Читать книгу Suzanne - Anais Barbeau-Lavalette - Страница 44

In the living room of a small apartment on Rue de Mentana, a few young people are smoking and talking. Drawings are scattered on the floor.

You immediately want to stay. To make this cloud of smoke, this circle of words, yours.

There are around ten people, mainly boys, but you look at the girls first. There are three of them. They exude elegant simplicity. Claude introduces them. Marcelle Ferron, Françoise Sullivan, and Muriel Guilbault. They glance at you; they don’t feign warmth, but they invite you to sit down.

The men are engaged in a lively discussion about the ink drawings strewn on the floor. They don’t look like anything you recognize. You could lose yourself in them. You understand that, beyond these walls, they would be considered offensive. You feel privileged to be spending time with the offenders.

What is being discussed seems important, but the drawings are just tossed on the floor as fodder for discussion. You like this disconnect between the idea and the object.

Claude, who seems to come down to the ground in this place, stops falling for a moment and introduces you to his brother, Pierre, and then Jean-Paul Riopelle and Marcel Barbeau. They are all around your age.

Marcel asks about the public speaking competition. Claude shrugs and points at you.

‘I lost,’ he says.

You know you should smile, but you tend to forget how in this sort of situation. So you just stay in the moment and let a brief silence of acknowledgement settle around you.

Mr. Borduas, who you are told is the host, and who until now has kept to himself, approaches and offers you a glass of wine.

‘Congratulations,’ he says.

He is about twenty years older than the others. He is short, with a prominent forehead and the sad eyes of the overly intelligent, which are tucked under bushy black eyebrows. You understand right away that he is the leader.

And you want leaders to like you. You watch him. He withdraws, a little removed from the group of young people, where the conversation has resumed. They are discussing Jean-Paul’s latest ink drawings. Their explosive subjectivity. You understand nothing, but you could swim in these ideas for the rest of your life. They are exhilarating.

Marcel reticently places a sketch on the floor. It’s his turn.

There is a barrage of comments. No one says whether they like it or not. They are trying to get a word in about the abstraction. What is its source? Should it survive?

You think it’s incredible. There is a rough sensuality you would happily stretch out in.

Borduas approaches the circle. He glances at Marcel’s drawing; Marcel is on the edge of his seat waiting for him to speak. Then he looks at you. You have captured his attention.

You say it’s beautiful. That you want to lie down and be swallowed up in it.

Borduas laughs. A spontaneous, subdued laugh. It seems to happen rarely, because at first everyone is shocked, and then they all do the same.