She always followed the same route and, with some effort of memory, I was able to reconstruct it. We took the western highway and drove through the Saint-Cloud tunnel. We crossed a bridge over the Seine, then went along the river through Boulogne and Neuilly. I remember large houses near the banks, protected by fences and foliage. Also barges and floating houses that one reached via wooden stairs: at the foot of those stairs were mailboxes, each with a name on it.“I’m going to buy a barge here and we’ll all live on it,” said Annie.We arrived at the Porte Maillot. I was able to locate that stop in our itinerary because of the little train in the Jardin d’Acclimatation. Annie had taken us on it one afternoon. And we reached the endpoint of our journey, in that zone where Neuilly, Levallois, and Paris all blended together.It was a street lined with trees, their leaves forming a vault. No dwellings, only warehouses and garages. We stopped in front of the largest and newest garage, with a tan pedimented façade.Inside, a room was blocked off by glass-paneled walls.
