In the obituary business, the facts you don’t incorporate make all the difference. It was late in the decade when I re-wrote his, right when his wife died, on the (correct) hunch that he would not long survive her. I didn’t include the fact that the couple lived more like steel contractors than lovers, greeting one another with curt recitations of the others’ name before settling in to a silent meal. But neither did I put in the nippy spring mornings they went for walks together, holding hands as they strolled the streets of Paris, whispering in tones like the rustling of leaves and occasionally breaking into laughter. All I said in the final copy was that they lived in separate apartments.
March 09, 2009, 11:46pm Comments
