A black figure brings up the rear. At first I take him for a part of the parade - the Plague Doctor, maybe - but as he approaches I recognize the old-fashioned soutane of the country priest. He is in his thirties, though from a distance his rigid stance makes him seem older. He turns towards me, and I see that he too is a stranger, with the high cheekbones and pale eyes of the north and long pianist's fingers resting on the silver cross that hangs from his neck. Perhaps this is what gives him the right to stare at me, this alienness; but I see no welcome in his cold, light eyes. Only the measuring, feline look of one who's uncertain of his territory. I smile at him; he looks away, startled; beckons the two children toward him. A gesture indicates the litter that now lines the road; reluctantly the pair begin to clear it, scooping up spent streamers and candy wrappers in their arms and into a nearby bin. I catch the priest staring at me again as I turn away, a look that in another man might have been of appraisal.

There is no police station at Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, therefore no crime. I try to be like Anouk, to see beneath the disguise to the truth, but for now everything is blurred.

"Are we staying? Are we, maman?" She tugs at my arm, insistently. "I like it, I like it here. are we staying?"

I catch her up to my arms and kiss the top of her head. She smells of smoke and frying pancakes and warm bedclothes on a winter's morning.

Why not? It's as good a place as any.

"Yes, of course," I tell her, my mouth in her hair. "Of course we are." Not quite a lie. This time it may even be true.