While every other room in the villa was elegant, immaculately polished, and tastefully furnished, the cellar was filled with a grotesque collection of random stuff and illuminated by flickering strip lights. Here were stored the repressed memories of the Villa Violette. I managed to clear a path through the chaos. There were old bikes, a scooter, and pairs of roller skates that probably belonged to my sister’s kids. Next to a toolbox, half hidden by a tarpaulin, was my old moped. My father—always a gearhead—had completely refurbished it. The body had been stripped and beautifully repainted, and he had replaced the wheel rims and the tires—my pathetic old 103 MVL now looked properly hot. He had even managed to track down the original Peugeot stickers. Deeper into the room, there were toys, trunks, suitcases, and vast piles of clothes; my mother and father had never skimped on clothes. There were stacks of books gathering dust. These were the books the family actually read but that weren’t literary enough to earn a place on the walnut bookshelves in the library—my mother’s thrillers and love stories, the popular nonfiction my father liked. Handsome leather-bound editions of Saint-John Perse and Malraux lined the shelves upstairs, but in the cellar were the true manuals of our lives—Dan Brown and Fifty Shades of Grey.

Somewhere near the back I finally found what I had been looking for. On a battered Ping-Pong table were two boxes with my name scrawled on them, both filled with nostalgia. I hauled the boxes upstairs—it took two trips—and spilled out the contents to sort through them.

On the kitchen table, I laid out everything connected with the year 1992 that might prove useful to my investigation. A blue Eastpak backpack daubed with Wite-Out, three-ring binders full of notes, report cards that offered a portrait of the meek, model student I had once been: Diligent, constructive attitude in class. An easygoing, assiduous student. Insightful and relevant contributions. A keen mind.

I flicked through a number of essays that had been important to me: an essay on Rimbaud’s “Le dormeur du val,” another on the opening section of Belle du Seigneur. I even found some philosophy homework marked up by Alexis Clément, who had taught me my junior year. On my essay entitled “Can Art Exist Without Constraints?,” he’d written, Interesting and sophisticated reasoning skills—B. And on one entitled “Can Passion Be Understood?,” I received a glowing assessment from Clément: Despite a few elementary errors, this is an excellent essay, showing a clear grasp of concepts and elucidated with examples that demonstrate a genuine comprehension of literature and philosophy—A-.