30   9 June 1992   Betty is 18. Daniel was here for 3 weeks and stayed just long enough to help celebrate her birthday and to help finalize the transfer of the assets that he had ceded to her. A few hours ago Betty and I took him to Mirabel. He has just left for Barcelona (via London), where Vicky awaits him. We will see what comes of this romance. But now it appears that he will not be spending the whole summer with Vicky, only the rest of June and a week in July. Then he will be going to Israel for 7 weeks with a group of students from France. He is still pursuing his father’s traces. I wonder what he will find. Do I want to know? I am not sure. Probably not. Aunt Fela has been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. I talked with Howard Levinson, her FP, who was one of my residency teachers. The prognosis, he said, was about 50-50. The EGD shows a couple of fairly small epithelial squamous-cell tumours that are candidates for surgery, and after that we’ll see, he said. So far she is in a lot of pain, and has difficulty in eating and talking. She did not allow Daniel to visit her. (But she did not fail to send Betty a birthday card with $180 enclosed.) Daniel took it hard, but probably not as hard (I am speculating) as he would have taken it before discovering other connections with his father. Before that she was the only one. It was at her house that he found his books, photos of him from before my time, and even people who had met him during his previous visits to Montréal Now he has Brigitte (whom he will visit again, in Majorca, during his stay in Spain); the several Israeli women; and most recently Mauricio, whom D described in not very flattering terms (egocentric, narcissist etc.), but he is still a cousin. I wonder if he will ever become curious enough to discover his other cousins, my nephews and nieces in and around Rimouski. It would be interesting if he did, but it would not bother me if he did not. I have had no contact with my brothers since papa died, and the little contact that I had then was painful. A few times I have asked myself why I have kept the name Bouchard after I married Miki. I was still a student, and I could just as well have become Dr. Mireille Wilner as Dr. Mireille Bouchard. The fact is that changing my name never occurred to me at the time. Miki and I never lived as husband and wife. Besides, it was the spirit of the times, in the early 70s, for liberated women to keep their names. And as an adherent of the Quiet Revolution I wanted to keep my French Canadian identity. But in the very, very improbable event that I might have married Jean-Marc, would I have become Mireille Couture? No, my journal, I don’t think so. The thought makes me shudder. I wish I could get J-M off my mind once and for all. The last time I mentioned him to you, my journal, I began having strange dreams about him again, for about a week. Please, please don’t let it happen tonight. I want a good night’s sleep. I am seeing Bob tomorrow, for the first time in 3 weeks. Good night, my journal. Wish me happy dreams. Paris   Daniel was startled when Vicky, on her last day in Paris, proved more fluent than he was in the language spoken by the French students who were to be his travel companions. He shouldn’t have been, because weekend trips to Perpignan, and sometimes as far as Narbonne and Montpellier, had been a regular part of her coming of age. She called Perpignan the capital of Northern Catalonia and said that it was a great party town, as well as the place where Spanish girls could get RU-486 for unwanted pregnancies. She accompanied him to the orientation meeting of the group. They had already checked out of their hotel. Her bag was in a locker at the Gare d’Austerlitz, while his was in the dorm of the Cité Universitaire where the group would spend a few nights together before departure and where the meeting was held. The group leader, or madrikh, had not arrived yet. Daniel introduced himself to the others, and it seemed that they were expecting him – they identified him as le canot, which he took to be a slang term for a Canadian. While waiting, Daniel and Vicky chatted in English. “C’est ta meuf?” one of the guys asked him. The question stopped him short, and Vicky answered for him. “Oui, j’suis sa meuf.” The madrikh came. He was a sturdy-looking man of about thirty, named Gabi, who spoke French like a native but pronounced the many Hebrew phrases that he cited like an Israeli. He elaborated on the information that had been sent out – the seven-week program would begin with two weeks in Jerusalem followed by two weeks of touring in northern Israel, another week in Jerusalem, one in the south (including a side trip to the Sinai), and finally one in Tel Aviv – and answered questions. When, after the meeting, Daniel’s fellow travelers found out that Vicky was from Spain, they asked her if she thought that her compatriot Miguel Indurain would win his second consecutive Tour de France, at a time when Pascal Lino still wore the yellow jersey. “Bien sûr qu’il va gagner,” Vicky said confidently. She and Daniel then joined the countless couples of lovers who, on a balmy early-July evening, populated the Parc Montsouris. As they strolled arm in arm around the lake, Vicky – ever the student of linguistics – explained the slang called verlan that people of their age were now using; it was based on inverting the syllables of a word, and verlan came from l’envers. In one-syllable words a final -eu would be added before the inversion and then the original vowel would be dropped. That was how juif became feuj, how flic became keuf, and how femme became meuf. “But if you are my meuf then what am I to you?” he asked, realizing as he was doing it that it would have made more sense to do so in French. But he couldn’t let go of English as his language of love with Vicky. “Toi, t’es mon keum,” she said, laughing. Keum, from mec, he understood immediately. Later they walked the three and a half kilometers to the Gare d’Austerlitz. About halfway there they stopped for dinner, bœuf bourguignon washed down with Beaujolais, at a corner bistro on the Place d’Italie. At the station they had the stereotypical bittersweet lovers’ farewell that they had read about and seen in films scores of times, but experiencing it in the flesh overwhelmed them. The airport farewell three months earlier had been altogether different; they had been lovers for only two nights, and were still in a fever of unreality. Now they had been together for a month, and might not see each other again for another six, though Vicky would try to meet him in Paris again on his return from Israel, if only for one night.   He chose to take a longer, more roundabout route to walk back to the heart of Paris: along the Seine until he faced Notre Dame, whose bells rang out nine o’clock just as the last daylight faded and the City of Lights began to live up to its name. He then turned south on Rue Saint-Jacques – the way of the pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela, as Vicky had told him – through the heart of the Latin Quarter, past the Sorbonne and the Observatory. For an hour he reflected on the last two months of his life. First it was quickly in reverse chronological order, like rewinding a videocassette in play mode. When he came to the end of April he mentally pressed stop and play. He had been making a series of calls to Montreal informing family and friends of his summer plans. He also wrote Brigitte Wilner and Nili Rozen about them. Then Karen Litov invited him to a party, to be held the following Thursday, in honor of Israel Independence Day. For a Columbia student it was a strange time for a party: it was the last of the study days, with finals to begin the next day. Daniel, it so happened, had no exam on Friday, and so he accepted the invitation. Fast forward to the party. Play. A large apartment, belonging to some Israeli diplomat, in an Eastside building largely inhabited by Israelis, including Karen. A buffet laden with Middle Eastern food and non-alcoholic drinks. A separate table held bottles of brandy and vodka, but no wine or beer as far as he could tell. More than half of the people, and nearly all of those who were of Daniel’s age, seemingly Israeli. Karen appearing out of nowhere, a glass of brandy in each hand, putting one of them down on a bookshelf in order to take Daniel’s jacket while she kissed him on the cheek, then telling him to take the brandy, it was very good, clinking and saying “Lehayim!” The brandy smooth down his gullet, Karen telling him to go get some more and going off with his jacket. Refilling his glass, taking a plateful of snacks while making his way among the crowd, looking for an anglophone cluster, finding one made up of graduate students discussing politics, going back to the liquor table for yet another drink. Feeling woozy, reeling, looking without success for a place to sit down, and seeing the Persian carpet under his feet moving up into his face, once again Karen Litov coming out of nowhere to hold him and put his jacket on his shoulders, leading him up two flights to her studio, telling him to get some rest. Staggering toward the bed, plopping down, thanking her in Hebrew as he had learned from Audrey. Awakening as his belt was being unbuckled, opening his eyes, seeing Karen’s face above his by the dim light of a floor lamp in a far-off corner, hearing her say “Shalom, motek!” as she undressed herself and then him, feeling her take her pleasure in the same way as on the other two occasions, going to sleep together. Waking up again in the dark with Karen asleep beside him, her back turned to him. Saying to himself This is it, stroking her back and other parts of her as she moved her body half-awake while purring like a kitten, giving her pleasure in the way that he knew, that he had learned from Gen McGrath. Finally, when she seemed sated, saying to her, “You’re a Mossad agent, aren’t you?” Karen replying with a forced laugh, “If I am an agent of the Mossad, would I tell you?” “You just did.” Karen saying menacingly, “Don’t say this to me again, never, do you understand? This is not a joke.” And when he said nothing, “It’s better that you go home.” Getting out of bed with the lamp on her nightstand flicked on, finding his clothes, putting them on and saying “I’m sorry” as he walked out the door. It was one of his most embarrassing moments, and his last time with a woman other than Vicky, he reflected as he passed beside Ile Saint-Louis. The chevet of Notre Dame, with its flying buttresses subtly lit like a spider web by subdued sunlight, came into view. There was just enough light to see the rooster on top of the spire, and Daniel imagined him crowing as if to say, “Don’t take it too seriously.” During finals, a reply came from Brigitte. She would be in Majorca in June – could he visit her? Of course he would, but he would call once he was in Spain. Also, a note from Will Prosper to call him when he was in Montreal. No reply from Nili. Fast forward again, to Montreal. Play. When he called Fela she told him that she was ill, too much so to let him visit. “Call again next week,” she said. He called Greg to find out what was wrong, and Greg said that it was serious. “Cancer?” Daniel asked, and Greg confirmed it before changing the subject. There was some paperwork to be done in preparation for Betty’s assumption of her share of their father’s estate, and the two of them should come to his office. The assets that were readily divisible – cash, stocks, mutual funds and the like – would of course be divided into halves, Greg said. But there were some government bonds and some real estate, and some financial surgery would be required for those. The metaphor made Daniel queasy after the conversation about Fela. Betty, curiously enough, had some definite opinions on the division of the assets; she had formed them by discussing the matter with Paul Berman. But it turned out that Paul had known all along, probably from overhearing his father, that Betty would become a wealthy young woman at eighteen. He had even made some suggestions to her about how they might spend her money. Betty was troubled. Did Paul love her for herself, or for her money? Mireille tried to reassure her: any guy would love a girl as beautiful and intelligent as Betty for herself. But Betty had her doubts, and Daniel, in their first talk, encouraged her to listen to her own heart and mind. She asked him if his girlfriends had known about his wealth and he said no, there was no way for them to know, since he didn’t live like a rich guy – he had a nicer apartment than most students, but in New York people took that to be a matter of luck. She said that she also didn’t want to live like a rich girl, and if she were to meet someone new then he wouldn’t know, and she would be sure. “But don’t you love Paul?” he asked. “I do,” Betty said, “but I’m not sure I trust him.”   Rue Saint-Jacques was crowded with noisy students. The sounds of Parisian French were hammering their way into his brain, with many instances of meuf and keum. His mind was struggling to keep its thinking in English, swimming upstream against a francophone tide, till it found a lifebuoy in the shape of the memory of his meeting with Will Prosper, than whom no one could be more English. The lawyer told him that he had made progress in the matter of getting a disinterment order. He had found a precedent in Ontario for a temporary disinterment with the sole purpose of getting a DNA sample, and a lab in Toronto that could run the necessary tests. Now it was just a matter of finding a Quebec judge who was willing to take the precedent into account. Once the judge so ordered, the disinterment could take place under Article 49 of the Civil Code of Quebec. Daniel would, of course, have to supply DNA samples from Mireille and Betty. But, since the procedure did not involve an adversarial matter under either criminal or civil law, it would not be prejudiced by such samples being taken furtively. Hairbrush residue would be fine, for example. Hairbrush residue. How would one even say that in French? Résidu de brosse à cheveux? Well, of course, why not? But it sounded funny. Though Betty and Mireille were both out, he felt like a spy when he sneaked into their respective bedrooms and combed each of the hairbrushes that he found on their dressers with a fine-toothed comb that he had soaked in boiling water. He picked up enough fine auburn strands on both, and put them in zipper-close plastic bags on which he had already written the appropriate names and birth dates with in an indelible marker. He placed the bags in an envelope and mailed it to Prosper’s office. The molecular die was cast.   He passed two girls walking arm in arm. One of them looked a lot like Megan Kenner, only with shorter hair. He thought briefly about Megan. He had scarcely given her any thought since he got her note, at the beginning of May, telling him that since finals at Concordia were already ending, she would be out of town during his time in Montreal. After he passed yet another baroque dome, that of the Val-de-Grâce, he began to feel cold. He had dressed for the warm summer day that it had been and had not prepared for the chilly evening. When he passed the Observatory and came to Boulevard Arago, he saw that the Denfert-Rochereau station was a block away to his right. He turned, went into the station and took the RER train to Cité Universitaire. When he entered his room he noted thankfully that his roommate, André Halphen, was already asleep. He lay down on his bed, finally letting himself think about Vicky. But for some reason the first thought led back to Betty’s question whether his girlfriends had known about his wealth. Now he somehow had the impression that Vicky knew. She let him pay for everything that they did together, and while she stayed within a reasonable price range in arranging his hotel bookings and their trip to Paris (in a sleeping car and not a couchette), she never asked him if the price was right for him. But of course! She had learned about him from Mauricio, and Mauricio from Fela, and there was no reason why Fela should not tell Mauricio – who after all was mishpukhe, his family name the same as hers – that Daniel had inherited a large part of the wealth that her husband had bequeathed to his nephew Miki. The thought made him shudder. Could Vicky be after his money? He felt cold sweat on his skin. How could he ignore his suspicions after advising Betty to heed hers? Not that the two situations were parallel. Betty knew Paul, had known him for most of her life, and if they discovered each other as the male and female of the species when he was eighteen and she was seventeen, a year before becoming rich, that might or might not have been a coincidence. Daniel had known Vicky for a few months, been with her for a total of one; did he know her? And yet, the more deeply he thought about it, the less it mattered. Had she come on to him? “I could almost fall in love with you,” she had said. Yes, that was a come-on. But they had had spectacular fun together, and the past three weeks – since his return from Majorca and the end of her exams – that he spent in Sitges, with trips to Tarragona, Barcelona, Perpignan and now Paris, had been the most wonderful of his life. Nor did he feel any reason to doubt her when she said the same of herself, there on the platform of the Gare d’Austerlitz, an hour and a half earlier. His feelings were now pulled between missing Vicky and excitement over the upcoming trip to Israel, which would start the morning after the next, after another orientation session, this one daylong. At this time his motivations for going there no longer seemed clear. The tug-of-war inside him kept him awake. He also missed the sound of church bells; there seemed to be no church in the vicinity of the Cité Universitaire. The hotel in the Latin Quarter where he had stayed with Vicky – what a lovely pair of nights! – was within earshot of Saint-Séverin, with the oldest bell in Paris. He let the bells sound in his mind’s ear. He woke up from a strange philosophical dream in which God had decreed that all the world’s vaginas be closed. Its meaning was obvious: there was to be no sex in the Holy Land. Ridiculous, his conscious mind said. Of course there will be sex. The group seemed evenly divided, male and female, like Noah’s ark. Already at the meeting, while he was sitting next to Vicky – though before she had declared herself to be his meuf – two of the girls had given him the eye, elles jouaient de la prunelle avec moi. The question now in his mind whether they would pair off as couples or there would be random mating. For himself, Daniel didn’t care; it would be rec sex, le sexe comme passe-temps, nothing to do with his feelings for Vicky, rien à voir avec mes sentiments pour Vicky…