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breathing vapor in the old Delage. The heater is still no good. Snow is streaming into the headlights, pouring against us, exploding on the glass. The gear box is grinding away. Taking a curve, we begin to snake wildly.
    “Oh, watch it, Dean,” he says.
    Across the road a river of snow is flowing, spilling sideways, shifting, rushing away. We begin to drive slower. The snow beats white against us, making no sound. We are lost in a whirling whiteness, in the rich voice of the car.
    “Did you see that sign? What did it say?”
    “Langres, I think.”
    “Langres,” he says.
    “Yes. We’re on the right road.”
    It takes hours. After a while, there’s no other traffic. We’re sailing along roads as deserted as the steppes. The villages are dark.
    When we finally arrive, we stop in at the Foy. It’s nice to enter, to be inside. The wood of the floor feels good. We sit down in one of the booths. There are some couples scattered around. It’s all very cosy. The waitress brings us tea. She’s a girl from the country who works here on weekends, I’ve seen her before. She wears a turtleneck sweater, black skirt, a leather belt cinched tightly around her waist dividing her into two erotic zones. Behind the bar the radio is going softly. Outside, the snow is falling, covering the car like the statue of a hero, filling the tracks that lead to where it is parked. Dean watches as she removes the things from her tray and sets them on the table: cups, saucers, the silver pot. His eyes follow her as she walks away.
    “She likes you,” I tell him.
    His gaze jumps to me, hesitates.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, I can tell,” I say.
    He looks at me and then glances at her. She’s leaning against the bar, paying no attention. Dean smiles then, tired and lonely.
    “That’s right,” I tell him.
    “I know. She’s been dreaming about me for weeks,” he says.

[7]
    M ADAME JOB, PASSIONATELY THIN , bony as a boy, thinks he looks like an actor: Eddie Constantine. When I tell Dean this, he says,
    “Who?”
    I explain that it’s somebody who appears in cheap films.
    “I’ve never heard of him,” he says.
    “You’ll see him. I don’t think you look like him, but anyway…”
    “It’s wild,” he says.
    Madame Job is smiling. She doesn’t speak any English. She follows the conversation from mouth to mouth, like a dog.
    The room has a bare, modern look. Somehow inexpensive, too. Rugs are scattered over a floor of polished wood. There are a few magazines on a table. The furniture almost seems to be there on loan. I don’t know if there’s a reason. Henri Job works at the glove factory. He’s a manager, quite important. Billy wrote a letter to him for me. When I called, they were very friendly. Of course, this isn’t his house, it belongs to her father. It’s just next door to her father’s house in fact–not an unusual situation.
    Henri doesn’t come from here. He’s from Lyon. Ah, that second greatest city of France, beside its wide river. He holds this over her like a title. Her father has done very well in chauffage– he has the biggest shop in town–but, after all, Lyon. One can see it all in her face. Besides that, he’s quite strict. He doesn’t permit her to dance, a thing she loves madly she confided to me. It’s he who has the bad heart, but nevertheless…
    A bitter, foggy week in November. We drove along the Boulevard Mazagran without seeing another pair of headlights. The lime trees were black as iron in the dark. We turned off on the street where the Jobs live in a newer section of town. Blank walls. Everything looks abandoned, even the cars parked along the curb. I’ve already warned Dean that the evening will probably be boring. Many of the houses along here are recent. It’s like a new planting, they simply haven’t become anything yet. There are embarrassing spaces between them, bare trees.
    The Jobs have a wire gate, a green gate which I close behind me. The sound of our feet seems very