We spotted the couple when Julian's Corgi chased a pigeon into a forgotten corner of Parc Montsouris. A man and a woman camouflaged in cascades of snarled hair, but we know what naked looks like. It seemed unlikely they could have been sheltering long yet something in their eyes spoke of centuries and regret. Two of us shooed the dog as he sniffed take-away wrappers in their tent of branches. Sylvie offered a stub of sandwich and the woman snatched the bread. We glanced from a hunger more disturbing than an unclothed body.

Gift devoured, the woman then grabbed our friend's wrist, and Sylvie opened her mouth and said, "thank you" and the words were in every language, and we plucked our own from the maelstrom. The man pulled at his wretched hair and watched with what seemed like fear or maybe shame.

‘I want to tell the story,’ the voice in Sylvie's mouth spoke again.

Everyone knew which story. At this, the man unspooled fingers from hair and took Matthieu in his arms. The Corgi barked. One of us scooped her up, murmuring incantations in her fur.

‘Let the woman tell her truth,’ said the man as Matthieu.

‘I will,’ said the woman as Sylvie. Her fingers tightened on Sylvie's wrist as she demanded, ‘Ask him who spoke to the snake last.’

We looked at the man who held Matthieu. They cast their eyes down.

‘I did,’ they whispered.

‘Ask him what he requested of the snake,’ both women demanded.

Matthieu sighed like the sound of unshakeable thirst.

‘What, in that place of perfection, could you ask for?’ we repeated the question.

‘More,’ the men said. ‘I asked for everything.’

Without hesitation, we shed our clothes and covered their nakedness with our own.