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people, Leo expected nothing. It was he one day, when Lionel was particularly depressed and was thinking of going to a doctor, who said, “You should take something to cheer you up a little. Just
a little.
Just enough so that you don’t seem to be wandering loose all day in Bagneux cemetery.”
    Leo didn’t believe in anything he’d built up himself. Here was a man who had spent his whole life demonstrating how dynamic and risk-taking he was, and he didn’t believe in human enterprise or success or the reassuring effects that came with success.
    Leo believed in the reality of the chill of the tomb.
    Leo believed in the reality of the yellow corridor of Saint-Antoine hospital where his mother died under the supervision of Professor Ottorno, the reality of the time—months—he spent joking about the tubes, the probes, and so on, the whole unfortunate reality of the pathetic mechanics of life.
    A man without any illusions about the passage of time, who had the nerve to be genuinely cheerful.
    Leo and Lionel were the same age. They started to beat up on each other the moment they got on the telephone. They yelled. You know how it used to end? Joëlle would unplug the receiver for fear Lionel would have a heart attack. Each of them was convinced he looked younger than the other. Whenever the two of them were together, one of them would say, “Tell the truth, which of us looks younger?” and the other would immediately chime in, “Yes, come on, tell the truth, which of us looks younger?” . . .
    Have you noticed I’ve been dyeing my hair? I dye my hair. Formula and stylist courtesy of René Fortuny. A failure, huh? I dye my hair. Why? What do I know?
    Do you remember this essay topic? You’re taking a walk in the woods and you’re struck by how picturesque it all is. Some idiot of a schoolboy once wrote
I
was walking quietly along the path when all of a sudden, cunningly hidden behind a tree, the picturesque
leapt out and struck me.
Do you remember how we laughed? It was the
cunningly hidden behind a tree
that was the best. Well, that’s exactly how it’s been for me recently with depression. I’m walking along minding my own business and all of a sudden, cunningly hidden in the scenery, depression leaps out and strikes me. With a force and a weight you can’t even imagine. And what do I do to fight it? I dye my hair. When existential depression attacks without warning, your father dyes his hair.
    Leo on the other hand never dyed his hair. Leopold Fench, prince of the moment, was above that kind of primping. In one day, Leo Fench broke more hearts than René and me in a lifetime. When your mother says in that incredibly tone-deaf way, when your mother says, “Leopold Fench is dead,” I think of our last meeting at the rue de l’Université. Two souls encounter each other at random, two paths cross, there’s nothing to distinguish them from the rest of humanity, nothing to distinguish them from those who’ve already lived or those to come. And this, I tell myself, would be totally irrelevant if Leo had not been something I value a hundred times higher than a happy man—a joyful man.
    Open the wall cabinet in Nancy’s bathroom and you have a perfect vision of human pathos.
    Nancy pretends to be aging bravely. For a moment I even feared that her newfound spirituality was going to be the crutch that would allow her to accept wrinkles and facial hair and set off, stick in hand, to wander over hill and dale. No way. Open her cabinet. Cavernous heart of Nancy’s secret war against time. You’ll trip over my latest discovery in this fortress of lunacy—
Exfoliating Force C Radiance.
A novelty I’d never have noticed if it weren’t for the size of the box and its virulent orange color. You know I’ve never been good at English.
Force C Radiance.
The words terrify me.
Exfoliating!
Poor Nancy, I think. Poor little Nancy, who longs to please for an hour or two before she dies. Poor animal, wearing down her teeth