Leonard?

Yes.

Of course. Well. I shouldnt have said that. Sometimes I forget you’re on the other side.

The other side?

Yes.

Okay. Where were we?

I think the subject was my monthlies. Their whereabouts.

Do you think about sex?

Yes. Dont you?

Well. I have a certain history where the subject is concerned. But then I sometimes forget that I’m talking to someone for whom the imaginary has a special place. Did Romania become less appealing as it became more real?

I dont know. Probably. It’s certainly possible that the imaginary is best. Like a painting of some idyllic landscape. The place you would most like to be. That you never will.

I’m not sure what you’re saying.

I’m not either.

That’s not like you.

I know.

Are you talking about death?

No. Just about the problem of accessing the world you most wish for.

Would you like some more hot water?

No. Thank you. I think it was just could that be you?

In the picture?

Yes.

You mean how could it be you? Or how could you make it you?

Be you. Let’s say.

Like the axemurderer in the mirror?

I dont know. Maybe. Maybe like the expression of a gesture the meaning of which is uncertain. But which in expanding into the world erases a thousand other histories.

You’ve lost me.

It’s all right. When I left Italy I thought that I would go to Romania. But I didnt. I didnt want to be buried in Wartburg. Mostly I didnt want anyone to know about it.

That you’d died.

Yes.

But you didnt.

Die.

No. Go to Romania.

No. I didnt.

All right. How serious was this plan?

Pretty serious. It was called Plan 2-A.

Why was it called Plan 2-A?

It just was. It was subtitled or not 2-B.

The trip was not?

I was not. I thought that I would go to Romania and that when I got there I would go to some small town and buy secondhand clothes in the market. Shoes. A blanket. I’d burn everything I owned. My passport. Maybe I’d just put my clothes in the trash. Change money in the street. Then I’d hike into the mountains. Stay off the road. Take no chances. Crossing the ancestral lands by foot. Maybe by night. There are bears and wolves up there. I looked it up. You could have a small fire at night. Maybe find a cave. A mountain stream. I’d have a canteen for water for when the time came that I was too weak to move about. After a while the water would taste extraordinary. It would taste like music. I’d wrap myself in the blanket at night against the cold and watch the bones take shape beneath my skin and I would pray that I might see the truth of the world before I died. Sometimes at night the animals would come to the edge of the fire and move about and their shadows would move among the trees and I would understand that when the last fire was ashes they would come and carry me away and I would be their eucharist. And that would be my life. And I would be happy.