that, according to Pascal, we are forced to gamble that He exists.
I’m not forced to gamble, Nina says, and believing in God and trying to believe in Him are not the same thing.
Right but Pascal uses the notion of expected gain to argue that one should try to lead a pious life instead of a worldly one, because if God exists one will be rewarded with eternal life.
In other words, the bet is all about personal gain, Nina says.
Yes.
On the way home, as Nina crosses the Pont Neuf, the heel of her shoe catches, breaks off. She nearly falls.
Damn, she says, I’ve ruined my shoe.
Holding on to Philip’s arm, she limps across the street.
A sign, she says.
A sign of what?
That I lead a worldly life.
Shaking his head, Philip laughs.
On a holiday weekend, they drive to the coast of Normandy. They walk the landing beaches and collect stones—in her studio, they are lined up on the windowsill along with stones from other beaches. At Colleville-sur-Mer, they make their respectful way among the rows and rows of tidy, white graves in the American cemetery.
How many?
9,387 dead.
On the way to La Cambe, the German military cemetery, it begins to rain.
Black Maltese crosses and simple dark stones with the names of the soldiers engraved on them mark the wet graves.
More than twice as many dead—according to the sign.
Why did we come here? Nina asks. And it’s raining, she says.
Instead of answering, Philip points. Look, he says.
In the distance, to the west, there is clear sky and a faint rainbow.
Make a wish, Nina says.
I have, Philip answers.
Always, on their trips, they stay in cheap hotels—neither one of them has much money. Closing her eyes, she can still visualize the rooms with the worn and faded flowered wallpaper, the sagging double bed with its stiff cotton sheets and uncomfortable bolster pillows; often there is a sink in the room and Philip pees in it; the toilet and tub are down the hall or down another flight of stairs. Invariably, too, the rooms are on the top floor, under the eaves, and if Philip stands up too quickly and forgets, he hits his head. The single window in the room looks out onto a courtyard with hanging laundry, a few pots of geranium, and a child’s old bicycle left lying on its side. The hotels smell of either cabbage or cauliflower—chou-fleur.
Chou-fleur, she repeats to herself. She likes the sound of the word.
Always, in her mind, she and Philip are in bed.
Or they are eating.
During dinner at a local restaurant, over their entrecôtes—saignante for him, à point for her—their frites, and a carafe of red wine, Philip talks about his class at the École Polytechnique, about what he is teaching—nombres premiers, nombres parfaits, nombres amiables.
Tell me what they are, she says, in between mouthfuls. She is always hungry. Starving, nearly.
I’ve told you already, he says, pouring her some wine. You weren’t listening.
Tell me again about the ones I like, the amiable ones.
Amiable numbers are a pair of numbers where the sum of the proper divisors of one number is equal to the other. 220 and 284 are the smallest pair of amiable numbers and the proper divisors of 220 are—Philip shuts his eyes—1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55, and 110, which add up to 284, and the proper divisors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, and 142, which add up to 220—do you see?
Imagine figuring that out, she says, waving a forkful of frites in the air.
Who did?
Thabit ibn Qurrah, a ninth-century Arab mathematician.
How many amiable numbers are there?
No one knows.
Then there are the perfect numbers—6 is a perfect number. The divisors of 6 are 1, 2, and 3, which add up to 6.
But she has stopped listening to him. Perfection interests her less.
Do you want dessert? she asks. The crème caramel or the tarte aux poires?
She talks to him about how, more than anything, she wants to paint. Paint like her favorite artist, Richard Diebenkorn.
His still life and figure drawings. Do you know his work?
Philip shakes his head.
I’ll show them to you one day.
They argue, but without rancor, discussing and exchanging ideas. Both are attracted by abstractions. Sometimes she forgets that she has not known Philip all her life or not known him for years.
It was a happy time and they are married in the fall.
More than 10 percent of a person’s daily thought is about the future, or so she has heard say. Out of an average of eight hours a day, a person spends at least one hour thinking about things that have not yet happened. This will not be true for her. She has no desire to think about the future. For her, the future does not exist; it is an absurd concept.
She prefers to think about the past. Yesterday, for instance? She tries to remember what she and Philip did yesterday. What they said. What they ate.
When did she last speak to Louise? On the telephone, Louise described her job with the Internet start-up—a promotion, a raise, a cause for celebration. And is she, at this very moment, celebrating at her favorite Japanese restaurant? Nina pictures Louise talking excitedly to the young man who sits across from her, and as deftly with her chopsticks, she picks up expensive raw fish and puts it in her mouth.
Three weeks before her due date, alone—Philip is at a conference in Miami—in the third-floor walk-up apartment in Somerville, Nina wakes up with contractions. Hastily, she gets dressed, collects a few things, and calls a taxi. The taxi company does not answer. She tries to time the contractions but she barely has time to recover from one before she has another. Again she tries to call the taxi company, again she gets no answer. She dials 911. For the first time, she notices that it is snowing. Snow swirls in great wind-driven whorls blanketing the parked cars, the trees, obscuring the street. Putting on her coat and picking up her bag, she starts downstairs; once her foot catches and she trips, falling down several steps. In an apartment below, a dog begins to bark and she hears someone shout, Shut up, damn it. Half afraid whoever it is will come out and find her, she holds her breath. In the front hall of their building, her water breaks, a stream hitting the cracked linoleum floor. A few moments later, she sees a car pull up and, muffled in a hat and coat, a policeman runs to the door. Rosy-faced from the cold, he looks young—younger than she. Leading her out into the snow, he holds Nina up under the arms to keep her from slipping in her flimsy leather
