Based on what she told me, in one of the photos my dad was with her in some scenic spot. The typical shot taken on a cell phone while out walking. In the second they were smiling, barely dressed, in what looked like a kitchen in an apartment. Both their names were on the bottom of the photo along with the dates. My mother was convinced that the actress was the one who had taken them and had promised to send them to him. Mom bemoaned her luck for an hour, not touching her cake. She listed all the sacrifices she’d made for him since the time they’d met, everything she’d done to turn him into the prestigious playwright he was today, to keep him protected in a stable home, centered around him and where he’d always had the leading role. Things obvious to both of us, and I’m sure to my father as well. She confessed to me how disappointed she was by his infidelity, and when she grew tired of feeling sorry for herself she returned to the subject of his pet.

“That animal is diabolical, I’ve said it many times before. I want to ask you to get rid of it.”

“Why don’t you kill it yourself?” I asked. But she wouldn’t.

“If your father finds out, I think it will be easier for him to forgive you.”

Mom was convinced that the snake was the incarnation of her marital troubles. She had put her entire life into that marriage. How could I refuse her request? I took her trembling hand and promised that she could count on me. She let out a heavy sigh, after which she began to eat slowly, like a good little girl whose punishment had just ended.

I suggested we go home a different way so we took the metro from Gaîté. We got off at Edgar Quinet and cut through the cemetery, walking in silence over a carpet of dead orange and yellow leaves. As I always did when I passed through, I examined the inscriptions on the headstones, the cities and dates carved into the stone, the occasional epithet. I thought how in the end all that is left of us besides our name is two dates and two cities, if not one city as in my case it could be. It was impossible to know where my father would die and where he would be buried, but one thing was certain: under his name would be written Beijing, 1953. I wondered if Mom was thinking the same thing, but she looked so lost in her own thoughts that I decided not to ask. A few minutes later she dispelled my doubts on her own.

“If you look closely you see that most of the women are buried next to their husbands. There are few women alone in this cemetery.”