Infinite Jest: Chapter 70 Summary & Analysis

11 November Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. Mario is making a documentary about E.T.A., and has taken to walking around campus with a camera that James made called the Bolex H32 strapped to his head. He goes into Schtitt’s room and finds the coach asleep in his chair, with Wagner blaring. Mario films him for a while and then leaves, falling over twice as he does, yet without waking Schtitt. Mario then goes to the third-floor dorms, which mostly house boys under 14. He films LaMont Chu, who asks if he should say something “for posterity” and then can’t think of anything to say.

LaMont then asks that Mario put the camera aside so they can discuss the mysterious meeting Hal and Pemulis had in Charles’s office, which Hal left totally white-faced. LaMont wants Mario to find out what happened from Hal, and although Mario agrees, it seems that he doesn’t entirely understand the request. Mario then goes to Avril’s office, where his mother greets him joyfully and immediately abandons her phone call. Mario tells her that he saw her light on and wondered what she was doing in her office so late. She invites him to join her and Charles for dinner.

Mario says that he’s heard about the journalist who’s looking for Hal. He tries to question Avril about Charles and Hal and the Eschaton punishment, but she asks him about his day instead. Avril says that she won’t bug Hal about what happened in the aftermath of Eschaton but will instead patiently wait for him to tell her himself. Mario says he’s spent the day wondering how you can tell if someone is sad. Avril offers signs such as crying or being unusually quiet. Mario asks how you can tell if the person’s acting normal. Avril asks if Mario is talking about Hal, but he insists he’s just asking in general.

Avril and Mario discuss dissociation; Avril says that some people are “deeply afraid of their own emotions.” She tells Mario about her father and grandfather’s struggles with depression and alcohol. Avril is 56 and is still as beautiful as she was when she was young. Mario was incontinent into his early teens, and Hal and James would always happily change his diapers without a hint of sadness or disgust. Avril, however, was always too upset to do it. Avril asks if Mario is trying to tell her that he is sad, saying that “the sun would leave my sky” if she realized she couldn’t intuit such a thing herself.

It is early morning, before dawn, and Hal tells Mario that he just had a terrible dream. Mario says that Hal kept repeating “Thank you sir may I have another” in his sleep. Mario says he’s found someone who has old tapes of Madame Psychosis’s show, but he needs Hal’s help in asking if it’s okay to listen to them. Hal says he dreamed that his teeth splintered and crumbled out of his mouth. Mario says everyone’s been wondering what happened with Hal’s urine test, and that he promised LaMont Chu he would find out for him. Hal asks if Mario remembers S. Johnson, and says he can’t stop thinking about how Orin lied to Avril about S. Johnson’s death.

Hal tells Mario that the man from O.N.A.N.T.A. didn’t actually take urine samples from him and the other boys, because Pemulis persuaded him to conduct the test in a month’s time. Mario suggests that they call Orin and ask him to come to WhataBurger. Hal discusses different types of lies, even sorting them into subtypes. He stresses that no one would be able to detect every single lie, as some types are just too convincing. Hal recalls his childhood fear of monsters, and says he now feels that the only real monsters are people who lie so well that it’s impossible to know that they aren’t telling the truth.

Rémy Marathe is speaking to Kate, who expresses disbelief that she is drinking. They are sitting in Ryle’s Jazz Club in Inman Square, where Kate sought refuge after being mugged. Marathe tells her that she resembles his dying wife. Kate seems euphoric, claiming that this is the first time she’s felt okay in nine weeks. Marathe shares that he lost his legs as a teenager when they were run over by a train. He begins talking about the tensions between “Swiss” people and their geographic neighbors.

Marathe talks about a time in his life when he was suicidal, completely despondent and immersed in his own pain. However, one day he saw a woman about to be hit by a truck and risked his life to save her. The woman, Gertraude, became his wife, and Marathe was able to overcome his suicidal thoughts through his empathy for someone else. He explains that Gertraude had no skull as a result of being born near a toxic area in “Switzerland.” At first he didn’t think he loved her and briefly left her, but he found that as soon as he did, his suicidal depression returned.

It was at this point that Marathe realized he did love Gertraude. Kate objects to this twist in the story, saying that she does not believe that this is what love is. Gertraude is certain to die imminently unless she receives the Jaarvik IX Exterior Artifical Heart, although even with the heart she will still be “in a comatose and vegetated state.” Marathe admits that he is betraying his friends and country in order to secure the heart for her. Kate is adamant that Marathe is wrong to think of this as love, and he accuses her of just being drunk.

Kate becomes increasingly coherent; she mocks Marathe’s accent and admits that she’s only had sex twice. Eventually she stops responding to him at all. Back at E.T.A., Mario tells Hal that he seems sad, and Hal confesses to his secret marijuana use in the pump room. He tells Mario about Pemulis’s urine-selling business, and says that no one suspects he or Axford having been taking Substances. Rather, they are sure to blame Pemulis and expel him from E.T.A. by the end of the term. Furthermore, Pemulis secured the extra month before the urine test for Hal, not himself.

Hal seems petrified of the prospect of “flunk[ing] a urine” and wonders what the consequences will be. He thinks that something awful will happen to Avril if she discovers he’s been keeping a huge secret from her. He says he understands that Mario is hurt by this information, too, but Mario responds that he is actually “zero percent hurt." This angers Hal, who tells Mario that he has to get mad sometimes. He admits that he’s abstained from marijuana for 40 hours and is already going crazy. Hal asks Mario what he should do, and Mario replies “I think you just did it.”