[...] But Max is there, strong shoulders, clean scent of soap, soft facial hair on my neck, his mouth, I seek it out, our exchanges, I know things, he talks to me, tells me things he says he’s told no one else, not even his wife, she doesn’t know anything about his childhood, she wouldn’t understand, he says, the arduous trip to Mexico, the hot sun and the stinging insects, the desert, the mystery of the Spanish language, the French school they sent him to, the priests, their hands and their robes, a local girl he loved, her parents who refused to let their daughter marry a Jew, his escape to Paris, the life he’d wanted to build here among books and intellectuals, the small chambre de bonne where he lived on eggs and ersatz coffee, the window through which he looked at Paris, his wife knows none of this, she is from here, good Catholic family, big family, wants kids, can’t have them, she blames it on him, they fight, she doesn’t know about the baby with the Mexican girl, the woman in the neighbourhood who took care of it, the girl’s stomach pains, Valentina was her name, Valentina’s blood, Valentina in the hospital, the guilt, Paris so soon after, he is talking in my ear now, he is telling me what he likes, he is calling me his little girl, I take his mane of hair in my hand, I hold his head back, away from me, I eye him down, I hold him there, I am in control, I am the one he talks to, I am the one—