He had to calm down. He had to pull himself together. Maybe he could slowly get used to the idea that there was nothing to fear. Of course, there was nothing to fear. Apart from that dog, there was nothing to fear. Apart from those woods and those abandoned hills, there was nothing to fear.

According to some kids, the two bistros in the town were on the other side of the square, so he had to walk all the way through the market. It was a bit of a shock after a night of almost total silence. He walked past the stalls, looking at them as if they came from another world, a colourful pastoral world he wasn’t a part of. Lise, a staunch vegetarian, would not have been comfortable with this profusion of artisan charcuterie: many and varied hams, hanging saucissons and preserves, stacked jars of pâté and terrines made of all sorts of crushed, cooked and compressed flesh … But he also came across stands of nice big vegetables; he couldn’t see anything that said it was organic, but what did it matter? There was a sense of bubbling excitement here; it was as if he were inside a huge stomach, an insatiable stomach that would devour anything: meat, vegetables, fruit, charcuterie and fish. Everywhere was bustling; the customers and the vendors all seemed to know one another and every transaction took a long time because they were all talking to each other. There was something gluttonous about it all, a sense of abundance, festivity and perhaps even happiness. Yes, these people all seemed happy, happy that their appetites had brought them together. In the middle of this maelstrom, Franck didn’t exist. He felt like a spectator and nothing more. He certainly wasn’t part of the celebration, of this feast; it was like he had landed on another planet. And it was getting hotter and hotter. He would rather go inside to do his shopping, into a peaceful air-conditioned shop where you could serve yourself, a normal shop with music, where you didn’t have to ask anyone anything. All he wanted was to fill his basket without getting into a conversation with goodness knows who, or being served with goodness knows what.

He asked a lady at random: ‘Do you happen to know where I can find a shop?’

‘What kind of shop?’

‘A food shop!’

The woman must have thought it was a joke, or she assumed he was a foreigner.

‘Isn’t there enough food all around you?’