It came out all lopsided, in big formless bubbles, sometimes murmured, sometimes spat out like a frog in the throat you have trouble getting rid of, the story of his life mixed in with the effects of his illness, his missing Greta which had never subsided, along with the unchanging and unshakeable impression that he had been betrayed and could not forgive, his unbearable fits of depression followed by overexcitement that was just as hard to live with, the helplessness of doctors in the face of an illness, because there were no remedies that worked.

Between hiccups, he had explained that he was constantly being promised a miracle drug, a panacea that had been in preparation for years, apparently, in the deepest recesses of the pharmaceutical labs, but he was still waiting and had to be content with the existing antidepressants which became less and less effective from overuse. Though the dose was increased, hopes were generally vain – whence his inability the night before to curb his dizzying descent into the dark and pitiful state that he’d hoped to spare me. Over time his circular madness became more pronounced, more devastating, and he didn’t know where it would lead. Incarceration in a mental hospital awaited him maybe, sooner or later, even though he was neither genuinely crazy nor dangerous, and he lived in dread.

“This damn illness is like a toboggan ride. When I’m down it’s as if I’m going down a steep, icy hill on a toboggan and I know I won’t be able to stop till I get to the bottom. And when I feel a high coming, I’m on an elevator! The fastest one in the world, that goes up the highest. Everything’s possible! The sky’s the limit! At those times, I’m not sick, I’m Superman! Circular – that means something turns, but I always feel as if I’m in perpetual motion, going up or coming down, and I know there’s no end to that vicious circle of mine that isn’t even a circle but a straight line! And that straight line, there’s no getting around it, leads to a little padded cell with a so-called circular madman inside it.”

What could I say to such a deeply moving confession? Generalities, silly things and it angered me but I couldn’t do otherwise. I reacted to his heartbreaking confidences with one of the most idiotic statements I’ve ever made.

“You don’t take care of yourself. And all those drugs over the years haven’t helped.”

He gave me a look as if he thought I hadn’t been listening for more than an hour while he tried to explain his ordeal. Or that I hadn’t understood a word about his suffering.

“Drugs come in handy, Céline. At least they numb you.”

I could have kicked myself. I apologized for being so insensitive. He told me he understood and that he put it down to surprise at something unexpected that was already threatening our relationship.

He swore to me – had he detected the beginning of concern in my eyes? – that he was only dangerous to himself, that he’d never been violent to anyone, that he always stopped in time; true, he sometimes waved his fist, but he’d throw himself out the window rather than hit anybody.

Especially me.

He must have sensed my growing hesitation while he was telling his story, even if my affection for him, my compassion, too, was ten times stronger, and he wanted to reassure me. It was both touching and pathetic. And absolutely correct.

At first I doubted that such a handsome guy could love me, then I nearly believed him, and now this new and totally unexpected situation changed everything. Were my suspicions well-founded? Maybe in the end he needed not a lover but a sympathetic soul, an understanding sister, a devoted mother … a second Greta. I didn’t want to become a second Greta for him, I wanted to be loved like the first time, in the apartment on Place Jacques-Cartier, like last night, I wanted to howl with pleasure and happiness without having to ask myself questions! I refused to be forced to suspect behind this relationship, which was so unexpected for me, reasons other than passion, the urge to drop everything for a night of bliss, the irrepressible need to find him again, with his odours, his moods, his body crucified in the sheets by a brutal joy or experimenting with all its possibilities, with the goal of the ultimate sublime pleasure; to turn the clock back, to feel once again the doubt that has always pierced me, that undermines everything I take on; to be the midget people feel sorry for! I wanted to be Céline, someone who would be loved for herself!

His crisis seemed to die down. Had the account that he’d just given me been enough to wipe it out or at least to diminish it? Probably not. It had more to do with the substance in his brain that was out of whack, I realized that now, than with a clear explanation or an impassioned debate. The relief that he might feel was temporary – we’d gone back to his bedroom, I’d put my arms around him and was rocking him in the sheets that had been soiled and rumpled by our love; we formed a strange Pietà, with a midget as mother and a tall beatnik as son – and it was so new for me that I was nearly trembling with fear; I knew that at any minute I might see him, suddenly, before my eyes, transformed into someone I didn’t know.

“Don’t be like the others, Céline, don’t go away. Don’t walk out on me.”

I was fiddling with his curly hair that many of the women I knew would have envied, women of both sexes: the drag queens from the Main and the waitresses at the Sélect. The colour as much as the shine. It was thick and silky, but unlike the previous night, the smell it gave off now wasn’t pleasant, far from it. It smelled of sickness and fever.

“I didn’t say anything about leaving.”

“I can hear you think …”

“That’s paranoid.”

“No it isn't. Every time I’ve confided in someone, Céline, every time, that person has walked out on me when the conversation was over. Even before, sometimes. Especially my girlfriends. Thanks a lot, so long, bye-bye. You’re handsome, you’re nice, but I don’t want to get involved – too complicated.”

“I don’t want to get involved either, Gilbert. It really is too complicated. For me, for everybody … but I don’t intend to leave. Not because of that, anyway.”

“See, you want to leave!”

“That’s not what I said!”

“You said 'not because of that' … Because of what, then? You didn’t enjoy the night we just spent together?”

“There are other things in life than sex, Gilbert.”

He sat up in bed, wrapped himself in the sheet.

“If you want to talk about feelings, be my guest, it doesn’t scare me … My episode’s nearly over, I can handle it.”

“What if it’s me that has trouble talking about feelings?”

He smiled faintly, but it was a smile so beautiful, so forthright that I could have sworn love and loyalty till the end of my days. I was ready to do anything to see that smile as often as possible, to feed on it, to take it with me and get through everything, the best, the worst, and all that came in between. But I also knew I had to be wary of that smile, I had to be sure that the relationship just beginning, with its good aspects and its unexpected complications, wasn’t concealing a hidden agenda that could blow up in my face any time. In the end, I was the paranoid one, I was well aware of it. And had been since the start of our relationship.

He took my face in his hands. My head may be big but I always feel as if it’s very small in his fingers, that he could easily crush it, like a ripe fruit, if he wanted. One of those wonderful June strawberries, so red and juicy. I like to think of myself as a ripe fruit ready to burst in his hands.

“If I told you I’m falling in love with you, Céline, what would you say?”

“It’s too soon to be talking about love, Gilbert, we’ve only seen each other three times.”

He chased after me in the bed. It was almost funny. A tall, gangling young man wrapped in a dirty sheet in an unmade bed chasing a very small woman who’s on the chunky side, but agile.

He pinned me to the bed, holding down both my hands. His eyes were so blue I could have eaten them. Strawberries, then blueberries? I felt totally ridiculous.

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“Scared of what?”

“Of talking about love.”

I gave him a good long look before replying. Long enough to think to myself, God he’s gorgeous, why is he so gorgeous, why doesn’t he look more like me … it would be so much easier.

“I’ve never talked about love with anybody, Gilbert.”

He loosened his embrace, got rid of the sheet, and sat in the middle of the bed in the lotus position.

“I didn’t take your virginity though; I’d have noticed!”

I couldn’t help laughing despite the seriousness of the situation. So the macho fixation with being first still existed, despite looser morals and free love!

“I didn’t say I’ve never had sex, Gilbert, I told you I’ve never been in love.”

“And I suppose you’re going to tell me you can't?”

This time I could have hit him. I’d have gladly given him a good whack that would turn his left cheek red for part of the day.

“Do I look like somebody who isn’t capable of loving? Actually I’m more the type that can’t imagine anyone loving me!”

“Why?”

What was most surprising was that the question sounded sincere. And it hit me like a punch in the solar plexus.

I stood up in the bed and spread my arms.

“Look … Take a good look at me …”

He ran his hands over my body – I had on one of his old T-shirts which I’d put on in a hurry when I got out of bed – he kissed my stomach, which was a little too pudgy for my liking.

“I don’t see anything I don’t like, Céline.”

I melted. I liquefied. I flowed out of the bed and disappeared between the boards of the hardwood floor. Mostly I was silent as his kisses became more and more precise.

Then the idiotic question, “Why?”

He raised his head.

“Why what?”

“What … I don’t know how to put it … what is it about me that you like? I’ve got nothing to appeal to a guy like you …”

He brought his arms down and sat on his heels as if he wanted to stop everything.

“I’m the one having a crisis and you need reassuring?”

He bent over me.

“The crisis you just witnessed was nothing next to the ones I have now and then … So I’m the last one to reassure you … I made a declaration of love to you, Céline, take it for what it is … I can’t explain it, what I love about you is things I can’t put into words, things you can’t say … because there aren’t any words to describe it … Ask me any time you want me to show you, but don’t ask me to put it into words! I don’t think I could ever do that!”

I took shelter in his arms, I wanted to stay there forever but I was not reassured! I was not reassured!

“I’m scared …”

“So am I, I’m scared, too, Céline …”

“No, that’s not what I mean … I’m scared that all you need is company, Gilbert … I refuse to be a new Greta for you … if that’s what you want …”

His shoulders were hunched, he lowered his head, I saw with horror the moment coming when he would tell me I was right, that he just needed company, and I thought to myself, That’s it, I’ve just ruined everything with one remark, but still it’s better to know the truth right away than when it’s too late. It won’t be as painful now as it would be later.

I was also afraid that another crisis would come, worse than before, and strike him down before my eyes, in the middle of the bed.

He wrapped himself again in the big sheet soiled by our love-making and got out of the bed.

“If it’s impossible to convince you, Céline, there’s nothing I can do. If your self-esteem is as low as mine, we’ll never be able to convince each other of anything. I don’t want to have to explain myself all the time, it’s a waste of energy and spit. If you don’t believe me now, you won’t believe me after the most complicated or most detailed explanations. It’s not that you don’t believe me, Céline, you don’t believe in yourself.”

He went to the bathroom, head hanging, a white Buddhist monk who withdraws after delivering a sermon he’s not proud of.

“I’m going to take a shower. The crisis is definitely over, I think. Thanks for listening.”

He was dismissing me – politely, it’s true, but it was still a dismissal – and I deserved it. As I was getting dressed I wouldn’t let myself think about what had just been said; I wanted to wait till I was home, in my own surroundings, with my own things, in my own bed, before castigating myself and sentencing myself to eternal celibacy because I wasn’t able to accept a declaration of love, no doubt honest, that I’d dreamed of for so long.

“You damn fool! You’ll never change.”

Leaving Gilbert’s place – it was April in all its magnificence, with singing birds, melting snow, a slate-blue sky that looked scrubbed clean – I was positive I’d never have another boyfriend and sure that it was my own fault.

Of course I spent the afternoon brooding over it, looking for – and finding – a meaning that it didn’t have, interpreting what had been said to his advantage and to my own detriment. He was right about everything and I was wrong. I was on my own once again and once again it was my fault. As it always is. Like the last time. Like the next time. I’d been unable to give myself over body and soul to his beautiful declaration. I had resisted the seductive traps and dangers of love, probably using Gilbert’s illness as a pretext for slipping away …

Luckily I was alone in the house, my three roommates were out, doing errands or enjoying the beautiful spring day, so I was able to cry as much as I wanted, and I must admit I took good advantage of it. Without disturbing a soul.