Especially now with our time so short, five more weeks, four more weeks. Some nights we linger at Le Piston until well after midnight, often missing the last train home, preferring to walk rather than cut our time short. Three more weeks. Our final class is the fourteenth of May and we sense already the numbered particles of loss we will shortly be assigned. When we say good night-the air is milder, spring now-we’re reminded of our rapidly narrowed perspective. We hang on tighter to each other, since all we know of consequence tells us that we may not be this lavishly favored again.

Lately we’ve been working hard, preparing for our concert. This is what Madam Bessant calls it-a concert. A little program to end the term. Her suggestion, the first time she utters it-“We will end the season with a concert”-dumfounds us. An absurdity, an embarrassment. We are being asked to give a recital, to perform. Like trained seals or small children. Called upon to demonstrate our progress. Cecile Landreau’s eyebrows go up in protest; her chin puckers the way it does when she launches into one of her picaresque western anecdotes. But no one says a word-how can we? Enigmatic, inconsolable Madam Bessant has offered up the notion of a concert. She has no idea of what we know, that the tragic narrative of her life has been laid bare. She speaks calmly, expectantly; she is innocence itself, never guessing how charged we are by our guilty knowledge, how responsible. The hazards of the grown-up life are settled on her face. We know everything about the Chopin nocturne, repeated and repeated, and about the stumbling collapse on the hot tracks, the severed head and bloodied torso. When she speaks of a concert we can only nod and agree. Of course there must be a concert.

It is decided then. We will do nine short pieces. Nothing too onerous though, the program must be kept light, entertaining.

And who is to be entertained? Madam Bessant patiently explains: we are to invite our friends, our families, and these invitées will form an audience for our concert. A soirée, she calls it now. Extra chairs have already been requisitioned, also a buffet table, and she herself-she brings her fingers and thumbs together to make a little diamond-she herself will provide refreshments.

This we won’t hear of. Lonnie H. immediately volunteers a chocolate cake. Robert Mooney says to leave the wine to him, he knows a dealer. You insist on taking responsibility for a cheese and cold-cuts tray. Cecile and Rhonda will bring coffee, paper plates, plastic forks and knives. And Pierre and I, what do we bring?-potato chips, pretzels, nuts? Someone writes all this down, a list. Our final celebratory evening is to be orderly, apt, joyous, memorable.