Paris: The Novel

around the Bourse, the area was less residential than most other quarters of the city. But it had a feature of particular charm—a whole network of glass-covered arcades and halls, some of them more than a century old, that housed all kinds of stores and places of refreshment. She would often walk about these intimate malls, exploring happily for an hour at a time.
    Only once during all this time did she glimpse another side of Luc—and even then, it was hard to say what she had seen. It happened at dawn, on a summer’s day, up at his house on the slopes of Montmartre.
    She was suddenly awoken by a cry beside her. Luc was thrashing about wildly in the bed. Before she could do anything, his hands encountered her, and then suddenly seized her by the throat. She tried to pry them off, and scream, but his grip was so strong that she couldn’t even breathe. She was completely in his power, and he was still asleep. She hit out wildly, slapped his face as hard as she could. His eyes opened. He looked startled and confused. His grip relaxed.
    “Luc, what are you doing?” she gasped.
    “A nightmare.” She could see that he was still struggling into consciousness.
    “Evidently. But you almost throttled me.”
    “
Chérie
, I am so sorry.”
    “Who were you trying to strangle?”
    “A dog.”
    “A dog?”
    He propped himself up on one elbow and stared at her.
    “A dog. I can’t explain. It was a crazy nightmare. Without any sense to it.”
    And then he gave her a strange look.
    “Did I cry out anything?”
    “No.”
    “A name?”
    “You mean the dog had a name? What’s he called? Fido?”
    “I didn’t call anything out?” He was fully awake now, and he waswatching her in a strange way. She’d never seen him look like that before, and she found it disquieting.
    “Nothing. You were thrashing around in the bed. That woke me up. The next thing I knew, you were strangling me.”
    He continued to look at her. Then, apparently satisfied, his expression changed to one of tender concern.
    “I hardly ever have nightmares. It must have been something I ate. Are you all right?” He kissed her softly on the forehead. “You had better hold me. I was afraid.”
    They lay together for a little while. She held him. His fear subsided, and his courage grew. But just when she thought he was going to start making love, he got up from the bed, and went to the window. Opening the shutter, he looked down into the little garden behind the house. His eyes seemed to be fixed on something.
    “What are you looking at?” she asked.
    “Nothing. I was listening to the dawn chorus. One could be in the middle of the country.”
    “Come back to bed.”
    “In a minute.”
    And soon he did, and they made love, and everything was back to normal.
    But she couldn’t forget the strange expression on his face when he was questioning her, even though she had no idea what it meant.

    The girl. It was a long time since that vision had troubled him. Luc knew it was said that murderers revisit the scene of the crime, but he had never gone down into that cave again. The girl must surely be whitened bones by now. Even her name was forgotten. After all, it was more than ten years since she’d disappeared. A world war had come and gone. Millions had died. Bushes had grown across the hidden entrance behind the little shed in his garden. One would have to cut them down even to get into the caves now. There was no reason to give the girl a thought.
    Nor did he, during his waking hours. But sometimes, in his sleep, her face rose up before him. Her pale face, her eyes angry and accusing. And he would know that she was a ghost, and be afraid.
    But that night the dream had been different. He had seen her skeleton, in among the others in the cave. But a strange plant had been growingfrom the bones, sending out long shoots. And one of the shoots had turned into a long stalk that had started winding its way along the passage, yard after yard, until at last it found its way to the entrance hidden behind the shed in his garden, and somehow it had managed to creep around the back of the shed and out onto the grass where it lay, apparently exhausted by its efforts to make its way out of the darkness into the light. And from the end of the green stalk, now, small flowers like lilies began to grow.
    Perhaps the plant might have remained there, doing no harm, had it not been for the dog that suddenly appeared. Luc had no idea where the dog had come from, but