Every day is a discovery, a race, a buzz of new speeds. The car trips over the Corniche mountains, the scented air on my face, the sun, the unknown feeling that everything is possible. Finally: freedom. And the future that invades the present, with the roar of the engines, the planes that fly over the coast, heading towards Paris. My idea of the world is out of focus before the voracity of progress.

Anais greets me with a happy smile. She is dressed in white, a raw silk dress wrapped round her tiny body. An enormous hat protects her from the sun. The notes of a trumpet and a piano rise from inside the house and Anais gets up. She beckons me, moving the mouthpiece and trying out a few Charleston moves around the marble steps of the pool, laughing. Her mouth is red, small, perfect.

I sit down at the dressing table in polished wood. It looks like a sculpture. I already know that I’ll wear the enveloping bronze-coloured trousers and the peacoat, featuring golden threads intertwined in an obsessive geometry. The dusty pink lingerie is a perfect match for my translucent skin. Powder, rouge on my cheeks. The lipstick turns my mouth into a bud.