That day, when I arrived, Gene offered me a cup of lukewarm coffee and
said: "Stay with me, please, this evening."
The last client having departed, he bolted the iron shutters and we
proceeded uptown, to get drunk. It was a farewell sacrament, Gene
having lost his savings and a lot of other people's funds.
He climbed to my apartment and wept throughout the night of his
intoxicated desperation. I woke to find him gone.
Thus, my world narrowed. The weather chilled. I couldn't pierce the
stubborn rainfall that swathed my windowpanes. Arrayed in heavy
overcoat, I sat, a patchwork quilt of light and shade. Or fully
dressed, prostrated, the blankets heaped, on my Procrustean bed.
People from Israel stayed at my place. They ate my food and slept and
showered. Then they moved off. I travelled back there on vacation. A
journalist who did my profile years ago, refused to interview me. He
said: "Dead horses do not make a story." My nightmares swelled with
equine carcasses discharging jets of ink-black blood.
Come winter, I called on the priory again.
"You must first see the light, see Jesus" - my youthful guide insisted
but, ready with a riposte, I rejoined:
"There are many paths to one's salvation and one's saviour.
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