gives her nightmares. As a child, she had a recurring dream. A dream she can never put into words. The closest she comes to describing the dream, she tells Philip, is to say that it has to do with numbers. The numbers—if in fact they are numbers—always start out small and manageable, although in the dream Nina knows that this is temporary, for soon they start to gather force and multiply; they become large and uncontrollable. They form an abyss. A black hole of numbers.
You’re in good company, is what Philip tells her. The Greeks, Aristotle, Archimedes, Pascal all had it.
The dream?
No, what the dream stands for.
Which is?
The terror of the infinite.
But, for Philip, infinity is a demented concept.
Infinity, he says, is absurd.
“Suppose, one dark night,” is how Philip always begins his undergraduate course on probability theory, “you are walking down an empty street and suddenly you see a man wearing a ski mask carrying a suitcase emerge from a jewelry store—the window of the jewelry store, you will have noticed, is smashed. You will no doubt assume that the man is a burglar and that he has just robbed the jewelry store but you may, of course, be dead wrong.”
Philip is a popular teacher. His students like him. The women in particular, Nina cannot fail to notice.
He is so sanguine, so merry, so handsome.
Vous permettez?
He is so polite.
Too polite, she sometimes reproaches him.
They do not go to bed with each other right away. Instead he questions her about the well-known American painter.
I don’t want you to sleep with anyone else but me, he says. He sounds quite fierce. They are standing on the corner of boulevard Saint-Germain and rue de Saint-Simon, near the apartment where he is staying with his widowed aunt. A French aunt—or nearly French. She married a Frenchman and has lived in France for forty years. Tante Thea is more French than the French. She talks about politics and about food; she is impeccably dressed and perfectly coiffed; she serves three-course lunches, plays golf at an exclusive club in Neuilly, goes to the country every weekend. She refers to Philip as mon petit Philippe and, over time, Nina grows to like her.
A hot Saturday afternoon, the apartment will be empty. Across the boulevard, a policeman stands guarding a ministry. A flag droops over the closed entryway. Cars go by, a bus, several noisy motorcycles. They stand together not saying a word.
Come, Philip finally says.
Mon petit Philippe.
Nina smiles to herself, remembering.
He is so tentative, so determined to please her.
“The assumption that the man in the ski mask has robbed the jewelry store is an example of plausible reasoning but we, in this class”—is how Philip continues his lecture—“will be studying deductive reasoning. We will look at how intuitive judgments are replaced by definite theorems—and that the man robbing the jewelry store is in fact the owner of the jewelry store and he is on his way to a costume party, therefore the ski mask, and the neighbor’s kid has accidentally thrown a baseball through his store window.
“Any questions?”
Most probably a sudden cardiac arrest—not a heart attack—their neighbor, an endocrinologist, says. He tries to explain the difference to her. A heart attack is when a blockage in a blood vessel interrupts the flow of blood to the heart, while a cardiac arrest results from an abrupt loss of heart function. Most of the cardiac arrests that lead to sudden death occur when the electrical impulses in the heart become rapid or chaotic. This irregular heart rhythm causes the heart to suddenly stop beating. Some cardiac arrests are due to extreme slowing of the heart. This is called bradycardia.
Did he say all of that?
No, no, Philip has never been diagnosed with heart disease. Philip is as healthy as a horse. He had a physical a few months ago. That is what his doctor said. In any case it is what Philip told her his doctor said.
No, no, Philip does not take any medication.
Their neighbor, Hugh, looks for a pulse. He puts both hands on Philip’s heart and applies pressure. He counts out loud—one, two, three, four—until thirty.
Nina tries to count out loud with him—nineteen, twenty, twenty-one . . .
She has trouble making a sound above a whisper.
Poor Hugh, he does not know what to say—something about a defibrillator only it is too late. His dinner napkin is still hanging from his belt and he only notices it now. Blushing slightly, he pulls it off.
No. He must not call anyone.
Nina ran next door to fetch him just as he and his wife, Nell, are sitting down to their supper in the kitchen. Their dog, an old yellow Lab, stands up and begins to bark at her; upstairs, a child starts to cry. They have two children, one a month old. A girl named Justine. A day or two after Nell came home from the hospital, Nina went over with a lasagna casserole and a pink sweater and matching cap for the baby. How long ago that seems.
Hugh says, Call us any time. Nell and I . . . His voice trails off.
Yes.
Yes, yes, I will.
And call your physician. He’ll have to draw up the death certificate.
Yes, in the morning, I will.
Will you be all right . . . ? Again, his voice trails off.
Yes, yes. I want to be alone.
Thank you.
Thank you, she says again.
She hears the front door shut.
Bradycardia.
The name reminds her of a flower. A tall blue flower.
Iris.
An old-fashioned name.
The name of the woman killed in the car accident. She must have been pretty, Nina imagines. Slender, blonde. Both are young—Iris is only eighteen and he is driving her home after a party, it is raining hard—perhaps Philip has had one drink too many but he is not drunk. No. Around a curve, he loses control of the car—perhaps the car skids, he does not remember; nor did he when the police question him. They hit a telephone pole. Iris is killed instantly. He, on the other hand, is unhurt.
Nina wonders how often Philip still thinks about Iris. Did he think of her before he died? Did he think he might have had a happier life had he married her? In a way, Nina envies Iris. Iris has remained forever young and pretty in his mind while he has only to glance at her and see how Nina’s skin is wrinkled, her hair, once auburn or red—depending on the light—is gray, her breasts have lost their firmness.
Philip spoke of the accident on their honeymoon, on their way to Puerto Vallarta.
I just want you to know that this happened to me is what he says.
It happened also to Iris is what Nina wants to say but does not.
It took me a long time to get over it and come to terms with it is what he also says.
How did you come to terms with it? Nina wants to ask.
It was a terrible thing.
Yes.
Now, I don’t want to think about it anymore, he says.
And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Do you understand, Nina?
Nina said she does but she doesn’t.
What was she like? Iris? she nonetheless asks. She tries to sound respectful. Was she Southern? Iris is such an unusual name.
She was a musician, Philip answers.
Oh. What did she play? The