I would have added religious intolerance and racism to Oz’s list. Though to be fair, religious intolerance and racism aren’t the methods by which we kill people we don’t like. They just provide the narrative and the incentive.

“Can you tell which is which?”

“Does it matter?”

“Ah,” says Oz. “A philosopher. Perhaps you can help me. Do you play games?”

“Games?”

“Excellent,” says Oz. “Then you will have no preconceived ideas.”

“Games? Is that what you do?”

Oz puts his napkin on the table and buttons his jacket. “Take your wife to the Franz Kafka Museum,” he says. “It is close. You will enjoy the Cerny sculpture in the courtyard.”

The little man is through the breakfast room and gone like a wisp of smoke just as Mimi appears in the doorway, looking slightly dishevelled and lost.

“Over here.” I wave.

She waves back but goes directly to the buffet and begins piling food on her plate. There is nothing that the woman won’t eat, and she is always hungry. Her mother is the same way. I’ve seen Bernie Bull Shield go up and down the line of hot trays at the Happy Fortune in Lethbridge like a harvester through hay.

“See,” Mimi says when she arrives at the table, “still lots of good stuff left.”

I hand her the menu. “In addition to the buffet, you can order one of the hot items as well.”

“So, are you all set for our big adventure?”

“You mean putting in time wandering a strange city, looking at old, boring buildings, hoping someone speaks English?”

“That’s the one.”

MIMI’S MOTHER LIVES by herself in a double-wide trailer on the Blackfoot reserve in southern Alberta. You can sit on her porch and watch the Rockies turn evening purple and wake up to see the Belly River, thin and silver, as it cuts its way through the prairies.

Bernice, or Bernie as she prefers, is a large, sturdy woman who keeps herself well supplied with strong opinions, and every time we visit, she shares them with us.

“Wouldn’t hurt you to move back to the reserve,” she would tell Mimi. “Traditionally, Blackfoot women brought their men home to live with their mother’s family.”

“No, they didn’t, Mum.”

“You remember that story I told you about fishing?”

“God, Mum, not that one again.”

“Men are like fish,” Bernie would start. “No real skill needed. Drop a line in the water and wait. But just because you catch one doesn’t mean you have to keep it.”

Sometimes Bernie would try to be helpful. “We should get your man an Indian name.”

“I have an Indian name.”

“Blackbird is okay, but Mavrias don’t sound much Indian to me.”

“It’s not,” I would say each time she brought it up.

“And we’re not supposed to be in the same room. If you were Blackfoot, you’d know that.”