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my cardiologist – is a much better physician than you are. That’ll be the day, says Chemla. Oh, but he is, I say, he complimented me right away on my new hat, but you, Doctor, you haven’t even noticed it. I feel I must move. I get up and say, Maman, I’m going to ask the receptionist how much longer you have to wait. My mother turns to her new friend and says, he’s going to smoke, my son’s going outside to smoke a cigarette, that’s what that means. Tell him he’s slowly killing himself, and him only forty-three. Ah well, that way we’ll die together, Maman, I say. Look on the bright side. Very funny, says my mother. The gentleman in the polka-dot tie pinches his nostrils and inhales like a man preparing to deliver a decisive communication. I cut him short to explain that I’m not going out for a smoke, even though a nicotine fix would do me a world of good, I’m just going to talk to the receptionist. When I return, I inform mymother that her radiation will start in ten minutes and that Doctor Chemla has not yet come into the office. Ah, that’s just like Chemla, he and his watch don’t get along, he can’t imagine that we might have a subsidiary existence outside this office, says the man, happy to let the sound of his voice be heard again and hoping to hold the floor. But my mother returns to the attack at once and declares, I’m on the best of terms with the receptionist, she always puts me at the top of the list, I call her Virginie. My mother lowers her voice somewhat and adds, she adores me, I say to her, be a sweetheart and give me the first appointment, my dear Virginie. She’s delighted by that, that personal touch. Vincent, my love, shouldn’t we bring her some chocolates next time? Why not, I say. —What? You’re muttering under your breath. I say, it’s a good idea. We should have been able to get rid of Roseline’s
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before now, my mother says, I haven’t even opened the box. She doesn’t know how to make them, you think you’re eating sand. Poor Roseline, these days she quivers like a bunch of keys. You know, she’s a different woman since her daughter disappeared in the tsunami, one of the twenty-five bodies that have never been recovered, and Roseline believes she’s still alive. Sometimes that irritates me, I feel like telling her, sure, right, she’s being raised by chimpanzees that have given her amnesia. I say, don’t be mean, Maman. —I’m not mean, but sometimes you have to be fatalistic, everybody knows the world’s a vale of tears. Vale of tears, one of your father’s expressions, you remember? I answer, yes, I remember. The man in the polka-dot tie seems to be lost in some rather somber thoughts. He’s bending forward, and I notice a crutch lying beside his chair. It occurs to me that he’s suffering in some part of his body, and I tell myself that otherpeople in this waiting room on the basement floor of the Tollere Leman clinic must also be suffering in secret. You know, says my mother abruptly, leaning toward the man with an amazingly serious look on her face, my husband was obsessed with Israel. The man straightens up and smoothes the creases in his pinstripe suit. Jews are obsessed with Israel, but not me, my mother goes on. Me, I’m not at all obsessed with Israel, but my husband was. I’m having trouble following my mother along this tangent. Unless she’s trying to correct the misimpression caused by the scaleless fish. Yes, that’s it, maybe she wants to make it clear that her whole family is Jewish, including her, despite her ignorance of some fundamental dietary laws. Are you obsessed by Israel too? my mother asks. Naturally, the man replies. I approve of his concision. If I had my way, I could discourse at some length on the profundity of that reply of his. My mother, however, has a different apprehension of things. When I met my husband, she says, he had nothing at all, his family ran a notions shop on Rue Réaumur, a tiny place, a