6. How little we know (how little it matters)

       

        they knew

        “so

        very

        little”

        about each other,

        hadn’t they said ‘no

        questions’?,

        they were already splashing about in their affair,

        dancing in Ilsa’s apartment,

        when she told him that there had been another “man” in her life

(but he’s dead, he’s

dead),

        only

        on their last date,

        at the La Belle Aurore café,

        did they learn

that

        “say”,

        ten years before this, before

Paris,

        he had been “looking for a job”, and she

        had

        had

        her

bite

        fixed

        that was all, and that

        was

        fine

        with them

        then

        but then Ilsa failed to join him at the Gare de Lyon,

    had left a note saying Icannotgowithyouoreverseeyouagain blah

        blah,

        so now,

        in Casablanca,

in his surly mood,

        Rick can only draw on this shallow well,

        the maybe-

        not-

        thoroughly-

        defunct

        man,

        her orthodontic records