There’s a buffalo head hanging on the wall. Mimi stands under it so I can take a picture of the two of them. “I guess the Czechs feel the same way.”

Mimi reaches up and gives the buffalo a pat. There’s a feather hanging off each horn.

“Remember the big raid? Operation Cerberus?”

There’s a rattle and a small drum hanging from a hook near a photograph of three Indians on horseback.

“You covered it for The New York Times.”

Blanding, Utah. 2009. Federal agents raided a number of homes and businesses and recovered more than forty thousand Native artifacts that had been illegally dug up from protected sites. Arrowheads, shell pendants, ceramic pottery, masks.

Mimi looks at the other artifacts on the walls. “Robbing graves and selling culture,” she says, “has always been good business. Just ask the Egyptians and the Greeks.”

We get a table in a corner. I lean against the wall while Mimi reads the menu. Most of the people in the café are young, but then pizza is a young person’s dish. Grease doesn’t slow them down. Molten cheese doesn’t plug them up. Processed meat doesn’t clog their arteries.

Immortal. You have to be immortal to eat pizza.

“We can get a Geronimo or we could try a Crazy Eagle.” Mimi hands me the menu. “But we don’t have to stay. I just thought we should see the place in case you can use it in the book.”

“There is no book.”

“That sounds like Didi and Desi to me.”

We settle for the Black Bear pizza, which is made with black olives, hermelin, and chicken. Mimi has to look up hermelin on her cellphone.

“It’s a traditional Czech cheese,” she tells me. “Like Camembert, with a coating of white mould.”

“Is there anything with pepperoni?”

“We can get pepperoni in Guelph.”

“Exactly.”

The Black Bear pizza with the hermelin turns out to be excellent. Gooey, but tasty. I’m reaching for my second piece when the cramp hits.

AFTER AUTOIMMUNE PANCREATITIS and diabetes, leg cramps were the next surprise on my list of medical staggers. One night, about nine months ago, I was jolted out of a dead sleep with terrible cramps in the quadriceps of my left leg, as though the flesh was being torn away from the bone.

That first cramp came in a series of waves, varying in intensity and lasting for the better part of an hour. At one point, I managed to get out of bed and stand, hoping that the pressure would ease the pain.

It didn’t.

I began shaking and sweating until I was exhausted, my body wet and cold. Mimi did all she could. Rubbed the thigh, listened to me scream, offered advice.

“Can you stand up straight?”

“What happens if you stretch the muscle?”

“Maybe we should try singing.”