The repast over, I joined the abbot and his
guests in the procession to his office. He recounted proudly the tale
of my most imminent conversion.
They looked aghast. One of them enquired how I found Jesus. I said I
hadn't yet. The abbot smiled contentedly. "He is not a liar" - he
averred - "He doesn't lie even when lying leads to profit." "Perhaps
the profitable thing to do is to be truthful in this case" - one
bitterly commented.
The train back to Geneva crisscrossed a radiant medley, deserted
streets spanned by forlorn bridges, and spectral streetlamps. I exited
into the ceilinged station, to the ascending roads and winding paths
and broader avenues, on to my flat. Immersed in shadows to emerge in
light, I gazed at curtained windows tightly shut. I window-shopped and
kicked some gravel.
At the entrance to my building I didn't turn on the light. I couldn't
face the immaculate stairwell, the doormats, the planted pots of
crucible steel. But darkness meant a lethal fall or stepping in the
wrong apartment, intruding on the astonished life of someone else (the
keys were all identical, I suspected). I couldn't cope even with mine.
I turned around, into the public park, across the inner yard, down to
the looping street that bordered on the water.
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