“It took some effort, but I managed to understand that I’d been poisoned. Not by the delicious doughnut, though; it was alcohol poisoning, from the bottle I’d taken from a semi-comatose homeless man down by the river. It would have killed me if the ambulance hadn’t arrived and carried me off to this young doctor who first pumped my stomach, then, settling me down, smiled at me and insisted I stay put till morning.

“In the morning my clothes came, and I saw that they had been washed and folded, and when at last I left, I passed the doctor standing in a doorway, pale from her sleepless night. She gave me a tired smile. ‘Goodbye, Mr. Bahr,’ she said. I was feeling like myself again, feeling full, like I’d live for a thousand years, but this modest deity was content with a curt nod of acknowledgment. She wanted no thanks. She had cured me as I was dying, fed me when I was hungry, clothed me against fear, and not a word of thanks did she ask in return. If she’d ordered me to worship her I would have dropped to my knees. Nor was she the only god I met there.

“There was the old man and his wife who invited me for tea in their house—more of a shack, really. On the edge of a forest. Maybe it was a vacation house, I don’t know. Do gods go on vacation? Do they work?

“Anyway, I was freezing. They gave me a cup of tea and offered me the use of a mattress on the floor of a small, warm room. They weren’t afraid of me, and I didn’t thank them, and when I went to sleep I dreamed that they were leaning over me. Perhaps they were.

“The next morning, they laid out a breakfast, which I duly ate, and then the old god spoke to me. He told me that he believed in one religion and one devotion; that every day you help another human being. And he invited me to join him in this faith, but in those days I was a sinner, quite irredeemable, so I left them there and kept on running.

“This was years after my encounter with the god at the hospital. I had come to their paradise, committed a crime, and I was on the run. But the gods were everywhere.”

As Bahr paused, we found ourselves approaching the wall that was our destination. An old temple wall, its reliefs worn smooth but still, with their ghostly traces, speaking of the site’s original purpose.