Limited, Inc.

We have to get up at 7 and get down to the American embassy by 9:30. I, naturally, have insomnia, and sleep less than Adam, who has become one of those babies who sleep richly – it is the pure mother’s milk of sleep he will bathe in, his little fists balled, sometimes held up from his chest as though he were boxing. At other times he will make these little shrieking noises in his sleep, and you look at him, and he is laughing. What could he be dreaming about that is funny? Perhaps it is the whole “why is there something rather than nothing” thing that bothers metaphysicians. But myself, I am up at two, swallowing melatonin, trying to talk my brain back into some hypnagogic goggle.   At six, Adam does wake up, and he always wakes up crying with hunger, like a neglected wolf cub. Then it is a bottle and soothing murmers from one of his half asleep parents, in either English or French. I must say, French is the language for comforting babies – English clomps around a bit, and though