TOMORROW, THEN? Madeleine asks.
And with a sick heart she imagines the three of them panting on the grass, the hospital a glittering red shard in the distance; M. Pujol rolling on his side to gaze at the photographer and the photographer, beneath his gaze, beginning to smile (there will be wine in the afternoons, a basket lowered and raised from the window); and the act thus coming to its end, the night descending swiftly like a curtain—but then, there in the dusk, is the pop of a tin being opened. The shadow beside M. Pujol releases into the air an unmistakable smell, a shadow with small shoulders and two great mittens for hands. It leans closer, becoming Madeleine. She is offering him a selection of twenty-two cigarettes. They tempt him; he chooses one, and as he draws up onto his elbows to accept her burning match, he is astonished to observe how well she looks, how her complexion has brightened and her features softened, how resourceful she is, and generous, how irresistible the scent of her cigarettes—
Madeleine turns to the wall. She has got it all wrong. Open a tin? Light a match? She vows to return her winnings to the cook. The cot creaks beneath her, the photographer sighing. He is not answering her questions.
Again she asks, Tomorrow?
Adrien reaches for her hands but cannot find them.
Tomorrow? she asks, back curved away, withholding everything.
He does not want to come with us, he admits at last.