He’d gone back to La Cachette on Saturday night, in the hope of seeing Jean-Marc and asking for an explanation. There’d been only the customary crowd, maybe a little more vapid than usual. He’d come home early, disappointed and even more intrigued.

At the other end of the phone, Jean-Marc was obviously choosing his words carefully.

“I really behaved like a jerk the other night . . . You must’ve thought you’d never hear from me again . . . But I want to apologize. It had nothing to do with you . . . Listen, it’s kind of hard to go into all this on the phone . . . We talked a lot about films at the restaurant, and I noticed in the TV Guide Radio-Québec’s showing that old French one, L’assassinat du Père Noël, about killing Santa Claus. It terrified me when I was a kid.”

Mathieu said nothing, just waited for what would come next. He merely grunted after each of Jean-Marc’s ­sentences, like someone who’s not really listening.

“If you feel like coming over and watching it I could try and explain about Friday.”

“Maybe I don’t want any explanations.”

A brief silence. Mathieu could hear a woman laughing very loud in the background.

“Listen, Mathieu, what I’m trying to say is, I want to see you again, you must realize that . . . It’s hard enough as it
is . . . If you really don’t want to see me, just say so and that’ll be that. We don’t even have to say hello if we run into each other, if you want . . .”

Mathieu smiled. Curiosity would win out as usual, he knew it. The situation was so ridiculous, Jean-Marc’s ­pretext was so crystal-clear, he was tempted to go through with it just to see where it would lead. It wasn’t because of any particular liking for risk, he’d realized at once that Jean-Marc was perfectly harmless, no, it was plain old-fashioned curiosity, which more than once had dragged him down paths that were not hazardous but, let’s say, unaccustomed. And he had to admit it, he’d liked Jean-Marc. A lot.

“Where do you live?”

Jean-Marc

Jean-Marc

The jitters hit me a few minutes before Mathieu arrived. Would he have eaten? All I had was some cold cuts drying out in the fridge and a bottle of grocery-store wine. Was he a drinker? Long ago, back in the days when I used to drink too much, I’d decided to keep the bare minimum in the house; therefore I had exactly three cans of beer. I went up to Mélène and Jeanne’s; they weren’t home. I went out again in the rain. Besides beer I bought fifty-six kinds of garbage—chips, peanuts, even one of those gadgets for making popcorn I’ve always thought were useless.