Having waited his turn in silence, strict, alone, a middle-aged man came and went like a ghost, holding his certificate. He was next. He did what they all did, handed in the passport, showed the doctor’s certification of the cause of death. It probably acted as anaesthesia on people passing through this room that it was so clearly a place for transacting official business, not for grieving. There was an office desk with a computer, a printer, and, for some reason, a fax machine.
What could the girl behind the desk understand? She was doing her job. Other people certified births or marriages, but she had been out of luck, separating the living from the dead. Her sweet, silly face could laugh, absorb and reflect light, flirt, but had instead to be extinguished, firmly shut away behind a mas
