From then on their understanding was at an end. The dog dug its heels in, its expression fierce, its lips drawn back and its teeth clamped down on the ball. Franck couldn’t make sense of it. Clearly the part of this animal that was dog wanted to play, but the part that was wolf didn’t. The wolf part expected something completely different from fetching a ball. Franck could see it when it growled, its oblique wide-set eyes narrowed, their wild yellow colour electrified by two black pupils, two sharp points that disappeared under its eyelids when it snarled, giving it a sudden air of utter menace. Still facing Franck, the dog began grinding its teeth in a frantic attempt to destroy the cypress cone, as if it wanted to negate the game by shattering it completely. Its mouth was contorted by effort into a strange smile that was more terrifying than playful, especially as it was growling with excitement, fragments of cone falling from its mouth. It was fear, then, that Franck felt, a fear that wasn’t just in his head but seemed to be coming from all around him, suspended in the oppressive heat and the pockets of air that rippled just above the ground, lingering in the chirping of insects that was getting louder and louder, and in the growls of the wolf dog that had now started to bark, still looking Franck straight in the eye as if challenging him to take the shattered ball that was clenched in its mouth and that it didn’t want to relinquish. It is profoundly frightening when a wolf dog comes towards you snarling, especially when it’s tall and strong and you don’t know what it’s thinking, and it’s staring at you with a furious expression, back half lowered. Franck picked up what was left of the mangled ball and the dog watched with a look of incomprehension that bordered on contempt. Then it started barking again, but louder this time, an outburst so intense that it went right through Franck, the animal projecting more than a hundred decibels of fury or warning at Franck while staring at him and moving closer. Franck dropped the remains of the ball on the ground, but the dog just became more and more threatening. It could probably be heard from miles away. Lise came running over, awoken by the racket, but she instinctively kept her distance. To stop it barking, you just had to stop looking at it. Franck realised this and walked towards Lise without so much as a glance at the dog, aware that it was still staring at him.

‘Lise, I think it’s trying to tell us something.’

‘What did you do to it?’