I AM IN PARIS FOR THREE DAYS. IT IS NOT MY FIRST TIME, and the circumstances of my earlier visits have always been a little odd.

When I was quite young I came with a Norwegian theatre company. I was unhappily in love and only wanted to lie on my bed and read old letters from him. He went on a walking tour in the mountains to forget me. He ran up and down and around all the peaks he could find, timed himself, beat his own records, and after a while couldn’t remember why he had begun running. While I dragged myself to Sarah Bernhardt’s old theatre and acted out my suffering on the stage.

I didn’t even bother to see the Eiffel Tower.