It did not take long to find Thierry Sénéca. Sitting on the terrace of the Café Les Arcades, he beckoned me over, as though it was me rather than Fanny he was waiting for. Sénéca had not changed much. He had dark, close-cropped hair, an aquiline nose, and a well-trimmed goatee. His clothes could best be described as “cool”—linen pants, short-sleeved shirt, sweater draped around his shoulders. He looked as though he had just stepped off a yacht and reminded me of the old advertisements for Sebago or the election posters of my youth featuring conservative RPR candidates desperately trying to pass themselves off as hip, cool guys. The result was usually the opposite of what was intended.

“Hi, Thierry,” I said, stepping under the arch.

“Evening, Thomas, it’s been ages.”

“I was looking for Fanny. I heard she’s having dinner with you.”

He gestured for me to take the chair opposite.

“She should be here any minute. She mentioned that she’d seen you this morning.”

The rose-tinted sky cast a honeyed glow over the ancient stones. The air was fragrant with soupe au pistou and simmering ragouts.

“Don’t worry, I won’t spoil your evening,” I said. “There’s something I wanted to check. It won’t take more than two minutes.”

“No problem.”

Les Arcades was a veritable institution in Biot. Picasso, Fernand Léger, and Chagall had all been regulars here once. The tables, covered with checkered cloths, spilled out into the square.

“Is the food as good as it used to be? My parents used to bring us here all the time,” I said.

“Well, you’re not in for any surprises. The menu hasn’t changed in forty years.”

We talked for a while about roasted peppers and stuffed zucchini, about braised rabbit with herbes de Provence, and about the wonderful ceiling with its exposed beams. There followed an awkward silence and I did my best to keep the conversation going.

“How are things with the lab?”

“Don’t waste your time trying to make conversation, Thomas,” he said, a sudden shift in his tone.

Like Pianelli this morning, Thierry took out an e-cigarette and started sucking on something that smelled like crème caramel. I wondered what men like Francis Biancardini and my father thought when they saw guys getting their kicks smoking things that smelled like sweets and drinking spinach detox smoothies instead of a glass of Scotch.

“You know that pathetic old theory about soul mates?” Thierry Sénéca said, glaring at me. “The one that says we’re all looking for the perfect other half, the one and only person capable of forever easing our loneliness?”

“In The Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes present the idea, and I don’t think it’s pathetic. I think it’s poetic. I like the symbolism.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot that you always were the on-call romantic,” he said mockingly.

I let him continue.