Chapter Six Hundred and Forty-Three…
- One of the preserved documents from the trunk is Memoirs of a Monogamous Casanova. It's Campbell's diary of all the sex he and Helga had for two years until the war started.
- The diary functioned as both a record and a component of Campbell and Helga's sex life.
- The epigraph to Campbell's book is William Blake's poem "The Question Answered."
- After their night at the hotel together, Campbell writes chapter 643 to this memoir. He adds a note to the editor of the memoir he's writing now that sections that might be too steamy should be elided with an ellipsis.
- There are a lot of ellipses.
- Campbell and Helga are super chipper the next day. Number one on their to-do list: buy a giant bed.
- Hold up: all the shops are closed. It looks like there's a national holiday going on, but Campbell doesn't know which holiday it is.
- Campbell and Helga ask a guy on the street who's sweeping what day it is.
- It's Veterans Day, November 11. Campbell is bothered by this, because November 11 used to be Armistice Day. He's frustrated that the holiday that used to honor WWI dead is now honoring the living.
- Helga asks if Campbell hates America.
- Campbell neither hates nor loves America. Borders are a fiction, he says.
- Helga tells Campbell he's changed.
- Campbell: It's normal to change in war.
- Helga: What if you've changed so much that you can't love me anymore?
- Campbell: That's not possible. Our souls are connected.
- Helga: You truly feel that?
- Campbell: 100%.
- Helga: Nothing could change that feeling?
- Campbell: Not even a little bit.
- Helga: Okay, I have to tell you something.
- Campbell: Knock my socks off.
- Helga: Psych! I'm not Helga. I'm Resi.