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She wishes that Klaus at least didn’t like them so much. She has no idea that Mallélou is seeing canyon ghosts and composing letters to the television company. She begins to set the table for supper. Robert X is now in a satin bed with the beautiful singer. Mallélou is smiling a satisfied smile. In the jumpy, vexing light, Gervaise puts out a tender hand and touches Klaus’s head.
    The morning is grey. Nadia Poniatowski has turned on her electric fire. Beyond her damp windows, a blanketing drizzle shrouds the village, so that the limes of the de la Brosse garden are no more than flat shapes and the house behind them invisible. Nadia hates this kind of smothering weather. She feels lost in it. She’s glad when the telephone rings. Such a relief to hear a voice, to remember she’s far from friendless . . .
    â€œGood morning, Nadia, my dear. Hervé here. What a most unpleasant morning, uhm?”
    â€œOh Hervé. My dear dear. Yes. Too very miserable.”
    â€œNow. May I ask a small favour?”
    â€œOh yes, dear Hervé. Always from Nadia.”
    â€œMy niece is arriving on Monday. Agnès, whom I believe you once met . . .”
    â€œNo. Not your niece I meet, but your sister . . .”
    â€œOh yes? Well.”
    â€œOr sister-in-law.”
    â€œAh yes.”
    â€œI think I am meeting your sister-in-law, Hervé.”
    â€œAh, Well, no matter. Now, the question is, would you mind bestirring yourself in this very unpleasant mist to give Larry a message from me.”
    â€œLarry and Miriam?”
    â€œYes. Or, in this case just Larry, who has kindly offered to meet the Paris–Thiviers train for me, and bring my niece up to the house.”
    â€œOh but of course, Hervé my dear. I will do this collecting.”
    â€œThank you, Nadia. Will you tell Larry, then, that the Paris train gets in at 9.18 on Monday evening and Agnès will be on this?”
    â€œBut why I am telling Larry?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNo. Well I’m not bothering to tell Larry.”
    â€œYou can’t?”
    â€œOh no. Nadia will do this.”
    â€œI’m so sorry, Nadia. You seem to have lost me . . .”
    â€œWhy am I bother telling Larry, when I am meeting your girl?”
    â€œWell, just the day and time, Nadia. Agnès called me a few minutes ago to say which day she would be coming.”
    â€œNadia will go.”
    There is silence at Hervé’s end of the telephone. Near him, on a mahogany balustrade table is a silver box engraved with the signed names of members of his father’s regiment. Hervé does not understand why he has always found the feel of these names beneath his thumb soothing and sweet, but he does. He touches them now, trying not to feel angry with la Poniatowski.
    â€œLet’s start again, Nadia. All I am requesting is that you should go down to Larry’s house and tell him the time of Agnès’s train.”
    â€œWell all right, so, Hervé. You don’t trust Nadia to drive?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou think, oh a woman and a Pole into the boot with some Slavic perversion doesn’t stop at the red light or something? You think this woman doesn’t use her feet?”
    Patience. Hervé strokes the dead names: Patrice Armoutier . . . Guy de Rocheville . . .
    â€œWhat are you talking about, Nadia?”
    â€œYou think so a precious girl won’t safe with Nadia? You think I’m not driving in all directions since I was eighteen years old?”
    â€œNadia, Nadia . . .”
    â€œIs this what? Aren’t you knowing I’m always conducting Claude the moment he is composing his headaches and always stopping at red lights?”
    â€œWhat are you talking about, Nadia?”
    â€œTalking about? I am talking about trust!”
    Nadia thumps down the receiver. Despite the buzzing which tells him she has rung off,