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At night came the fever – probably a souvenir from Korea, from a bacteria thriving in some air-conditioning system or other. In Zurich Maille had stayed overnight at the apartment of a journalist, whom he had got to know on a trek through Déboulé, the tallest mountain in Santa Lemusa. At half past midnight, he had fallen asleep healthy and a bit drunk, a few minutes later at 12.45 he had woken up sick and fully sober. His nose leaked as though his entire body had suddenly turned liquid, his throat ached, and then followed the fever – so fast and so intense that it seemed as though it had been forcefully pumped into his body. And just when he felt that his body would be burned by its heat, he would feel it turning ice-cold, at once stiff and trembling.

He lay there in bed until the grey dawn of day, hellishly wide awake with a racing pulse, watching the repeats of the crime series of the week – «Monk» and «CSI», «Trautmann» and «Balko», «Tatort» and «Criminal Intent» – in German, in English, in French, and even in Turkish (which promptly sent him into a 30-second semi-slumber, in which his thoughts floated into a restaurant at the Istanbul-Karaköy pier that afforded a great view over the Golden Horn). Early in the morning he dragged himself out to the airport, arriving at the Air France gate more than two hours before the flight that would take him to Paris, from where he could finally return to Santa Lemusa. He was looking forward to being back at home on the isle – to his house, the scent of jasmine in his garden, to Odette, his tender-hearted cook, his friends (though not all), his jogging track, to the serenity, to his Valpolicella.

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