After her lunch with the Americans, Sylvie muses how their coming has transformed her life, not directly perhaps, but by setting in motion a chain of events that she couldn’t have imagined three months ago. The folder that fell from Julien’s desk, and all that has followed since. But for now her quest has ended, as it began, in silence.

The phone rings, startling her out of her reverie. Ana Carvalho tells her there is someone in the courtyard asking for her, she says her name is Christine Boniface.

Sylvie draws in her breath. Christine Boniface of Belleville. “Send her up.”

But Ana Carvalho wouldn’t dream of letting the woman into Sylvie’s apartment on her own, she’s heard too many horror stories about swindlers preying on the old and the defenseless, not that Sylvie is old, and Coco’s there to defend her, but still, better to be safe than sorry. And this woman looks a little toc-toc, wouldn’t surprise her if she’s touched in the head.

But when Sylvie opens the door, it is Christine Boniface who eyes her suspiciously.

“I was told you’re looking for me,” she says.

Sylvie nods to Ana Carvalho, still barring the doorway. “It’s all right, Ana.”

Reluctantly, Ana moves aside for Christine Boniface to enter. “I’m out here changing the lightbulb, if you need me,” she says meaningfully.

But the woman is oblivious of the concierge, her eyes fixed on a framed canvas leaning against the mantelpiece, a landscape of vineyards and hills with three ruined châteaux in the distance. She walks toward it like a frostbitten wanderer toward a fire, then sinks down on her knees and bursts into a howl of wordless desolation.