It was only inertia that kept him there drinking cup after cup of coffee, smoking cigarette after cigarette, turning over thoughts, each one more depressing than the one before, when it would have been so easy to hop on the first plane back to Montreal. He didn’t understand why he persisted in staying here, not enjoying himself, being bored; he had the ­impression that he was bolted to the restaurant chair, he felt as if he had to suffer every day, every hour of every day, to expiate some sin or other perhaps, or to prepare to commit one that would be irreparable. Because he knew now that he loved Jean-Marc, that he would tell him so when he got home, simply but unequivocally, trying not to push him too hard, while remaining firm in his intentions: it would be all or nothing, all being life together, built as much as possible on mutual respect and humour, and nothing . . . The mere thought that Jean-Marc might turn him down made him sick, but he would prefer separation to the kind of dubious camaraderie that could develop if one of them didn’t put his cards on the table. In that sort of uneasy friendship the emotional risks are as great as they are in love, precisely because of the ever-present danger that one of the partners might fall in love, and it was hard for Mathieu to imagine himself suffering in silence with Jean-Marc if neither of them decided to make his intentions clear. Until now he had always refused to live with another man because he’d never met one whom he trusted; all that had changed with Jean-Marc, but he didn’t know if it was for the better. Sometimes he was even convinced that the opposite was true, that he believed he was heading for failure with no chance of remission. But why failure? Why not success?

He grimaced as he swallowed the last of his coffee.

The rain had stopped but not the wind.

“Maybe because failure’s easier to deal with than success.”

Jean-Marc

Jean-Marc

The new school year was greeted by general indifference. No enthusiasm on the part of the students, who barely said hello, not even the ones who liked me well enough, no excitement from my colleagues either, who seemed to be as blasé as I was. I remembered the first day of school when I was a child, the smell of new bookbags, the happy shouts when you spotted a friend you hadn’t seen since June, the sound of footsteps on the marble steps, the voices of the teachers we liked and of the ones we hated, who scared us, the twinge when you got the home-room teacher you ­wanted, the disappointment when you inherited the ­notorious creep who’d keep you bored to death for ten long months . . .