There was an uncomfortable silence. Then she asked, almost imploringly, if we shouldn’t continue working. Somewhat humiliated, I searched for the point in my manuscript where I’d stopped. I was mortified: I realised that in harping on Kloster so insistently I might have lost my chance. Had I ever had one? I’d thought I had with that first touch, despite her sudden stiffness. But now, as I continued dictating, it had all vanished, as if we’d both resumed our previous places, with a civilised distance between us. Nevertheless, as she picked up her bag before leaving, her eyes sought mine, as if she wanted to make sure of something, or, like me, she wanted to recover some of the contact that had been lost. This glance only disconcerted me all over again: it might mean simply that she didn’t bear me a grudge but would rather forget what had just happened, or that the door, in spite of everything, was still open.

I waited impatiently for the day to end. The month had passed too quickly and I realised that there were only a couple of days left before Luciana disappeared from my life. When I let her in the next morning I looked to see if anything in her face or general appearance had changed since the day before-whether she’d tried a little more make-up, or a bit less clothing-but if anything she seemed to have succeeded in looking the same as always. And yet, nothing was the same. We sat down and I began dictating the last chapter of my novel. I wondered whether the imminent end wouldn’t stir something in her as well, but as if we were applying ourselves with the utmost concentration to playing our parts, Luciana’s hands, her head, her entire attention, seemed fully focused on my voice.

As the morning progressed, I realised I was waiting for a single movement. Strange dissociation. Though I still noticed the same things as usual-the gap between her T-shirt and the line of her panties, the seductively furrowed brow, the tips of her teeth biting her lip now and then, the movement of her shoulders as she leaned forward-it was strangely distant and all that I could really see before me, with extraordinary clarity, was the nape of her neck.