There were too many trees and bushes to clearly see what was going on below, but in front of him was what looked like a great limestone crater, an abyss, an immense depression in the ground, as if a section of earth had one day collapsed and sunk a hundred metres. Lise had gone into the great mass of shadowy green, walking into the pit with no hesitation. She probably wanted to see if there was any water inside, as the area must have been full of springs. Franck didn’t have the strength to carry on. He had already drunk three-quarters of his water. He needed to recover. He sat on a strange drystone mound, a sort of tumulus that could have dated back to the Romans. Lise felt at home in this no man’s land, while he was struggling to let go of his life, of his worries. Even there, soaked in sweat and with his shirt open to the waist, he was still a film producer. And yet, up in these secluded hills, without a phone, where the only things that mattered were drinking, finding shade and recuperating, he was finally approaching a more natural state. Suddenly, he heard Lise calling up to him urgently from the very bottom. He couldn’t see her, but he could hear her.

‘Quick, quick, come and see!’

‘Lise, what’s going on?’

‘Come and see!’