The most wonderful mornings wake up in Paris enveloped in the vanilla-flavored hot croissants: a bustle of voices and of night memories melted away in the sunrise gliding along high windows, opened into balconies heavy with flowers.

Kenza, seated at one of the tables in a sidewalk café, seemed squeezed by the street hustle and bustle as the sunlight broke the fine and white china in small slices with precious glitters on the black marble of the table. Her coffee in the thimble-sized cup had the taste of a strong drink and the wind, coming bluely down the sky, broadened the street protectively and scattered the crowd of footsteps that could have crushed the sunny privacy in front of the café, bringing with it the wet and green coolness of the vegetables strung out in huge osier baskets in the shaded side of the street.

With sunlight tears in her eyes, she was looking at the passers-by: they were so close that she could have touched them; she could even feel the smell of their just woken skins and could hear their thoughts. They were all strangers to her, unreal maybe, figments of the street imagination who walked past her and got lost in the colorful turmoil of the sidewalk.

The bells of St-Pierre de Chaillot started to ring across the city and Kenza, her eyelids half closed, let the cry of the hours pass over her like the final judgment. Like every day at the same time, she stood up and let some coins roll down on the black marble together with the drowsy peace of the morning coffee as the morning itself melted away in the hot burden of the day.

Kenza went down Avenue George V to reach Avenue Silvestre de Sacy, then she crossed the Alma Bridge on the other side of the Seine; on Quai d’Orsay she quickened her steps. Her breath was crushed with excitement and her heart throbbing crazily: she was almost there.

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