Cover

The Heart Laid Bare

Michel Tremblay

translated by Sheila Fischman

Talonbooks

Contents

Jean-Marc

Mathieu

Jean-Marc

Mathieu

Jean-Marc

Mathieu

Jean-Marc

Mathieu

Jean-Marc

Mathieu

Jean-Marc

Mathieu

Jean-Marc

Mathieu

Jean-Marc

Louise and Gaston

Jean-Marc

Sébastien

Jean-Marc

Mathieu

Sébastien

To Jonathan, with the hope that one day he will understand how important he has become in my life.

My warmest thanks to Paquerette Villeneuve and Jacques Godbout, for their illuminating advice.

—M.T.

I am grateful to Lawrence Boyle of Librairie l’Androgyne for his encouragement and his sensitive reading of this translation, and to Anne-Marie Bourdouxhe for once again unlocking the final doors.

—S.F.

Jean-Marc

Jean-Marc

I’ve always hated the bars. The simpatico spots where the regulars, tired of seeing the same faces bent over their glasses of lukewarm beer, turn towards the door with ­anxious optimism whenever a new silhouette appears, as well as those big trendy clubs, often ear-splittingly loud and crawling with the latest version of what passes for a smart set—dressed to kill and constantly on display and most of them as dull as white icing. One night when I was feeling especially down, a guy told me, as I tried to fan a spark of conversation: “If talk’s what you want, you’re in the wrong place. Nobody listens here.”

So then I had a choice between, God help us, taking part yet again in a dialogue I know by heart, one I could recite with all its twists and turns and slightest variations, or watching the contortions of gorgeous perfect bodies who use as admiring mirrors the eyes of the other dancers and of the drinkers who circle the dance floor.

Now this isn’t the bitterness of a man of thirty-nine who senses that he’s getting old, less desirable, less quick to please, no, really, I’ve never liked the bars, not even in the days when all I wanted was seduction at any cost.

Still, I used to hang around them, a lot. In the early ­sixties, cruising in the streets of Montreal was difficult. So in spite of myself I’d known the golden era of the Hawaiian Lounge, the birth of PJ’s, the years of glory of the Taureau d’or. I won’t actually deny that I enjoyed myself, I’d be lying, but I’ve always maintained certain reservations, a coolness even, towards those long evenings spent watching La Monroe or Belinda Lee make a spectacle of themselves, while keeping an eye out for who was coming, who was going, who was cruising who and how.