Free The Origin of Species by Nino Ricci

suite into the hall. Alex’s only hope was that Mme Hertz had already left for home, if she had such a thing. But no,here she came, barreling out of her office into reception, all chunky five foot one of her, coming right at them as if she’d had them under video surveillance the whole time.
    She had her Berlitz death grin at the ready for Félix.
    “I hope there’s no problem,” she said at once, by which she meant,
What is the problem?
    She was wearing a big-shouldered blazer that made her look like Napoleon, her hair boxed off around her head in an eerie symmetry and showing the effects of a recent dye job.
    “No problem at all,
madame
,” Félix said, a bit more icily than Alex might have wished. “I’ve offered Alex a drink. I’ve insisted on it. I hope it’s not forbidden.”
    Mme Hertz seemed at a loss.
    “No, no,” she sputtered. “Of course. Not at all.”
    Félix let the silence hang an instant.
    “I should mention that we’ll be sending a few of our interns by over the summer. I hope you’ll look after them.”
    Madame’s face had frozen back into its death-grin.
    “Of course,
monsieur
, of course.” Alex knew he would pay for this. “I’ll look after them personally.”
    The moment they were out the door Alex felt a lightness that was vaguely disquieting, as if some mantle had been removed from him. Out here, he was simply a young man in the company of an older one he had almost nothing in common with.
    On the sidewalk Félix looked uncertainly up and down the street.
    “Do you know some bar near here?”
    “Well, I’m not sure, really. There’s a few, I think.”
    He ended up leading Félix over to the Peel Pub, out of some misplaced notion that he ought somehow to expose him to his own culture. What the Peel Pub had to do with his own culture, Alex couldn’t have said. He was only really aware of it because Abbie Hoffman had invited people back there a few months earlier after a talk he’d given at McGill, though Alex, too timid to take up the offer, hadn’t actually set foot in the place. He was mortified to discover now that it wasn’t some underground hippy retreat—though it was indeed literally underground, at the bottom of a litter-strewn stairwell that led down from St. Catherine—but just a tacky college pub. A stench of mold and cigarette smoke hit themas soon as they stepped through the door, along with the blare of a TV set over the bar that was tuned to a playoff game. A crowd of collegiate types was huddled around the TV, hooting and bantering and using up the air in a way that sent a shiver through Alex’s spine.
    “A bit loud, I guess!”
    He saw Félix take the place in.
    “No, no! It’s fine!”
    Félix got them drinks at the bar. A Molson’s, Alex asked for, though he hated beer, and Félix, after eyeing the array of cheap whiskeys and liqueurs lined up on either side of the till, gravely ordered the same. They took a seat in a back corner. The furniture, clunky, heavily lacquered faux Canadiana, was crammed in so tightly they had to squeeze to get into their chairs, their knees bumping against each other’s beneath the table. At the bar, the frat boys, glued to the set, had started to chant:
Go, go, go, go, go
.
    What was he doing here with this man, Alex wondered. Félix looked ill at ease, glancing over his shoulder as if toward some threat.
    “I’ve never been to such a place,” he said. “It’s like a different city for me.”
    “Two solitudes,” Alex said, taking a stab at humor.
    But Félix furrowed his brow.
    “
Oui, oui. C’est ça
.”
    Alex wanted only to be done with this now, to be home. It had been a mistake to risk this awkwardness, to leave the safety of Berlitz, where their roles were defined.
    He could have used a cigarette but didn’t want to smoke in front of Félix.
    “May I ask you,” Félix said, and for some reason Alex felt his heart thump, expecting he didn’t know what, “how much do they pay you there at