I lowered myself carefully into the water, although I didn’t really feel like swimming. The man straightened up, pushed his swimming goggles onto the top of his head, and looked at me, and I was close enough to see on his shoulder the tattoo of a hand with a raised middle finger. A rebellious message to the world. The tattoo explained his arrogant attitude to Sanja as well. He was showing the whole world, including me as I swam toward him, a tattooed middle finger. An old-fashioned tattoo the color of pale indigo is in fact a threatening sign drawn on the skin with a needle. I hadn’t quite reached him when he turned and slowly waddled off to the edge of the pool, leaped energetically out, sprinkling water all around him, and went back to his recliner. “Look at him! Running away with his tail between his legs,” she says. But I had gone simply to calm her and to protect her with my body from the water others splashed about. She watched him victoriously as he left, and that flattered my male pride.

And this evening, as we crossed the parking lot, a couple passed us. Tanned, they were smoking as they left the pool. He was the young man with the tattoo of a hand showing its middle finger to the world. The slight aroma of tobacco hung in the air as they went. Sanja stopped, turned, and watched them walk away. She closed her eyes, trying to remember, or simply to smell the smoke in the air. Then she came to and followed me.

She’s a real little girl! We’re at the swimming pool, she’s lying on her front on a recliner, watching a column of ants moving along the crack between two cement blocks, she has blocked their passage with a finger and is waiting to see whether they’ll start climbing up her hand. But the ants make a detour in an arc around her finger. And I say: “You know, Jules Renard has a very short story about ants, shall I tell you it?” “Go on.” “He says that every ant looks like the figure 3. And how many there are! 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 . . . to infinity . . .” She says nothing. And I don’t know whether she likes my version of Renard’s story. She’s usually talkative, but sometimes (and ever more frequently) she closes herself up completely and then there’s no way I can get her to speak.