Symmetrical to the business center as well as the shopping complex, the religious worship center is located on the basement level of the airport, between elevators and escalators. The waiting hall was cool, with some metal armchairs, display cases filled with brochures in seven languages, and five kinds of greenery growing in large barrels. A cross, a star, and a crescent moon were rolled out of the leaves of the three slightly open doors. Mnusken sat in an armchair and counted the rest of the accessories: a phone hanging on the wall, a fire extinguisher, a donation box.

Since there was no one in the early hours of the morning, Mnusken stole a third glance through the crack in the door. The miniature synagogue is almost empty, with three chairs surrounding a low table. The same can be said in miniature Catholic chapels, with flower pots, altars, images of the Virgin Mary, a register with a ballpoint pen, and two handwritten notices: one stating the presence of the Eucharist and the other asking not to take the ballpoint pen away. The miniature mosque is covered with green machine-cut carpets, a coat rack, and a shoeshine mat, on which some adidas shoes, tongue shoes, moccasins, and protective boots taken off by worshippers from North Africa, Central Africa, and the Middle East.

As the morning wore on, there were a number of worshippers who came to the religious centre, including even more airport staff than transit passengers, maintenance workers in blue overalls, and often dark-skinned, always very athletic security guards, carrying walkie-talkies and cell phones. Of course, there were also ordinary customers who came, a beautiful Lebanese nun, a Bulgarian mother and her big son, a frail little young man with a big beard, who was Ethiopian in appearance, with red eyes that expressed the horror of emptiness, the fear of airsickness, and before boarding the plane, he wished to receive Holy Communion from a priest, and to this, Mnusken was not willing at all.

Towards noon, the covered van driven by Rajeep finally appeared. Once the crates were loaded into the car, unloaded in the gallery and carefully stacked in the studio, Mnusken walked back to his home.

As he left the gallery and went home, he glanced at the construction site, and it seemed that the foundations had been dug and that some makeshift sheds with temporary metal sheets had been built, machines were placed, and workers were being erected with the help of a large red crane. On weekdays, the noise is almost deafening, but now Mnusken thought to himself, let's see.

Now, this summer Sunday, the silence of Paris is reminiscent of the silence on the ice floe, only the cold is gone, and the asphalt has been replaced by the tarmac whose skin has melted under the scorching sun. When he returned home and reached the staircase aisle, he was surprised to find that there was no fragrance of aromatic elixirs, as if the silence of the city had made everything disappear, and the tribe of perfumes had also been swept away. He learns from the janitor that Riel has moved just as he is leaving Paris. In this way, there are no more women at your fingertips.

Mnusken took care of things unhurriedly, and when he opened his luggage, he found the white fox fur that had been retrieved from the Sillik: It had been completely rotten, and its fur had fallen off in large quantities, and at room temperature, it had long since turned into a stiff, pus-drenched old rubber skin. Mnusken decided to throw it away before he could open it.

At first glance, there are as many letters as a small mountain, but once the bills are paid and the useless leaflets, advertisements, invitations, and pictorials are thrown into the trash, only a court summons is left, and three months later, on October 10, I went to the divorce procedures with Lu Qianqian. That's good, now he's in a higher state of complete womanlessness, but those who know him know that it won't last long. It won't last too long.

Look, what did he say, and in less than two days, he had a woman. On Tuesday morning, Mnusken had an appointment with the expert in the gallery, who brought his assistants: a man and a woman. The expert's name is Raymond, in his fifties, with black hair and brown skin, a slender figure like a knife wrapped in clothes that are too large, his verbal expression is terrible, the corners of his mouth twitch with doubt, and his eyes are sharp and piercing. He moved with a certain unstable, unbalanced caution, and steadied himself on the back of his chair, as if he were leaning desperately against a bulwark during a typhoon force 9. After two or three times of his service, Mnuskin became somewhat familiar with him. His male assistant was more sure when he walked around, and he kept pulling some roasted peanuts out of his pocket and putting them in his mouth, wiping his fingers with a translucent Chris tissue every five minutes, which added to his sense of certainty.

As for the female assistant named Soni, who is nearly thirty years old, she always answers questions coldly.

Her blonde hair, light blue eyes, and serious face indicate that she either has a fire in her chest or a piece of ice in her heart, a black coat, a cream-colored shirt, and her hands are constantly moving, flipping a box of Benson brand cigarettes in her left hand, and fiddling with an Ericsson mobile phone in her right hand.

Mnusken motioned for them to sit down, then opened the chest, revealing items from the cold Arctic. Raymond sat down and began to examine the antiques in a rage, but never said anything, except for the occasional code instructions, a series of numbers and letters, that the layman did not understand. Soni, who was standing behind him, muttered these words to someone who knew nowhere in Ericsson, and then, in a whisper, returned the same abstract answers provided by the interlocutor, and then lit a cigarette smoke.

After that, the expert and his male assistant consulted with a dark face, and by this time, Mnusken had long since ceased to try to understand their secret words, and exchanged glances with Soni more and more frequently.

These plot-filled glances, which from the first glance were an increasingly obsessive exchange of glances between two strangers, quickly turned into a fun game in a small group. These are momentary but serious gazes, with a slight apprehension, brief and at the same time long, lasting for a time that feels far beyond reality, and they communicate secretly in group conversations, where no one else notices or pretends to be so. Anyway, it caused a little confusion, didn't it, the female assistant Soni once seemed to confuse the function of the prop in her hand and actually spoke to Benson's cigarette for two seconds.

The whole process took about an hour, and during that time, neither of the two men turned around to say a word to Mnusken for a second, but when the test was over, Raymond's mouth twisted, and the grin was suspicious. As he wrote down a series of symbols on his little notepad wrapped in red lizard skin, the corners of his mouth bent downward, and at the same time he shook his head with a very painful expression, and Mnusken saw the expression he showed and secretly cried in his heart, that something was not good: all this was probably not worth a nail, and the whole trip was in vain. However, after that, the expert let a stone fall to the ground in his heart. These things, although according to a conservative estimate and without tax, are undoubtedly sold for the equivalent of one or two small castles in the Loire Valley. It's not about the big castles of the Loire, mind you, it's not Chambol or Chenonceau, it's about small or medium castles, like Moncontour or Tarsi, which are really good. I think you must have a safe, the expert guessed, of course. But, no, Mnusken replied, a safe, I don't have one. Still, there is, I have an old one, just behind the other side, but it's a little too small.

All of these things must be put in a safe, Raymond said grimly, in a large safe. You can't just leave them there. Also, you'd better get in touch with an insurance company as soon as possible to discuss insurance, you don't have a safe, but I think, you have an underwriter after all, don't you? Okay, Mnusken said, I'll go and get everything done tomorrow. If I were you, Raymond said as he stood up, I wouldn't wait for tomorrow, but okay, whatever you wanted. Now, I'm gone, and I'll leave Soni to deal with the appraisal fee with you. Please settle everything with her. Everything was settled with her, Ferrey thought to himself, "Of course.

Other than that, how about buying and selling? Raymond asked in an indifferent voice as he put on his coat.

Gallery? It's okay, Mnusken reassured him. I've got a couple of celebrities who have the guts to brag and want to make a good impression on Sony. But I can't show their work every two years, stars, don't they, they are always in short supply. I'm still a little younger, they've just debuted, but that's another question, um. Little young, you shouldn't let their works be exhibited too often at once, otherwise, they will soon get bored, so I show one of their works from time to time, and there are no more. What to do, he said, is probably to put on a little exhibition for them by chance, upstairs, if I have upstairs, all in all, you can see it, it's okay, it's not bad. As he spoke, he stopped, realizing that he had begun to play the piano to the cow, and everyone was already distracted.

But, indeed, once the cost was settled, things became less complicated to invite Soni to dinner, and despite her apparent appearance, she was still very impressed with him. The weather was fine enough for dinner on the terrace, and when the time came, Mnusken's travel story was sure to captivate the young lady — so much so that she would close her Ericsson and light her cigarette more and more — and then he would take her all the way home, a small two-storey suite not far from Brownlee Riverfront.

When they agree to have a final drink, Mnusken will follow her to her house, where a young girl will appear on the ground floor of the two-storey suite, with no luster in her eyes behind wide spectacle lenses, and she will lean over a college lecture on the Constitution, which will contain three plastic cups of empty citrus-flavored yogurt and a pink plastic gadget in the shape of a small radio that looks like a toy. A harmonious, rather than violent, atmosphere will envelop the suite. Red and pink cushions will float on a couch, and the sofa will be stretched with bells and whistles of cold haute woven tulle. On a tray under a softly lit electric lamp, some oranges will cast the shadow of peaches. The young girl and Soni exchanged information about Bruno, and Ferret figured out that this Bruno was only one year and nine months old and that he was sleeping upstairs. The pink radio-like thing turned out to be called "Baby Wind" and was designed to receive and transmit the cry that a baby might make. Then, after a long time the girl who was looking after the baby slowly gathered up her papers, threw the empty yogurt cups down the garbage chute, and turned off the "baby wind" before leaving, they were finally able to pounce on the other, hugging and twisting and twisting, as if dancing awkwardly, like two crabs caught together, towards Sonia's bedroom, and then, with an unbuckled black bra resting softly on the carpet of the room, like a pair of giant sunglasses.

However, after a while, the "baby wind", which had been re-energized on the bedside table, began to emit a sharp pant and grunt, which was weak at first, intertwined with Sony's more or less masculine soprano hum, but it then overshadowed Sony's humming and became a growing sob, and finally a piercing cry. Immediately, the two of them were separated from each other, and there was no way, but not without malice, Soni ran upstairs to coax little Bruno.

Leaving Mnusken alone, he really wanted to get some sleep, so he turned down the volume of "Baby Wind", thinking that it would work and was very cautious.

But he was not very familiar with this kind of mechanism, and undoubtedly pressed the wrong button very inappropriately, because instead of decreasing, the cries and coaxing changed their frequency, and suddenly cross-interfered with the frequency of the walkie-talkies of the security guards. And now, unable to grasp the mechanics any longer, Mnusken began to smash all the buttons with all his might, trying to find an antenna, twisting it, finding a wire, cutting it, and stuffing it under a pillow, trying to stifle the sound, but in vain: every fiddling with it strengthened its sound, and now it rang louder and louder every second. Mnusken finally lowered his arms, hurriedly put on his clothes, and fled in a hurry, buttoning as he descended the stairs, and he didn't even need to sneak away, because the "baby-wind" noise was invading the hallway and gradually filling the apartment building—and he would stop calling her for days to come.

On the contrary, from the next day, there would be a woman who would call him, and that would be Madame de la Ai, the widow of his former assistant, the same one that the funeral man, Mnusken, had met in the church of Alessi. He seemed to feel that, despite the mourning period, she did not look like someone who was uninteresting in the mourning, and he thought that she had only one shoulder to hold the tears. Isn't it, she called in the middle of the evening, and made a random excuse, saying that there was a matter that required several certificates of De La Ai's social security, and that she was probably staying in the gallery, and that she had no way to get her hands on it, so that she could come and visit. Unfortunately, I don't think so, Mnusken said, leaving no personal belongings here. Ah, what a disappointment, said Mrs. de la Ai.

Still, I wonder if I can still come and see you, like for a drink, I'd love to reminisce about some of the past.

It would be complicated, Mnusken lied, he especially did not want to imagine any past with Madame de la Ey, I had just returned from a trip, I was going out again soon, and at the moment I really didn't have much time. It's a pity, forget it, said Madame de la Ey. So, did you travel far? And Mnusken, in order to round out the lie at hand, briefly told her about the Great North. It was wonderful, said the widow excitedly, "I always dreamed of those areas." Of course it's beautiful, Mnusken said stupidly, and it's very, very beautiful.

What a chance you have, the widow exclaimed all the more to be able to go on vacation in such a magical place. You know, Mnusken replied with some exasperation that it wasn't for a vacation. In this way, it's a professional trip. I went to look for something for the gallery. It's wonderful, she's still enthusiastic, so have you found it? I think I've got some gadgets, Mnusken replied cautiously, but it will take a look and I won't value it. I'd love to come and see all this, and Madame de la Ai said, 'When are you going to exhibit it?' I can't say much to you at the moment, and Mnusken said that the date is not yet set, but I will send you an invitation. By the way, don't forget to send me an invitation when the time comes. No problem, Mnusken said, counts.

For the whole period of attention, Bengatnell lived in the cosy hotels, guest houses and other inns that starred in the guidebook. In July, for example, he came to the Elbisi Hotel one evening and spent forty-eight hours in the hotel. Four hundred and twenty francs a day, including breakfast, the room was not too bad at first glance: a little too large, but well proportioned, a round light passed through a window and door of 16 inches by 9 inches, and the room was covered with rose branches. Anatolian carpets, multi-purpose showers, video programs, animal-skin-coloured bedspreads, and a small park with flocks of purple-winged starlings, rows of eucalyptus trees, and transplanted acacia flowers.

The noisy starlings set up their nests under the bricks of the Elbisi Hotel, in the holes in the walls or in the eucalyptus trees, and if they always show their presence with chirping, scratching, clattering, and comical imitations, then they seem to enrich their singing just as much: accustomed to the loud environment of our time, not content with incorporating the dripping doodle of video games, the beep bar of music speakers, and the dingding of private radio stations into their repertoire, A mobile phone has been added to it. Bengatnell used the phone to talk to the eels every three days, and then went to bed early with a book in hand.

Then, early the next morning, he came downstairs with a newspaper and went to the empty dining room for breakfast. When going downstairs, he didn't take the elevator, but chose to walk down the stairs step by step. He felt that this would allow him to be quiet and have time to think calmly. And he didn't feel tired at all.

At this hour, no one in the restaurant has come. The clattering of cutlery and the low sound of babbling came from the kitchen, as well as the grinding sound and the sound of muffled footsteps. He put his glasses on his nose again, and kept his head buried in the newspaper.

But, for example, now, a few weeks later, Bengatnell is staying at another inn further north, in the "Millstone Coarse Sandstone" guest house near Angle. There was no garden, but there was a courtyard paved with bricks and stones, planted with ancient plane trees, and a pool of spring water, or rather a coarse fountain, with a swaying and irregular sizzling sound. Most of the time, this voice seems to want to contrast with thunderous applause, with moderate, scattered, less enthusiastic or purely flattering applause. Occasionally, however, it resonates with itself, and then it produces a sound similar to a brush-to-brush clapping, a little bit of comical and double-beat effect — one more, another one — out of control, like the audience asking the artist to come back on stage.

Every day, Bengatnell spoke on the phone with his wife, but this time, the conversation lasted longer than usual. Bengatnell asked a lot of questions, jotted them down on the side pages of the newspaper, and then cut off.

A burst of thought. I opened the phone again and dialed the number of the eel. The eel immediately replied. Well, Bengatnell said to him, I think we can do it. You rent me a small van with a freezer, not a truck, well, just a pick-up truck. No problem, says the eel, but why bring a freezer? You don't have to worry about that, Bengatnell said. Let's say it's to keep those things from thawing. I'll give you a phone number in Paris, I'll go back to Paris tomorrow for a few days, and you can call me as soon as it's done, okay, the eel said, understood. I'll do it tomorrow, and I'll call you right away when I'm done.

But isn't it time for Mnusken to rein in? Will he still collect those sexual encounters endlessly? He knew the outcome of those encounters in advance, and he no longer even hoped that this time would be as exciting as he had been earlier. Now, as soon as he hit the first obstacle, we might say, retracted his arm:

He doesn't even try to find Ariel's new address after the story of the aromatic elixir, and he doesn't even try to see Soni again after the "Baby Wind" episode. Did he really turn back as a prodigal son? For him, from Helen to Lu Qianqian, all feelings may have been exhausted. What he can do now is to keep looking for fresh stimuli to fill the emptiness in his heart. Only in this way did he feel that he could live. And that initial mission, to find the stolen artwork, was also a firm wait for him.

While waiting, since he had some time, he went back to see his cardiologist with the intention of getting a check-up. Come and do a little ultrasound, I talked to you about it, Dr. Deman said to him, please go from here. The room was sunk in a kind of dimness, with a faint light coming from three computer screens, allowing one to see three projections on the wall, two diplomas in cardiovascular science awarded to de Man by a foreign group, and a mirror frame behind which a picture of the family and a dog were framed. Ferré undressed, naked, wearing only a pair of pants, lying on the test bed, covered with some blue blotting paper, he couldn't help but shiver a little despite the warmth of the room. Don't be nervous, relax, Deman said, manipulating his instruments.

Then the cardiologist began, and he placed a black, oval object on Mnusken's chest, like an electronic pen or something like that, with a pre-applied conduction cream, and it slid over various parts of Mnusken's body, on various points on his neck, armpits, thighs, ankles, and corners of his eyes. Every time the pen touched one of these areas, there was an amplified pulse of pulsation, which sounded heavily on the partition of the computer speaker, and the sound was very suspicious, whether it was the wheezing of sonar, or the brief howl of a gale, the stuttering bark of a Tibetan mastiff, or the gasping of a Martian. So Mnusken listened to the beating of his arteries, and at the same time, the radio signals turned into images and appeared on the screen in the form of peaks and valleys beating up and down.

All of this went on for a long time: not too good, not too good, you can wipe your body, Deman said briefly, pulling Mnusken up from the bed and tossing him a ball of blue blotting paper, and he wiped it all over himself, wiping away the slimy cream all over his body. It's not good, Deman said. Now, without a doubt, you have to be especially careful. You should further adhere to the dietary regime that I have commanded you a long time ago. Also, with all due respect, you'd better promise me not to be too indulgent during this time. In any case, Mnusken said, there is no danger now. One more thing, said Deman. You have to avoid exposing your body to extreme temperatures, well, not too cold, not too hot, because, as I told you, it's a recipe for a person like you. However, in the end, he smiled coldly, with your profession, you don't have much chance of being hot and cold. I assure you, Mnusken said, not saying a word about his own trip to the North Pole.

It was a July morning, the city was fairly quiet, with a half-dead atmosphere, and Mnusken was alone in front of the open-air seat of a café in Supis Square, facing a glass of beer. After all, there is a considerable distance from the port of Leidian to Supis, and there is a large time difference of five or six hours that Mnusken has not yet adjusted.

Instead of taking Raymond's suggestion to heart, he postponed the drudgery of the safe deposit box and insurance policy until the next day, and he would postpone the two appointments until the evening. During this time, he stored all his antiques in a locked closet in the back room of the shop, which was also locked. Right now, he's resting leisurely, even though no one has ever really rested, and sometimes, people say, people think they're resting or they're going to rest, but it's really just a little hope in their hearts, and people know that it's not going to happen, it's not even there, it's just something that people talk about when they're tired.

Despite his fatigue and perhaps the prodigal son's return, Mnusken's gaze did not let go of the women who came and went in the streets, dressed so little and so coveted in the heat of the season, that it all soon became almost uncomfortable, as if a ghost of pain had penetrated into the plexus. Sometimes, people are so stimulated by the state of the world that they forget to think of themselves. The very beautiful women, and the not-so-beautiful women, Mnusken looked at them all carefully. He liked the blank, slightly haughty, dominating gaze of very beautiful women who boasted of themselves, but he also liked the dazed, slightly panicked, nervous, staring gaze of not too beautiful women in the guise of them, and when they felt that from the open seating of a bar, someone was staring at them intently, because he could not find anything more interesting to do, and he felt that they were not as unlikable as they thought they were. Their eyes were indeed a little nervous. They weren't so unlikeable, because they had to have that, and so did they, like everybody, and their faces certainly wouldn't have been what they had been then, as you can see, and the line between a very beautiful woman and a not-so-beautiful woman might not have been the same at that time. However, his mind should not go around this circle, and Deman had already warned him.

At this very moment, the eel was striding down the street, towards a large private parking lot on the other side of the ring boulevard behind the Pellet Gate, where several burly watchmen with some large and fat dogs were guarding. As the eel walked, he felt that his breathing was much more relaxed than before.

When his skin tickled from east to west, he quietly scratched it a few times, but it wasn't so uncomfortable, he could walk in the sun like this for a long time, and he walked forward. He passed by a small garage – a few workbenches, a drain, three cars with shelves removed, a winch, all of which were well known. Afterwards, it is time to arrive at the parking lot, which seems to be full of specialized utility vehicles, trucks, trailers and semi-trailers. The security officer in the parking lot was a small man, lean as a dry battery, smiling like a door, in his small, transparent room, facing six automated surveillance screens and two full ashtrays. The eel told him that he had come to rent a refrigerated pick-up truck, and that someone had called to make a reservation the day before, and the man nodded, as if he already knew about it, and he led the eel to the truck.

It is a covered white cargo trolley, hexahedral in shape, with square corners, like a box, or like a wooden shack in the port of Leidian: its body is not designed to be streamlined. Above the cockpit is a motor with a circular ventilation grille, which resembles an electric heating plate. Security personnel opened the back door, revealing an empty, spacious cube with metal plates on all four walls, and several polystyrene barrels stacked at the end. Despite the cleanliness of the interior, which had undoubtedly been scrubbed with the "kache" detergent, it still emitted a slight smell of a mixture of oil, dried blood, fascia, and lymph nodes, and it appeared that it was often used to transport goods such as fat.

The eel listened to the man's explanation of the car's function in one ear and the other, and then, paying him part of the money Bengatnell had prepaid, he pushed the slot door shut, and jumped into the cab himself. When the man was gone, the eel pulled out a pair of large golden rubber gloves from his coat pocket and grabbed the surface of the gloves with his palms and granite-patterned fingers to prevent them from slipping. The eel puts on gloves and ignites the fire.

There was some astringency in reverse gear, but then the speed became harmonious and the van drove far into the outer circle of the ring boulevard, from where we would pass the Château de Châtillon, where the eel parked the van in front of a telephone hall and occupied two rows of lanes. The eel jumped out of the car, got into the phone hall, took off the receiver, and said a few words.

He seemed to get a brief answer, and then, throwing some of his own molecules on the telephone—a few pieces of earwax were stuffed into a small hole in the earpiece, and after the foaming star fell into a small eye of the microphone, he hung up the phone, frowning. He didn't seem very determined. He even had some hesitant looks.

On his side, Bengtnell also hung up the phone, without the slightest expression on his face. But he, as he walked towards one of the windows of the suite, did not look dissatisfied, and had little to see, and Bengartnell pushed the window open: few sounds, two birds chirping, one after the other, and a fog of car exhaust floated on the road in the distance. He had returned to Paris, and he was once again living in his large studio on the Avenue de l'Ico, not facing the street. Now, he has nothing to do but wait, to pass the time by looking at the view from the window, and when night falls, all he can watch is television. But for now, it's still outside the window.