So there we sat, the four of us—Jeanne must have had her belly to the stove since morning, as she likes to tell us when she finally shows up with her hors-d’oeuvres, which are so complicated to prepare and which disappear much too fast for her liking—and I had no desire to start a conversation, so the silence went on and on. Mathieu lit a cigarette, ­resolutely refusing to look at them; he behaved as if they weren’t there. Johanne and Marguerite exchanged a knowing look as if to say: just as we thought, he looks no better close up than at a distance; another one that won’t be around too long, another name we’ll forget in a couple of weeks . . .

After a few drags on his cigarette Mathieu turned to me and asked in a perfectly offhand way, as if we’d been alone in the room:

“Who are those two twats?”

They literally went green. They froze in mid-thought-process, and didn’t completely stifle a gag; in fact Johanne nearly retched (that would have been too sweet)!

Without thinking of the possible consequences, I decided to play along and replied in the same tone:

“They’re nothing, never mind them. Outremont’s turned them into such snobs they think anything from east of Parc Avenue’s dangerous. But don’t worry, one’s from Valois Street and the other’s from the ultra-chic town of Sorel.”

I’d never displayed my antipathy so openly before (I’m a peaceful guy and I hate fights, which means I often put up for too long with situations I don’t like) and it felt wonderful. Mathieu smiled, not to encourage me, but to thank me for taking a stand.

As far as we were concerned, the incident was closed; we hadn’t come there to start a fight and I was anxious for the rest of the group to get there and inject a little life into an evening that had started so badly. Johanne, though, didn’t want it to end like this. She hadn’t completely extinguished her cigarillo and it was smoking in the ashtray; for the first time, she looked in our direction.

“We’ve been wanting to tell you this for a long time, Jean-Marc . . . We own part of this house too, you know, and it’s easier to break into our flat than yours, because we’re on the ground floor. We really wish you’d stop bringing people home . . . When we bought a house we didn’t think we’d have to be worried sick about the people our neighbours hang around with!”

Mathieu was on his feet before I realized it. He went and planted himself in front of them—they’d shrunk back into their chair as if they were afraid he’d hit them—and told them, enunciating each word very clearly: