Sunday was a trial, painful and dragged out. I was sure I was coming down with something: my bones ached and I had trouble breathing, but the cold or flu or bronchitis ­hadn’t actually set in and that made it worse. Several times I almost phoned Mathieu at his mother’s place to ask him and Sébastien to come over, but I restrained myself, saying we’ll see in three weeks, maybe he’ll get on your nerves again, maybe you don’t really want to see him, it’s just November and you’ve got the Sunday blues, or you want to be coddled because you’re catching a cold . . .

I went up and played cards with Mélène. It was quite a performance: I cheated, I lost, I swore.

Then I treated myself to a solitary TV dinner, probably to crank up the suffering a little more, then flopped in front of the TV, where I submitted myself to an original drama that was highly pretentious and numbingly dull.

When Mathieu came home my sinuses were clogged, I had a fever, a cough, and a runny nose—and so did he!

What a wonderful week we spent! Sick as dogs, both of us, but having the time of our lives: hardly getting out of bed, at least for the first two days, we ate whatever was around, mostly Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup which reminds me of my childhood and actually tastes of the flu because my mother poured so much into me when I was little—and watched whatever was on TV—American soaps in the ­daytime, Québécois téléromans at night, and old movies whenever they were on; we went into ecstasies over the incredible misogyny of “Benny Hill,” the disconcerting ­vulgarity of Joan Rivers and the hilarious amateurism of “La Chance aux chansons” on channel 99 from France—we slept at weird times, often after eating too much, like ­puppies exhausted by the effort of feeding. We were absolutely delighted at our joint illness and took advantage of it as if it were some unexpected, unplanned, improvised vacation. To hell with Eaton’s and the CEGEP, up with the bedroom!