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Your grandmother, your father’s mother, is a serene and very discreet old lady. She has no stories to tell but she makes Polish dishes which she then tries to force-feed you, swinging between entreaties and commands to reinforce her case. For Easter every year, she buys a live carp, dunks it in the bathtub, lets it flail and exhaust itself, then seizes it with her bare hands and knocks it dead in the sink with a hammer, a capacity for violence unguessable from her old lady’s physique. The blood spurts over the sink’s enamel sides; the creature twists and fights to escape but your grandmother’s triumph is total. There is never a survivor. All the carp die inexorably in her sink, one after another, and end their days in the form of that sweetish, insipid dish that you can’t stand and that, with a mixture of repugnance and community pride, we call Jewish carp.

To stop the wolves taking live prey on the land allocated to them, wires and spikes aimed at preventing birds from settling within the zone should shortly be laid out. The spectacle of one of our canines tucking into a meal of mallards or swallows could really shock our fellow citizens and give rise to undue hostility towards the wolves.

You spend your weekends fishing for plastic ducks using a rod furnished with a hook. While keeping your focus on maximum efficiency, you consider how pleasurable it must be to fish for the great carp which swim in the very depths of the lake, to feel their weight on the line, to disengage the hook from each gaping mouth before throwing each one back in the water. You sense that this longing is worse even than your longing for a pet. You don’t mention it to your mother. In order to lie, you’d have to speak.

There was a time when the law anticipated the breeding of species as prey for animals that fed exclusively on live creatures, but that law was amended by another, such that the wild individuals could at no juncture be described as engaged in torture, which, however, they were, back when all animals lived in the wild. We may recall that in those days, the predator would begin to devour its prey even before administering the final blow, a method understandably judged to be inhumane by the authorities responsible for human and animal well-being. This is why our veterinary services have transformed wolves, the big cats, snakes and bears, all traditionally partial to fresh meat, into carrion-eaters.

Your mother has decided that the assimilation of Jewish families into the French nation is sealed by their celebration of Christmas. She believes her progeny should not feel excluded from the festival all children talk about and so keenly anticipate. Therefore, you write regularly to the old white-bearded gentleman, of whom you demand a pet, a little ball of fur that you could stroke, feed, fuss over and kiss, that you could play and chatter with endlessly and that you’d look after. But as Father Christmas does not seem to be listening, you decide that, as soon as the banquet has been consumed, you will leave with his reindeer, to take your revenge.

The chickens arrive frozen whole and we post them beneath the fence. Sometimes we stuff their rumps with beef mince and put medication in it, not antibiotics but vitamins, so the wolves’ coats stay shiny. The wolf’s well-being guarantees man’s safety.

For one of your childhood Christmases, your parents plan a big party with all the grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, great-uncles, aunts and great-aunts, cousins, second cousins, nieces and nephews, sons- and daughters-in-law who belong to the family by a range of crooks and branches that you have never pretended to understand. This substantial crowd squeezes into the dining room to await the moment of gift distribution. Since the previous evening, an enormous paper-covered cube has been waiting beneath the synthetic fir tree that your father consented to buy, waiting for you to open it in front of everyone. The excitement is at its peak and the ceremony is about to begin. Sitting on the floor, you tear off the wrapping in a frenzy to reveal a gigantic doll kitted out head to toe as a nurse. Your disappointment is so acute that it triggers an appalling crying fit, the cause of which nobody in the family, with all its branches and generations, can discover and which in large part spoils the festive mood of this huge reunion.

While the circumference of the accommodation zone is normally effected by means of an exterior enclosure intended to head off all attempt at escape and all unauthorised entrance, whether by people or animals, the facility envisaged here, a vast trench both deep and completely open to the skies, will require none of these structures and will therefore exhibit great architectural elegance and almost ethereal lightness. The security zone, a strip 1.5 m wide at its narrowest, that separates spectators from animals, will at a few points become a railing placed in such a way as to prevent spectators from leaning over and touching the animals. We know that children find wolves irresistible, and that mothers’ vigilance can be compromised by their little ones’ curiosity, unaware as they are of the gap between fairy tale and real life. For the wolf, a man is a man.

You wish you could like what the other little girls like, you’d like to play with dolls as they do, you’re embarrassed that you don’t play with dolls but you just can’t make yourself do it, you ask for pets, soldiers, lorries, garages, teepees, superhero costumes, and by force of attrition your mother gives in to some of your wishes; you acquire the Indian outfit with feathers sticking up behind your head, and the Zorro cape, but the pet, the little ball of fur that you want to carry about with you, to fuss over, stroke, feed, look after, to which you’d confide your secrets, your sorrows, your disappointments and your desires, you’ll never have that.

The open-air sections, strictly reserved for the wolves, will measure 100 m² at most for a couple and 20 m² for every additional wolf, which for a family of twelve gives an acceptable living space (300 m²), though substantially smaller than the average area available to them in northern Canada or eastern Siberia. These sections must be enclosed by fences. The type of mesh, the spacing of the bars, the layout of the supporting posts and the different options for attaching all this to the ground have been subject to a number of studies, and the results suggest that Layher parts, with a galvanised wire mesh cladding 4 mm in diameter, will be the most appropriate and safest option. The mesh will be buried along its entire length and to a depth of 40 cm. Thus, the animals will have no means of escape.

You decide to plan your resistance to your parents’ world, to proudly neglect Father Christmas, to farm snails in shoeboxes, to shelter abandoned animals in your bedroom and to leave with the reindeer after the New Year’s Eve parties.

The rules are: never drop to the ground and always keep your back to the fence. For man, a wolf is a wolf.

You wonder if, in families whose closeness implies a powerful interdependence between members, introducing an individual of another species may feel like a betrayal. You would like to betray yours; you don’t know how to go about it.

At night, my wolves will not be on display to the public, that’s what I requested. They will have two separate dens, 23 m long, 3 m wide and up to 2.5 m high, which are the regulation dimensions. We have ordered wooden wall panels and sandy flooring; it’s essential that my animals be able to relax and get some peace and quiet.

In the world of captivity just as anywhere else, animals need to distinguish day from night if we wish to spare them irreversible biological and psychological disturbance.

You realise that the stubbornness with which you continue to hope for a pet is viewed by those around you as an absurd caprice or, worse, a kind of disloyalty. You decide to accept, once and for all, that you are disloyal. You would like to betray, only you don’t know how to go about it.

A system of video surveillance linked to headquarters at the castle reception will ensure the site’s constant security. HQ will be connected via a telephone line on permanent standby provided by Lynx, an organisation highly respected for its effectiveness and its expertise in the surveillance of captive animals. In case of emergency, Lynx is obliged to call on the animals’ sole owner and keeper. Ready to step in 24/7 and therefore housed close to the moats, the latter will have access to live-trapping equipment, a hypodermic tranquilliser gun, model Dist-Inject 55, as well as two lassos – equipment which they may not use except in the presence of the authorised veterinary doctor, who alone may provide the anaesthetic required for hypodermic restraint.

When we reach the hospital with an arm half-torn off, we don’t immediately tell the nurses it was a wolf, otherwise they’d think we’re mad. Still: given the size of the wound, the teeth marks in the flesh, twenty-three stitches later and a great chunk of flesh the poorer, it couldn’t have been a dog. For the wolf, man is another wolf.

In time, you notice that none of the families your parents frequent has a pet. This reinforces your thought that one day you’ll have to break away from those bringing you up, those who care for, cosset, fuss over, hold on to and possess you. You would like to betray them, you just don’t know how to go about it.

The selection of trainers and handlers is absolutely crucial to the project’s success. We will proceed through preliminary interviews with a hand-picked selection of candidates. To establish their psychological stability, we’ll question them about their motivation, their background, we’ll make them draw houses, trees and sheep, we’ll ask them intimate questions about their childhoods and their sex lives. We will favour those demonstrating a sense of authority, instinct for organisation and responsibility, and those who also show a specific personal charm, able both to fend off the final efforts at resistance to officialdom and to ensure the support of the wider public.

You are embarrassed not to play with dolls, not to like dolls, to find dolls horrifying, you hate dolls, you never let your classmates know what you were given at Christmas, you hide the truth, you’d like to be more like the other little girls, you sometimes wonder if they’re not pretending, if they wouldn’t prefer, as you do, to dress up like Indians and ululate around the fire, you’re not sure they’re so different from you; nonetheless you envy them, you wish that, despite your revulsion, you could take a doll in your arms and rock it but you can’t do it, you did try once, it was impossible, it’s not that you’re cold-hearted, you don’t think you are, you’re sure for example that you’d know how to look after a little animal, a warm, wriggling, living, breathing ball of fur. If you’re not to get what you want, you’ll leave with the reindeer after Christmas.

From now on, all these provisions form part of the programme to introduce wolves into the castles of France and Navarre. The head office of the veterinary services is responsible for a public awareness campaign aimed at defusing any negative reactions or occasional outbursts from sections of the population. Its role is that of arbiter between the local council and the different pressure groups active in the regions. It is particularly wary of shepherds, cattle farmers, hunting lobbies, committees of parents and local people, dog-grooming companies, societies for animal protection, circuses and museum conservationists, all of whom, with their various priorities, may be concerned by the presence of wild animals. With such a major project, anger, fear, jealousy, unthinking compassion and also the spirit of competition must be kept in check. For men, a man is a man.

For as long as you belong to your mother, you will not obtain what you want. You don’t yet know how you’ll go about it but one day you will betray her.