21   1 Aug. 91   Bob and I have been together for a year, and it is going well. He made a little dinner party to celebrate our anniversary. He is a fabulous cook (which I definitely am not – Daniel is, or rather was, the cook in our little family). He makes mouthwatering North African specialties like tagine, but also great French and Italian dishes. A few of his friends were there. For my part I invited only Tina, and she came alone. Since it ended with Michel she has been seeing a man who doesn’t speak French and she thought it would be awkward to bring him to a francophone party. Yes, my journal, I love Bob’s cooking. I also love his sense of humour. It is very French, not just French Canadian but French French, franco-français. He also makes lots of puns, even bilingual ones. Example: he orders an egg for lunch in a café, the waitress asks how he wants his eggs. Bob: “Not eggs, an egg. One egg is un œuf (enough).” He is also very considerate and flexible about our dates, never demanding, never complaining if I have to change or cancel. Now that Daniel is here, just back from Mexico, he understands that I want to spend time with him. I cancelled our date for tomorrow, and he was very understanding Last month, right after my birthday, while Betty went to Ontario with Paul (he has family in Toronto on Marcia’s side), Bob and I took a 10-day vacation in Gaspésie. We drove through Rimouski, where I showed him my family house and my schools, but without stopping. We had a wonderful time together. So, my journal, I love Bob’s qualities. Do I love him? Sometimes I tell myself that I do, and then an image of Miki pops into my head. What does it tell me? Not necessarily that I don’t love Bob but, while Betty knows about him and Daniel probably does too by now (at least since their time together in Toronto), it is too soon to introduce him to them as my lover, and that means also to those of my friends who know B & D, like Greg & Marcia, Mark & Julie, Jodi etc. Which pretty much leaves Tina. Tina approves of Bob. But then she also approved of Jean-Marc and was suspicious about Miki. Should I worry, then? And why do I feel that it’s too soon? A year! A fucking year! (Literally.) Perhaps because I don’t expect it to last, and I don’t want the embarrassment of an introduction followed shortly by a breakup. That was not a problem with George. It lasted for 3 years after I introduced him to them in the islands, and it could have lasted longer if I had wanted it. But Bob… Frankly, my journal, I expect him to meet someone younger that he can think of starting a family with. He is now around the age of Miki when I met him, and it would be quite appropriate if Bob were to meet a girl of 21. I would be happy for him, I think. Or would I really? Would I be like Kiri te Kanawa – I mean the character that she sang, I think her name was Marie-Thérèse – in Der Rosenkavalier, nobly giving up her young lover for a younger girl? Saying that she even loved his love for another? It doesn’t sound like Mireille Bouchard, does it, my journal? Let me sleep on that. Good night, my journal. August in Montreal   Daniel had just gotten out of bed when he saw his mother ready to go to her clinic, looking lovely in her pink summer dress. She gave him a quick good-bye kiss and told him that she had canceled her evening plans and would be home for dinner. Betty was already dressed, but had not had breakfast yet. Mireille had prepared breakfast for the three of them, and brother and sister ate together. “Just in case you’re interested,” Betty said as they sat down, “Amy Kenner is out of town. She’s in the islands with her dad, who, by the way, is divorced.” “What makes you think I might be interested?” “Come on. I saw you with her at the party. You were, like, all over her!” “I was? I thought I was just being friendly!” “Yeah, sure.” Betty laughed. “I mean, like, I’m sure she liked it, not being all that pretty. I mean getting all this attention from a cute guy like you.” “I think she’s quite attractive,” Daniel said, feeling defensive while spreading blueberry jam on his toast. “Good for you!” She laughed again. “And, like, good for her. Too bad she isn’t here.” He felt embarrassed, and wanted to retaliate. “How’s it going with Paul?” The ruse worked: Betty blushed through her suntan, and covered most of her face with the coffee mug. “Okay.” “Are you in love with him?” She put down her mug and lowered her eyes, as if to reflect. “Yes,” she answered slowly as she raised her gaze to meet his, and Daniel thought that, in the course of that one syllable, her tone changed from one of hesitation to one of conviction, which he also saw radiating from her lovely face, its frame of still unkempt auburn hair lit sideways by the morning sun. He felt a twinge of envy gnawing at his gut. “Do you want to tell me about it?” “No.” There seemed to be a tacit you wouldn’t understand that Daniel accepted as justified. He really didn’t know yet what being in love meant. Or was that true? Was he really not in love with Cici? He had always taken her word for it that they weren’t in love with each other, because she was the more experienced of the two. But at that very moment he found himself missing her as he had never missed another being before. Was this simply a case of absence making the heart grow fonder? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. “Okay,” he said, taking a bite out the hard-boiled egg that he had just peeled. “How about your girlfriend in New York?” Betty asked, as if guessing his thoughts. “Cecilia, or whatever her name is…” “It’s Cynthia, or Cici. What do you want to know?” He had already told her, on the train ride to Toronto, that she was beautiful and smart and funny and sexy, so evidently it was his feelings that Betty was after. Perhaps he would set an example of frankness. “Nothing in particular, just whatever you want to tell me.” So she was being diplomatic! “Well, what we have is that we are boyfriend-girlfriend when we’re together in New York, but otherwise we’re not supposed to think about each other. And when she graduates, which will be next May, it’ll be over.” “Is that how she wants it?” “Yes.” “So you’re not in love?” “I guess not.” “Weird. Unless you’re the kind of person that’s missing the love gene.” “The what?” “I heard about it on a TV program. Falling in love is supposed to be due to some chemical that’s released in the brain, but some people don’t have the gene for producing it.” “That’s ridiculous. Besides, you and I have the same genes.” He knew that what he was saying wasn’t strictly true – they shared only half of their genetic material – but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Maybe you’re a mutant. P’t êt’ t’es un mutant,” she said laughing, probably because mutant sounded funnier in Quebec French than in English. “Mon frère le mutant,” she added, laughing some more.   When he got out of the shower, Betty told him that Harvey Berman had called and left a message to call him back at his father’s office, where Harvey was working that summer so as to – as he had told Daniel – get a taste of legal work in order to see if the paternal calling was something he might want to pursue. “Leslie and I were just talking about you yesterday when – boom! – Paul told me that you’re in town,” Harvey said. “It just happens that we’re having a little party Sunday evening, mainly with old friends from North Am, and your presence would’ve been missed. I hope you can make it.” “Sure. Where will it be?” “Oh, I guess you didn’t know. Leslie and I are living together.” He gave Daniel an address in the Plateau. “How long are you in town for?” “I don’t know yet. A week, maybe two.” “Good. Then we can get together, just you and me. And also, last but not least, my dad wants to see you. I’ll let you talk to his secretary so you can make an appointment. Anyway, à demain soir!” “Yeah, and give my love to Leslie.” There was a click, and Greg’s bilingual secretary, Francine, came on the line. “Hello, Daniel, when can we have the pleasure of seeing you?” An appointment was made for the following Monday morning. When Daniel got dressed he saw that Betty was about to leave. Of course: she, too, was working that summer, a part-time clerical job for a small English-language theater company where Betty’s bilingualism was an asset in dealing with provincial and municipal authorities. He next called Fela. “Daniel! So wonderful to hear your voice! And thank you for those beautiful postcards from Mexico! Isn’t it beautiful? Leon and I went there thirty years ago! Thirty years!” Fela sighed audibly. “We had such a wonderful time! Wonderful! Never mind, an old woman getting nostalgic.” She laughed. “Anyway, can you come over tomorrow afternoon?” “Yes, gladly.” “Good. At three o’clock?” “Yes.” “Good. I will have your favorite Jewish cookies.” “The… the mandelbrot?” “Yes, mandelbroyt,” Fela said, laughing again. “If you’re going to have some friends over, I’d like to try speaking Yiddish with them.” “Yiddish! Well, Henry Brenner may come.” Mr. Brenner was a man in his eighties, from Romania, an old friend of Leon’s who, like Leon, was a Francophile and insisted on speaking Yiddish or French rather than English.   Mr. Brenner was in fact there, in the middle of a group of middle-aged and older men discussing the current state of Soviet Union in a mixture of Yiddish, English and French. “Gorbachev doesn’t seem to be worried,” Mr. Kaminsky was saying, “he’s going on vacation tomorrow.” “Des vacances?” Mr. Brenner exclaimed. “Dos darf er nisht.” Daniel heard it as the equivalent of the German Das darf er nicht, ‘he mustn’t do it,’ but Mr. Kaminsky rejoined with “Darfn?” and added, in English, “Maybe he doesn’t need it, but he wants to make the point that he has the situation under control.” Daniel realized at that moment that the Yiddish darfn means ‘need’ while the German dürfen means ‘may,’ and that he needed to take a class in Yiddish if he wanted to delve into his father’s life. He had already thought about it, and now decided that he would take one in the coming semester. “Unter kontrol?” Mr. Brenner laughed. He then noticed Daniel standing by, listening to the discussion, and asked him, “Du farshteyst?” “A bissel,” Daniel said. “Ich versteh’ Deutsch.” “S’iz nisht dos zelbe,” Mr. Rotenberg said. Of course it was not the same. “Ich weiss,” Daniel said. Some time later Mr. Kaminsky approached Daniel and said, “So I hear you’re going to Columbia. Have you taken any classes from Edward Sed?” It took a few seconds before Daniel caught the reference to Edward Said. “No,” Daniel said, “but I went to a lecture he gave last spring.” “And what did he have to say about Israel?” Mr. Kaminsky asked with a smirk. “That it’s a European colonial power?” “No, he said nothing about Israel. It was about Mozart’s operas. This year,” he added when Mr. Kaminsky did not respond, “is the bicentennial of Mozart’s death.” “You mean there was no politics?” “I suppose there was some. He said that Mozart, being a freemason, had a benign view of the Oriental world, unlike most other Europeans.” “Aha! Oriental shmoriental! Give me Barbra Streisand’s Yentl any time! Have you seen it?” “Yes, Mister Kaminsky.” “Good. It’s been nice talking to you, young man.” “Likewise, Mister Kaminsky.”   That evening Mireille, Betty and Daniel went out for dinner and then to the world premiere of a new French film at the Montreal Film Festival. At dinner the conversation was in French, and Daniel felt that he was holding his own. At one point Mireille asked him if he still regarded himself as a French Canadian. The question took him aback. “Mais bien sûr, maman,” he said. The film was called Nord, and was written and directed by a young Frenchman who was also the lead actor. Betty had recently developed an interest in grownup films – not of the kind known commercially as “adult films” and are really adolescent pornography, but films dealing with adult themes – and she found this one fascinating. Xavier Beauvois, she thought, was gorgeous. It surprised Daniel that when she later discussed the film and her impressions of it, it was in English. She would quote a line of dialogue in French, and switch languages.   He slept late again on Sunday. His mother and sister went off to see friends, and did not get back until dinnertime. After dinner he went to the party. When he arrived at Harvey and Leslie’s place, Daniel found to his surprise that Megan Kenner was there. She was not in Harvey and Leslie’s crowd; she had gone to a different CEGEP from them and would be going to Concordia, not McGill, in order to study accounting. But apparently she had been invited for Daniel’s sake. She came alone, dressed in a short skirt and a tight top that emphasized her newly curvaceous figure (including palpably larger breasts), strangely out of keeping with her placid, still almost childish face; it was as though a little girl’s face had been superimposed on a woman’s body. She lost no time in coming on to him, as in the old days. They made a date for the next afternoon, when she would have her parents’ place to herself. He would go there directly from his meeting with Greg Berman. If it isn’t one Kenner girl it’s another, Daniel said to himself on his way back to Saint-Laurent. He had meant to ask Megan about her summer job, but somehow didn’t get around to it.   “So,” Greg Berman began, “are you enjoying another August in Montreal?” “Yes, sure,” Daniel answered, not quite sure of himself. “And how does it feel to be a rich young man in Manhattan?” “I wouldn’t know. I don’t feel like a rich young man, except for the fact that I, as a co-op member, now own my very small apartment.” “That,” Greg said with a laugh, “was a very wise investment. You paid a good price for what you got.” “I didn’t think of it as an investment, but thanks for the compliment.” Greg laughed again. “You have an income that’s into six figures, you know.” “I know. In the very low six figures, US.” “How much is your tuition?” “About fifteen grand.” “So you have a lot of money to spend, and I think most guys in your situation would do so. I know I did, when I first began to make real money. I deal with a lot of rich people – I mean very rich – and I find that most people like that spend a lot of money because, otherwise, what’s the point in being rich? Being rich means being able to afford things that ordinary people can’t afford, and that’s why there are hundred-dollar restaurant meals, thousand-dollar bottles of wine, ten-thousand-dollar stereo systems, and hundred-thousand-dollar cars: to give rich people the sense that they get something that other people can’t have.” “I guess I just don’t need that sense. I’ve never had a hundred-dollar-a-bottle wine, but I don’t think I can tell the difference between a decent three-dollar bottle and a thirty-dollar bottle, or between a five-hundred-dollar stereo and a five-thousand-dollar one.” “Good for you, Daniel. Your father was like you in that regard.” “Really?” “Yes. What I gathered about him the first time I met him, which was in Israel at Leon’s funeral, was that he was self-conscious about being married to a rich woman – a movie star – who made more a lot money than he did, and he wanted to be able to contribute equally to their life together. That changed when his book came out in English, and that’s when they finally bought that house in Blanke-something.” “Blankenese. And it’s not exactly a luxurious house, by Blankenese standards.” “That’s what I mean. He never developed a taste for five-star hotels and three-star restaurants. The only thing is that Leon left him one-third of his wealth, but it was to be held in trust until he was thirty-five, and your father resented that. That’s why, when he made out his will, he insisted that you get your share at eighteen.” “Why did Leon do that?” “I didn’t deal with Leon directly, I wasn’t in the firm yet when he made his will, but as far as I know it was in order to encourage Miki to make it on his own. Which he did.” “I’m sure he would have anyway.” “You’re probably right. I’m sure you will. Anyway, since you mentioned US when we talked about your income, I would like to advise you to put as much of your assets as is reasonable in American technology stock, especially information technology, what they call IT. You know – computers, hardware and software and that kind of stuff.” “How about biotechnology? I’m more interested in that, like Cetus, the company that’s developed PCR. I don’t even have a computer.” “Oh yes, PCR. We’ll talk about that. But to bring you up to date on the financial page, Cetus just got acquired by Chiron. Biotech is fine if you spread your investment among several companies, because often they depend heavily on one particular drug that may or may not get approved, and that’s what happened to Cetus. They sold their PCR patent, by the way. And it can be even worse if a drug gets recalled after approval or if there’s a lawsuit. But a biotech mutual fund would be good. I think you already have some of that. You should check with John Curtis at B of M. He managed the investments in your father’s account, and he’s been doing it for your mother, and now for you. And I think you might do the same with the IT, move into a mutual fund from your Canadian stocks, though there are some companies with a real promise. You say that you don’t have a computer yet.” “I plan to get one as soon as I get back to New York.” “An Apple or an IBM?” “Probably an IBM, since that’s what Columbia favors. I’ll be getting it through the University.” “I happen to like Apple. Take a look at my screen.” Greg swiveled the monitor sitting on his desk so that Daniel could see it: there was an array of small images with captions above them. “If I need to do anything, I just click on the right icon with the mouse. On an IBM you have to type in a command, but there’s a company named Microsoft that makes a program called Windows, which makes a PC act more like a Macintosh. The stock that I bought a year ago has more than doubled, and I think there’s no end in sight. But, as I said, talk to John. Now, since you mentioned PCR…” “You want to talk about my idea for exhuming the bones.” “Precisely. And I’d like to hear about it from you. Our families are pretty intertwined, you know – Marcia and I are friends with your mother, you’re friends with Harvey, and Betty is dating Paul – so I’ve heard about it second-hand.” “Okay, here it is first-hand. I think that I have reason to suspect that the body that was sent from Israel might not have been my father’s…” “What could that reason possibly be?” “Well, I understand that nobody looked at the body.” “It was already in a coffin.” “That’s my point, or one of them. They didn’t expect anyone to look inside.” “Who’s they?” “The Israeli authorities, the government, the military, the Mossad, whoever. They had it in for him.” “Because of his book?” “There was more than that. I’ve talked to Brigitte, but also with a woman who had been his girlfriend in the kibbutz and became friends with him again after he left Brigitte. There was a personal issue. They tried to frame him for a murder, in Germany. Some day I’m going to dig into it.” “So?” “So, I wouldn’t put it past them to send a wrong body.” “Do you think that he might be alive?” “It’s not out of the question that he’s in some prison.” “In Israel?” “Maybe, or maybe in Syria. Maybe he got captured in the Golan Heights. As I said, some day I’d like to delve into it.” “I think it’s just your imagination running away from you. And to do what you want to do would be, in strict legal terminology, opening a can of worms. I want you to know that I have formally advised your mother not to cooperate with you in this matter.” A cluster of thoughts began to form in Daniel’s mind, orbiting around the notion that perhaps Greg Berman was not such a good lawyer. He messed up on my father’s will, Daniel reminded himself. “There’s something I don’t get,” he said. “If no one looked inside the coffin, then my father was declared dead on the basis of the Israeli death certificate, wasn’t he?” “Well, yes, of course.” “What if there’d been no body, like the people who died in the… the Holocaust?” He forced himself to use the word that he had been avoiding ever since he had read his father’s article, Wörter um Eichmann, in which Michael Wilner criticized the usage. But this was no time to stickle – was that an English verb? – for words. “Like his parents and his sister?” “Of course, the registrar of civil status accepts official foreign documents, unless someone contests them.” “I have no plan to contest the death certificate. But whoever shipped the coffin was probably a different agency from the military doctor who signed the certificate. They just might have sent the wrong body, by mistake of course. Why is that a can of worms?” Greg was silent for a while. “Daniel,” he said at last, “you’re a very smart young man, and legally speaking you’re probably right. But I’m not sure you’ve thought about what it would do to your mother if the body turned out not to be your father’s. It would devastate her.” “It would?” “You probably don’t know that your mother goes to visit your father’s grave every so often.” “No, I had no idea.” “I’ve run into her at the cemetery when I’ve gone there with my mother to visit my father’s grave. It seems to give her a kind of comfort. You see, in life she didn’t have much of a hold on him, as he was always trotting the globe and probably had other women. This way she feels that she has him to herself.” “Really!” Whatever kind of a lawyer Greg Berman was, Daniel thought, he was a pretty good psychologist. “You probably think of your mother as a very controlled person,” Greg went on. Daniel nodded. “Well, the first time I met her, she was sitting in the same chair where you are now. It was not the same office, but it was the same chair. She practically had a breakdown when she heard about his death. And when I told her about the will, she kept saying, ‘He loved me! Il m’aimait!’ over and over. I believe that she always had the hope that some day, in the future, he would come back to live with her, especially after you got a little older.” “You really believe that? To me and Betty she’s always said that she could never live with a man.” “I mean while your father was still alive. And later, when she found out that she was pregnant with Betty, she kind of closed in on herself and dedicated herself to her kids and her profession. Not that she became like a nun,” Greg chuckled, “but she never got serious with another man.” Daniel shrugged. “I don’t really know much about her private life.” He chose not to bring up the memory of his mother with George Kenner in the Magdalen Islands, four summers before. “You would’ve known if there had been anyone really serious, believe me. And there was plenty of interest: a young, smart, beautiful widow with money…” “With two kids!” “Two great kids.” Greg smiled broadly. “Listen, Daniel, it’s clear that you could see right through the legal smokescreen that I threw up in order to protect your mother. I think you’ll make a great investigative reporter, if that’s what you want to be.” “Yes, I do, and what I really want to investigate, once I have my journalism degree, is what actually happened to my father.” “That will be in… three years?” “Yes. And as far as I know it will take that long before DNA analysis with PCR will be available outside of England, so there’s no urgency to any of this.” “It may be sooner than that. But anyway, we’re about to get a new civil code in Quebec, and the legal situation will be clearer than it is now. But whatever you do, Daniel, keep your mother’s feelings in mind. You owe her that.” “Of course, Greg. I love her.” As he walked out of the office building into the August sunlight, Daniel felt a gnawing sensation in his belly. As friendly as the conversation with Greg Berman had been, something was left unsettled. He realized that once he was ready to press for the exhumation he would need to get his own lawyer, unaffiliated with Greg’s firm. But the gnawing sensation continued, and he now realized that he was hungry. It was just past noon, and he joined the busy crowd of sandwich buyers at a sidewalk stand. Once he got his sandwich and lemonade he walked to Lafontaine Park, had his lunch there, and slowly walked to the Sherbrooke metro station in order to take a train that would get him to Megan’s around two o’clock. During the remaining week and a half that he spent in Montreal, Daniel managed to get together with Megan Kenner four times and in so doing to forget about Amy Kenner. But with each encounter he found himself missing Cici. Whatever he did with Megan – and there was a lot, for the now nineteen-year-old Megan had developed an adventuresome sexual appetite – he would not call it making love, even less so than the one-night stands of his Mexican tour. He also managed – after calling more than half a dozen law offices in which, when he mentioned DNA analysis, no one knew what he was talking about – to find a lawyer named William Prosper who not only knew about it but was interested in taking Daniel’s case, though it was not a criminal case and he was a criminal lawyer. When Daniel said, “Thank you, Mister Prosper,” the lawyer said, with what sounded like a North of England accent, “Call me Will.” Daniel wondered if Will Prosper used his name in advertising: With Will Prosper, your case will prosper. But Canadian lawyers were not allowed to advertise. The next day Daniel got together with Harvey Berman. They talked of many things, but Daniel did not mention Will Prosper. Nor did he mention him to other friends that he saw subsequently: Alex Crawford, Roxane Vanier and Megan Kenner. And of course not to his mother or sister By mid-August it was time to return to New York. Before leaving he tried to phone Cici, and received the same bilingual vacation message as the preceding year, once again with no opportunity for leaving a message of his own. No matter. The second half of August was about to begin; he would keep trying to call her every day.