“What the hell business is it of his? Can you reason with the guy, or do I have to push his face in?”

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you . . .”

“I can imagine: a borderline crazy with little pig eyes close together, right?”

“Sounds like you’ve met him . . .”

Sébastien swooped into the kitchen, a Transformer in each hand.

“Is it Daddy?”

Louise gave him the phone.

“Yes, want to give him a kiss?”

“Yay!”

Gaston was bouncing Sébastien on the end of his leg and singing the “William Tell Overture.” The child howled with delight. When Gaston got tired he changed legs or begged for mercy, which Sébastien categorically refused.

“Oh please, let’s play horsey again!”

After half an hour of these exhausting exercises, Gaston rolled on the floor and played dead. Sébastien jumped on him, expecting a tickling match. But Gaston caught him in his arms and asked:

“How’d you like to have a baby sister?”

Sébastien stopped in mid-rush and replied, precocious and imperturbable:

“Not particularly.”

Jean-Marc

Jean-Marc

Mélène practically grabbed me by the scruff of the neck as I was on my way home from the CEGEP. I hadn’t seen her for a long time and I was glad to be back in her granola kitchen, enveloped by her warmth—I’d missed her motherliness this past while—and the little barking laugh that had always been like a balm to my wounds.

She’d made a borscht that smelled wonderful and I ate it with genuine appetite. It was a real winter soup that reconciled you to life. Accompanied, though, by her inevitable six-grain bread, which I really loathe because you have to chew it for hours and always end up with seeds between your teeth. We talked about this and that, steering clear of sensitive subjects with a primness that was new to us. She watched me surreptitiously, the way I watched her when she got up to slice more bread or turn on the coffee-maker. I had no classes that afternoon and I’d intended to go and see one of the American blockbuster movies that start coming out around Christmas. But at Mélène’s, time seemed suspended, the hours passed without our being aware of it and I realized I’d missed the first screening. I’d been there for more than two hours and we’d said nothing important, though we hadn’t stopped talking. It was wonderful. I had the impression I was speaking more slowly than usual, I felt a sort of drowsiness, a paralyzing sense of well-being that cleared away all my recent problems, leaving only the fragility, the lightness of the present moment.