He raised an eyebrow at my own sweatshirt.

“I won’t ask if you went to the University of Wisconsin . . .”

And then I remembered the big yellow letters emblazoned across my chest.

I was very surprised to find out that he was twenty-four years old. I’d imagined he was nineteen or twenty at most. I was relieved, but also a little annoyed with myself: I’m usually quite good at guessing ages, especially the young people with whom I spend ten months of the year and whose tricks for looking older or younger I’ve caught on to. Most of my students fall into one of two categories: the ­larger one, those who claim to be older so they’ll appear more confident, and those who are already lopping years off their age. Why do that at seventeen? I’ve never understood. Maybe it’s a form of blackmail to conceal character flaws: I’m younger and weaker than the rest of them, have pity on me . . .

When he said his name was Mathieu I didn’t believe him. In 1960 you didn’t call your child Mathieu.

“Your mother was avant-garde! Why didn’t she call you François or Michel like everybody else?”

“She wasn’t avant-garde at all, she was crazy about Québécois music . . . She and my father used to go to La butte à Mathieu, that boîte à chansons in the Laurentians . . . You must’ve been there . . .”

“Come on, I may be older than you but I’m not old enough to be your father.”

“How old are you?”

It came out just like that before I had time to think:

“Thirty-five.”

Like spitting in the air . . . I almost caught myself and told him no, listen, that’s wrong, I just turned thirty-nine, but he broke in.

“You never went to La butte à Mathieu?”

“Hardly . . . I was born in 1950 . . .” (Another lie. Now I was in too deep to get out.)

“You don’t look it.”

“What?”

“You don’t look thirty-five . . . I figured you were maybe thirty, thirty-two . . .”

I could have kissed him on the spot. For some time now I’ve been feeling run-down and ancient, and suddenly here’s a kid with piercing eyes who slices almost ten years off my age. But you have to be wary of compliments exchanged in a dimly-lit bar where bags and wrinkles ­disappear. That sort of flattering lighting has so often led to disappointment: young men picked up after too many beers who turn out to be not so young after all; peaches-and-cream complexions that change to melon rind on the street; spiritual flashing eyes that turn out to reflect nothing but advanced alcoholism . . .

“You haven’t seen me in natural light yet . . . You might be disappointed.”