I had always known her to be a peculiar girl.
It seemed there existed nothing in her mind that is saved only for dance.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, she dances in the evening. A dance bag in her left hand, a water bottle in her right; twenty-five minutes by foot to rue Varenne, then thirty-five minutes back home.
Such was her life for two years.
Saturdays, she dances the entire day. A large dance bag upon her left shoulder, a small bag on the right, a book, earphones, and a large flask; she drinks only hot water, very hot. She arrives at a quarter past nine in the morning and returns home at half past five in the evening.
Such has been her life for six years.
‘But Saturday is the day we might see each other,’ he said to her.
‘But Saturday is the day I can dance like a mad thing,’ she replied.
‘You are a strange girl.’
‘I am a girl who would even refuse a boy because the proportion between his philtrum and his lip displeases me.’
It is Sunday; she wanders across the rooftops. A pas de chat, and she descends to a small roof; a grand jeté, she alights upon another. She dances and gazes at the rooftop landscape, the sky gently collapsing upon the city with its constellations, as though the city were covered by a veil of silk velvet.
There, her eyes sparkle despite herself, gathering into a sublime vision the illuminated windows, the street fires, and the nocturnal lights in this firmament.
She dances, a star in her left hand, the nectar-bright celestial sphere in her right. In this profound night, her dress sewn with gleaming lights. With each pirouette, she scatters tiny sparks upon the slumbering façades.
Might I finally find it this evening?
She remains a peculiar girl, I know.
