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fancy for, but there was plenty of bread, bacon and cheese. The wine at the Commerce might be slightly watered down on occasion, but it was cheap and not too sour and didn’t give you a headache.
    It had naturally come to the ears of the regulars long ago that old Barthélemy at the station had acquired someone to assist him in his far from onerous duties, so Léon didn’t have to introduce himself the first time he came through the glass door in his railwayman’s uniform. ‘ A vos ordres, mon général! ’ the senior windbag had called, giving him a sedentary salute, and one of the schoolmasters, having joined Léon at the counter, questioned him closely, on behalf of the local community, about his previous existence, present circumstances and future plans.
    The regulars were relieved to note in the course of the ensuing evenings that Léon didn’t shoot his mouth off or pick fights, but stood quietly at the counter, drank a glass or two of Bordeaux, and – as befitted a youth of his age – politely withdrew after half an hour.
    Léon was in the Commerce every night. He exchanged a few words, sometimes with the landlord and sometimes with his daughter, who stood behind the counter every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. She was a tall, serious girl who looked rather dreamy but kept an eagle eye on every customer’s tab, no matter how big the drinking session. Léon, who was aware that she sometimes threw him sidelong, searching glances, tried to conceal from her that his own focus of attention was the door.
    Because he wasn’t there for the sake of the red wine, of course, but mainly in the hope that the girl in the red and white polka-dot blouse would sooner or later walk in. She’d had no luggage on the rack of her bike, so she had to be living in the locality – if not in Saint-Luc itself, then in one of the surrounding villages. The town was small. After a few days, hardly a face was unfamiliar to him. He knew the priest and the three gendarmes and the sacristan and the street urchins and the flower girls by sight, but he never rediscovered the pretty cyclist, neither in the churchyard nor the laundry nor the flower shop, nor on the benches in the Place de la République, nor under the plane trees flanking the canal, nor at the entrance to the brick works on the other side of the railway line. He had once sprinted after a female cyclist until she dismounted and turned out to be the wife of the baker in the Rue des Moines. On another occasion he had heard some rhythmical squeaks but failed to locate their source before they grew fainter and died away altogether.
    Léon was often on the point of asking the landlord of the Commerce or his daughter about the girl in the red and white polka-dot blouse, but he refrained from doing so because he realized that in a small place no good could come of a strange youth enquiring after a local girl. One night, though, just after he had paid, the café door burst open and someone made a swift, light-footed entrance. It was the girl in the red and white polka-dot blouse, except that this time she was wearing a blue pullover, not a blouse. She closed the door behind her with a well-gauged shove and strode purposefully up to the counter, greeting the regulars left and right as she went. She halted only an arm’s-length from Léon and asked the landlord for two packets of Turmac cigarettes. While he was taking them from the shelf she fished out the coins and put them in the money bowl. Then she cleared her throat and, with the fingertips of her right hand, brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. It wouldn’t stay put and promptly escaped once more.
    â€˜ Bonsoir, mademoiselle, ’ said Léon.
    She turned towards him as if she’d only just noticed him. Looking into her eyes, he seemed to detect, in their green depths, the makings of a great friendship.
    â€˜I know you,’ she said, ‘but where