The first hour had been delightful. Thanks to the doggy which Sébastien had responded to without being urged, we’d become acquainted. Then we showed Sébastien around the apartment, Mathieu and I being careful to point out the dangerous things he mustn’t touch and those he could use whenever he wanted. He wanted to tell me all about nursery school—“Eric Boucher throws dirt at me!” as if I knew the little monster intimately—he mimed a couple of songs I thought were adorable and then described in ­intimate detail the games he played with his little friends on the street. I knew his likes and dislikes, the diseases he’d had and the colour of his new winter parka. I was ­exhausted. He’d filled the past three hours so completely, I felt as if he’d been there for three days. I needed a shower because my fear that he’d become bored had made me ­nervous. I got up (needless to say we were lying on the ­dining room floor), telling him I’d be back after my shower. He seemed very surprised.

“Didn’t you take one this morning?”

I said no because I didn’t know what else to say and escaped to the bathroom. The hot water felt good but I kept thinking there were still two long hours before “Passe-Partout” came on and what were we going to do with him, he’d be bored stiff with two adults for company, we had to keep him busy—a walk? Are the parks still open? Hide-and-seek? The house is too small . . . The movies? It’s too late . . . I think I’d have stayed in the shower till nightfall if Mathieu hadn’t come and knocked on the bathroom door.

He sat on the toilet seat while I finished making myself beautiful. He told me things I already knew: that I wasn’t obliged to look after Sébastien as I’d been doing since he arrived, that it was his role, and in any case a child has to learn to amuse himself when he comes to a new place, if you do everything for him it’ll spoil him, and so forth. I replied that was all fine in theory but impossible to put into practice: it wasn’t just Sébastien’s comfort I was seeking by keeping him busy, but my own peace of mind as well. I was so concerned about his happiness, I was ready to do anything to keep him from being bored.

“The child’s come here for a day and a half, Mathieu, we aren’t going to sit him in a corner, buried under a pile of toys!”

“Always extremes, eh, Jean-Marc? There has to be some compromise between sitting him in the corner and keeping him so busy you’ll wear him out!”

Three knocks and a little face in the half-open doorway. “You done yet, Jean-Mak?”