This appears to have been his final flourish and he now considers his statement to have concluded, though I have a strong urge to fire him up again. I don’t think it’s inappropriate to point out that his argument ultimately supports the accusations made by Tiflis’s widow.

He contemplates me, much moved, grasps my hands paternally, and condescends to explain. “My dear señor, such is the magnificent edifice which a great lawyer can erect, even upon the flimsy foundation of a demented woman’s obsessions. I invite you to dine with me.”

The invitation comes without a transition, amid the rush of his words, their necessary conclusion.

During dinner he starts in again with his animosity toward the señora. “I think, even though he married her, she was no more to him than a body to bring him pleasure—remember, she’s a former model—and that his other, purer life was at the camp, beside the lake. He wasn’t going to let her in on that by talking about it over the dinner table or confiding anything during pillow talk. If there was a secret part of Tiflis’s life, it was what he didn’t give her. He killed himself. What a guy, right?”

And his eyes try to wrest confirmation from me. “He was quite a guy, yes, he was. Because he killed himself.”

I don’t respond.

•

The afternoon flows slowly toward twilight.

I’ve been idly strolling around for hours, with last night’s story, the lawyer’s, in my head.

Convinced that I have now found my path forward, and that it passes through the agency, I’ve come in, but went straight to my office. My next step is resolved upon and nevertheless I give myself a respite, taking a momentary break from my thoughts to peruse with pleasure Bibi’s second report on the moral and religious attitudes of various faiths.

Position of Judaism: adverse to suicide. Biblical basis for this cited by the rabbis: “For thy blood and thy life I will exact acknowledgment; I will exact it from every beast and from every man.”

Basis invoked by al-Kirksani, the Karaite: “Thou shalt not kill.” (He acknowledges that some claim this commandment only prohibits killing another person.)

Basis of the Jewish attitude, summarized by Reines: “Suicide is condemned because of the dignity of mankind and the conviction that life is always worth living.”

Parallelism. Kant wrote: “Suicide violates the categorical imperative, for it annihilates the moral subject, and offends against personal dignity out of the selfish desire to escape from an unpleasant life.”

Attitudes of other religions:

Brahmanism and Buddhism. Tolerate and occasionally celebrate it.

Belief in reincarnation makes it more acceptable to the adept.

Nineteenth century: emergence in Buddhist India of the “suttee,” suicide of widows, often under indirect coercion from society.

Islam: Condemns it.

Muhammad: “No man ever dies except by the will of Allah, and in accordance with the book that fixes the term of his life.” (Quran, sura 3, verse 145)

Marcela comes in, indolent, and takes up a spot on the sofa.