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I don't want dessert, I'm watchin ­ g my weight, and I really have to get going..."And without giving anyone any tim ­ e to react, she ran for her coat and left abru ­ ptly.
    The house was silent. Marcel's father didn't know what to say. He believed she was Arab, but didn't know if he could be sure. Marcel's mother had also started to figure it out but didn't know how to react either.
    "We don't plan to marry, just live together," said Marcel.
    "Yes, of course, that's how things start," sai ­ d his mother.
    "I knew it, I knew we shouldn't all get together, I knew it would end badly. It isn't any of your business, what I do."
    "Well, it is and it isn't, son," said Maurice ­ .
    "Well, that's over. I'm thirty-five and I decide who I live with. Anyway, I don't pl ­ an on marrying her, that's clear, we are registered in the municipality as lovers. They call it domestic partners.”
    "Domestic partners!" said his father, repeating it again, as if the word did not exist. “Imagine! if your mother and I hadn't married, you woul ­ dn't have been born.”
    "And?"
    "Well, that's it. You wouldn't have been born. And if you hadn't been born we wouldn't be having this argu ­ ment, and you'd never get to say that to me, that you don't want to have children."
    Marcel wondered a few tim ­ es if he should tell them that Zohra couldn't have children. Maybe that would calm them down, but maybe it would have the opposite effect. Instead of telling them, he blew up.
    "What is the problem? That she is Muslim? That's the problem. If she were Christian you wouldn't say anything, right? Why does it ma ­ tter if she is Muslim or not? She isn't religious, she doesn't eat pork, but it is more because she doesn't like it than because of religion. She's a Parisian like any other Parisian, and she's named Zohra, that's all. So what?"
    "Fine, fine, that's enough," said Maurice. "You are right. We are not judging you. But think about it. It is true, if she were Christian we wouldn't be reacting like this. Not because we are racists, but because ­ it is somewhat uncommon."
    "Well, you can get used to it, because it is getting more and more common."
    "What?" said Mercedes. "Does that mean that if you have a child it will be Arab? An Ar ­ ab child? This is why we escaped from Morocco? There, they ma ­ de our daughters marry Muslims, and here you are doing it all on your own. You see what happened to Sol Hatchuel, who died calling the name of God to not convert to Islam, and here yo ­ u are doing it all willingly."
    "And here I thought that I came from a liberal and progressive family. A family open to all."
    "I also thought that, but they don't seem to be that open to accepting us. Have you seen what they s ­ ay about Israel on television? We're to blame for everything again, as if nothing happened in the twentieth ce ­ ntury. They kill us, and yet everything is our fault."
    "What does this have to do with Israel? What does my friend have to do with Israel? Maybe it is the shoah , with Sol La tsadika . Who else? Moshe Rabenu? All I want to do is live with her, go for walks with her, come back to her after work, make love, go on vacations, and for all these I need someone who understands me, and she understa ­ nds me. This country is secular, remember? Religion dies here, it is over. We are French, understand? She is French and that's the end of the story."
    "This is what many Jews in Germany thought, before the Nazis."
    "Ok, well I knew you'd bring up the Na ­ zis at some point, since we can't talk about anything without bringing them up. They killed a lo ­ t of Jews who considered themselves Germans, but who they de ­ fined them as Jews. When the Germans understand this, and us too, then we will understand that the Nazis really just wanted to kill people, and that's it."
    "And yet coincidentally, when someone starts killing people they start with the Jews, like the Arabs do now. The misbehave and kill Jews, an Israeli prime minister makes a