There comes a time when one’s mind demands its share of memories: whether true, embellished or distorted by the passage of time. Seventy-seven: it’s a reasonable age to engage in that sort of exercise. Memories of school ski trips at the time of the first T-bar lifts, memories of a brief period in art school as a teenager, memories of grueling labor that led nowhere, memories of death too, and of relatives, three uncles in particular: one who fought alongside General Leclerc after having been drafted against his will into the Wehrmacht; another who fought in the Indochina War; and as for the third, the son of an influential Italian fascist, he became a diplomat who contributed greatly to the construction of modern Europe. Three uncles, three ghosts who always come back to haunt their nephew, confiding their pride, suffering and secrets great and small to him, like so many painful moments in France’s history.

The author also evokes the cities of his youth: Strasbourg, Paris, Mantua, Lausanne, Aosta, Athens, and finally, Arles, where he now lives.

And in closing, a partly historical, partly fictive tale: two old artists are nearing death. Who will remember these forgotten characters from the history of art? A story that reads like a short noir novel.

Pajak lets his memories dictate the contents. From kids’ stuff to family history, echoes of wars and the adventures of his three uncles. Next up are the magnificent portraits, like so many love letters, of seven cities: Paris, Aosta, Arles, Mantua, Athens, Lausanne and Strasbourg. And finally, a fiction-laced tale of two artists in decline.