IRONICALLY, I WAS NOW WORKING FOR THE PUBLISHER who had originally brought out G.’s notorious essay, Under Sixteen, in the 1960s.

Before taking the job, I checked that the rights to the book hadn’t been renewed: this was indeed the case, though I didn’t know why. I convinced myself that it was because of the publisher’s moral disapproval. The reality was rather more prosaic: it was actually due to the growing scarcity of connoisseurs of this type of publication, or at least to the fact that increasingly they were too ashamed to admit to their predilection.

Unfortunately, G. continued to command respect at most of the Parisian publishing houses. And, more than thirty years after we first met, he couldn’t stop himself from repeatedly verifying that he still had a hold on me. I don’t know how he managed to find out where I was working, but the literary world is the size of a pocket handkerchief, and gossip was rife.

There was no point trying to work out how he’d discovered where I was working. One morning I got to my desk and found a long, embarrassed e-mail from my boss. G. had been pestering her for weeks, sending her messages begging her to act as an intermediary between him and me.

“I’m so sorry, V. I’ve been trying to keep him away from you for a while now so he can’t bother you. But nothing seems to mollify him, so eventually I decided to talk to you and forward you his e-mails,” she wrote.

In their e-mail exchange, which I read numb with shame, G. recounted our relationship in minute detail (just in case she was not aware of it, and as if it was any of her business). Not only was this an unbearable violation of my private life, but his tone was both ingratiating and pathetic. In an attempt to provoke her pity, he claimed, among other nonsense, that he was dying, and told her that his dearest desire was to see me again. He was suffering from a serious illness and would not be at peace bidding farewell to the world of the living without seeing my dear face one more time, blah, blah, blah . . . This was why he was beseeching her at all cost to forward me his messages. As if it went without saying that she was going to pander to his every whim.

Since he didn’t have my home address, he went on to apologize for being reduced to writing to me at my workplace. He was utterly shameless. Disingenuously, he expressed surprise that I had not replied to the letter (in reality, there were many) that he had sent me not long ago, wondering if it might be because of the publisher’s recent move to new offices.

The truth was, I had several times found letters from him on my desk, which I systematically threw in the bin without reading. Once, to trick me into opening it, someone else, whose handwriting I didn’t recognize, had written my name and address on the envelope. It made no difference; the content had remained unchanged for thirty years: My continuing silence was a mystery. I must be consumed with regret at the thought of having destroyed such a noble union, not to mention having made him suffer so! He would never forgive me for having left him. He had nothing to apologize for. I was the guilty party, guilty of having brought to an end the most beautiful love story ever lived by a man and a teenage girl. Whatever I said, I belonged to him and I always would because, thanks to his books, our wild passion would never cease to light up the night.

In G.’s response to the point-blank refusal of the publishing director with whom I worked to intercede on his behalf, one sentence in particular leapt out at me: “No, I will never be relegated to V.’s past, nor she to mine.”

Once again, I was filled with blind rage, fury, and powerlessness.

He was never going to leave me in peace.

Sitting in front of my computer screen, I burst into tears.