realigned themselves into the Laure who whispered over and over again: I love you.

Yet, on the return journey, Laure felt inexplicably sad and Tomas was mostly silent.

The outlying houses of the city came into view. Without warning, Tomas put on his brakes and got off the bike. ‘Stop.’ Laure obeyed.