For an oral exam, when aged thirteen,
my father was asked questions in French
by a visiting professor in trench-
coat and gold-rimmed spectacles, who was lean
with the thin, pursed lips of an enemy
interrogator. He pressed my father
to say what his father’s métier
was – an awkward question, for how many
schoolboys know the French for ‘Real Estate
Agent’? Adopting a [...]