titled stranger.

[divertissements]

Every girl Claude kissed before reaching the age of twenty was a stranger to her, but out of them all, Fanny remained the greatest. They eyed each other across the room at a half-bad poetry reading by Patenaude and they would know each other only by name the first time.

They became lovers, they became familiar, they became each other’s preference in quick succession, yet Fanny stayed a perfect stranger throughout. She hid behind a scribbled wall, Claude reading every volume, breathlessly, without ever managing to penetrate the ink. The symbols were surface.

Underneath, she found only a sharp-edged mirror.