monsieur and madame, put in two stone tables, and families can stop and eat and look out at the free, French Republican panorama, and everyone’s content. Even Tristano seemed content, even without a family, he laid out a paper tablecloth and paper plates that he bought at a supermarket in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the plates had phrases on them from famous writers or titles of famous books, and the plates he’d bought were covered with the line, le meilleur des mondes possibles, and at the center was a portrait sketched in deep blue of the inventor of these literary plates, a gentleman who looked like an imbecile, his cheek resting on his hand, a lock of what seemed to be toupee hair resting on his forehead. The brand name, in small letters on the rim, said, se nourrir de littérature. Guagliona, Tristano said, I have this feeling we might be ahead of our time. You’re the one ahead, she answered, you and time don’t get along too well, sometimes you go backwards, sometimes you jump around, you’re not too consistent. Tristano smiled, because the view was pleasant, and also because the view seemed to be smiling, smiling at everyone who passed that way, it was important to notice, and Tristano noticed, and smiled back … Evening was falling over that smiling Pyrenean valley and the light was turning slightly blue, and Tristano was enjoying the serene night air and said he loved that writer who was so infested and mean, because that writer had actually become a louse, had sucked men’s blood and understood it was filthy and then he said, oh, evening was dear to him when it came, because he had a real soft spot for that poem. Guagliona nodded because apparently when evening came, it was dear to her as well, and then she wanted to know, if he called that writer a louse and thought he was so negative and hopeless, then why did he like him? And Tristano stared down at his now dirty paper plate with its quote from Voltaire, you know, he said, it’s because he dove headlong into the shit of this century of ours, and diving into shit takes courage; look, when we get to Spain, I’ll make you live an as-if, then if you feel like it, you can read it to yourself, but with me, you’ll live it as if we’re on the page, you’ll see, there’s a level crossing, a train that never comes, a still afternoon and a still life, and a man and a woman who sit drinking beer and watching flies, they’ve both had an abortion, the two of them, in their own way, and behind that crossing bar, there are hills like white elephants, a cemetery of elephants with vitiligo …