But this is a sad ending. Since I can—since I am the only one left who can—let me dial time backwards so we can spend a happier moment together. The four of us: John and François, and Tig and me. Already we’re looking younger, as you can see.

So, when and where was this sordid liaison supposed to have taken place?” “In 1967, in Ottawa.” “Well then. More and more improbable. Nobody has affairs in Ottawa.” “Oh, they do,” said Csilla. “Civil servants have them all the time. They do it out of boredom.” “But nobody goes there from somewhere else to have them. Why would they even consider it?

What were the adjectives you might use for her? Practical, sentimental, tough, empathetic, determined. Fearless, though no one is fearless really; more like a calculated risk-taker.

And if you did guess, if you could foresee, would that be better? No: you’d live in grief all the time, you’d be mourning things that hadn’t happened yet. Better to preserve the illusion of safety. Better to improvise. Better to march along through the golden autumn woods, not very well prepared, poking icy ponds with your hiking pole, snacking on

paragraph a battle is a jig saw puzzle of fighting men bewildered terrified civilians noise smells jokes pain fear unfinished conversations and high explosives stop

The late 1960s was a time of big domestic breakups: the so-called sexual revolution, post-pill, pre-AIDS. Young bearded hippies everywhere, girls in maxicoats, then long flower-child skirts and granny boots, acid and weed freely available, plus—later—other substances. It was as if the 1950s ideal family had swelled up like a water balloon and then

Twenty-five years ago, when she and Tig had still been young, though they hadn’t thought back then that they were young. Middle-aged. Past the halfway mark. Countdown days. Already they’d been making jokes about creaky knees. What did they know about creaky knees back then? They could still go hiking, for heaven’s sakes. When had that become imposs

The cake basket is no longer in evidence. At some point during the years it has disappeared. Where it is now? Lurking in an antiques shop, in a flea market? A message from the past, waiting for someone to decipher it; but waiting vainly, like most such messages. Nell pictures it as a time capsule, shot into the future, a future of aliens; aliens of

Alone, he admits to being a poor little guy—isn’t everyone with any degree of self-knowledge an insignificant person?—but denies taking himself for a genius. What does it mean, anyway, to take oneself? Surely in such a case of false self-identification one should say mistake oneself. Ah, those lying words.