“Were you already walking around Paris together that Saturday afternoon as my train pulled into the Gare du Nord? Or were you locked away from the rain somewhere, lost in the vastness of loving each other? My own room in a hotel near the train station had two narrow beds and a Juliet balcony overlooking a bar whose red neon sign flashed “Le Cheval.” In the dark gray evening, I put my damp suitcase in the corner and swung open the windows. I looked out on the rainy street and thought, as I did every day that year, about hell.”