Jérôme, with his slick black hair and pointy face, was from Sébastien’s father’s side. He raised prize Dobermans, which pressed against my knees with slimy balls in their mouths and clearly expected me to keep throwing these balls for the whole evening. Normally I would have stopped after a few times, but Dobermans exercise great moral persuasion. Jérôme also mastered the incredible feat of smoking three cigarettes at the same time, one in his mouth and two always burning on the edge of the ashtray. I was going to die of lung cancer from this country; I knew I was. “So who did you get to do the service?” he asked, after describing his Dobermans’ last competition for two hours. “Not that old curé, what’s his name, Monsieur T.”

“That’s the one,” Sébastien said resignedly. “Why? Did he wreck your car?”

Jérôme pursed his lips together, halfway between sympathy for our upcoming trials and enjoyable anticipation of violence. “I thought your father was going to kill him at our last little cousin’s Baptism. We had to grab him and take him out of the church.”

And Sébastien thought my family was difficult because they all carried three or four guns in their trucks. Nobody in my family had ever tried to murder a priest.

“That sounds like Dad.” Sébastien grinned. “What did he do?”

“Well, you know, your dad’s not practicing himself, but naturally he wanted to come to his niece’s Baptism. So he and your brothers were sitting quietly in a pew toward the back, just watching and not joining in the hymns or anything. And the old curé, when he walked by their pew, stopped and said—out loud—‘Do you want to join us, or are you just here for the buffet?’” Jérôme pursed his lips in a soft, in-drawn whistle, placed his third burning cigarette in the ashtray, and lit a fourth, remembering the scene. “Fortunately, we managed to get him out of the church in time. I was supposed to be the godfather at another Baptism. Did you hear about that one?”

We got back to the farmhouse in time to help fix dinner and partake of the day’s second round of cocktails. Plaster, grease, and all other forms of dirt rinsed off, everyone sank into the red plushness of the parlor. Black-and-white photos of Bruno’s and Titi’s ancestors surrounded us, framed in gold: Bruno’s mother on her belly as a laughing, naked baby, teenage René in his military uniform, and dozens of images far older.

“We watched the weather report while you were out,” Mamie said. “Still gales.”

Some topics of conversation should really be banned from cocktail hour. “No word from Sue and Dwayne?” I asked. Night had fallen outside. They had planned to leave Paris ten hours ago and had still not called or shown up.