When translating Camus, obsess Freud-like with Meursault's maman

Translating the first line of Camus' "L'Etranger" makes for an interesting article in this week's New Yorker. The various variants run generally close to "Mom died today" and the magazine's focus on the familiarity and untranslatability of the French "maman" distracts from the other, to Me more-important, aspect of the French choice of auxiliary verbs.