Free Apocalypse for Beginners by Nicolas Dickner Translated by Lazer Lederhendler Page A

step (a) apparently with the intention of continuing until she reached the bottom of the container. Should I intervene? The cashier looked on with a jaded expression.
    After a while, however, Hope interrupted the inspection and brought to my attention a disturbing piece of news, to say the least. All the packages, without exception, had the same expiry date printed on them: 2001 17 JUL .

29. AMENORRHEA MYSTERIOSA
    The list of Eastern perils (influenza, tofu) was soon augmented by a snowstorm originating in the Atlantic basin. The few snowflakes frolicking in the sky around midnight turned into a raging depression that swept over the province, wiping out roads and uprooting hydro towers.
    The high school was closed down for the day, and I didn’t see Hope until after supper, when she rang at the front door (the door leading directly to the Bunker was now buried under six feet of snow). She was white from head to toe, and her face was completely hidden behind a frost-covered scarf, except for a thin opening for an old pair of ski goggles to peer out of.
    When my father opened the door, he yelled something about a mujahideen invasion, which brought a smile to Hope’s face. Anything that could boost her morale was welcome.
    Clutching mugs of hot chocolate, we huddled under three layers of sleeping bags and took part in Friday-nightMass:
The Nature of Things
. Suzuki discussed drosophilae and the human genome, but I failed to grasp a single word because of the maddening familiarity with which Hope had draped her leg over mine.
    Nothing could be more natural than this simple gesture, but at the same time it was the Halifax explosion, the eruption of Krakatoa, a supernova. I felt more and more dizzy as the warmth of her leg softly radiated through our jeans. If only the blizzard would rage on for another three days!
    I glanced at the ground-level window of the Bunker. We were buried far below the surface. On the other side of the glass lay a wall of snow or ash or cement—hard to tell.
    During the commercials, Hope related the latest developments on the domestic front. After scrubbing down the apartment, she had extricated her mother from the closet by jimmying the door hinges with a screwdriver. The recluse was not looking very good: hair dishevelled and eyes vacant, she hugged a bag of basmati rice. She had agreed to eat a bowl of soup (quadruple dose of clozapine), refused to take a shower, and then went off to work, anxiously looking around her the whole time. In sum, a partial victory.
    The Nature of Things
was over and, remote control in hand, I hopped around the channels. Headlining thenightly news was the forecast of a foot of snow by Sunday, and then, as an afterthought, the trial of the captain of the
Exxon Valdez
, the opening of the first McDonald’s in Moscow and the arrival of Soviet troops in Azerbaijan. Hope giggled.
    “There’s a conspiracy of meteorologists to take control of the media!”
    On the TV screen images flashed by: a convoy of buses stuck in the snow, cars gone headfirst into the ditch, snowplows, snow blowers, trucks. This was followed by a pathetic variety show, which was then followed by a B movie. Poor Canada.
    Lying so close together, we generated a substantial amount of heat, and so Hope removed her woollen sweater. I immediately noticed three band-aids in the crook of her elbow. An odd place to sustain an injury. She admitted, somewhat reluctantly, that she had spent the day at the hospital.
    “Oh? Anything the matter?”
    “Not really. I had to have some gynecological tests.”
    While she idly rubbed her leg against mine, she explained that, despite being almost eighteen, she hadn’t yet begun to menstruate. She had already consulted a doctor in Yarmouth but had never undergone a serious examination. For the past two weeks she had submitted herself to a battery of tests: blood, lymph, vaginal discharge, urine and othermysterious fluids. She had swallowed barium, had had iodine