I brought out all the tact I can muster at delicate moments to tell Mathieu, over supper, that I found it hard to imagine that the next ten days would be like the one just ending. Not only because of the films, which I doubted I’d be able to keep ingurgitating in such heavy doses over such a long time, but especially because our new intimacy was going to be disturbed in a way that struck me as abnormal. He understood very quickly, before I’d even finished my ­explanations, and I think he was hurt, not at having dragged me into this adventure for nothing, he’d done that in good faith, thinking I’d enjoy it, and he didn’t know me well enough yet to be able to guess my tastes, but because he was being criticized so early in a relationship, for not being sufficiently present.

Already a dead end. Each of us understood the other’s arguments, while maintaining his own position: for Mathieu the film festival was one of the highlights of the year and he didn’t want to sacrifice it, whereas all I wanted was to lock myself away with my new lover and not see another soul.

Still, I have to admit that he was the one who worked out the solution for this first conflict, but only after a really vicious exchange. (I was even afraid, towards the end of our meal, that he’d get up from the table and disappear, it was that bad.) But he found a compromise that would more or less satisfy us both: he’d sacrifice the first film of the ­morning if I’d follow him for the rest of the day. Negotiations were tight: I wanted the whole morning for the two of us and just two films a day. But I lost. Because I gave in: I suddenly realized I sounded like an ass, a late-blooming romantic making demands like a young virgin lover. After all, Mathieu was probably right: the festival would soon be over, but if we wanted, our intimacy would remain, brand-new and passionate, still undefined and waiting to be formed.

Mathieu

Mathieu

At Jean-Marc’s first incoherent and tormented words Mathieu had clung to him, hoping that would silence him. Or wake him up. Jean-Marc had turned to him, hugged his chest with his right arm, and smiled vaguely, moaning. But then he kept talking. It sounded complicated and very strange; there was hostility mixed with helplessness, all expressed in quick, brief gasps like the cries of a small sick animal. Mathieu had taken Jean-Marc’s head in his hands.