The distribution was set up in one of the classrooms. There was a master list with all of the residents’ names, and when I got to the front of the line for J through P, I had to explain that I was also picking one up for Victor Assoulen, and could I please have his without having to stand in the line for A through F. There was a small bureaucratic scuffle among the volunteers working on the other side of the blockade of children’s desks, but after I showed them an ID with an address that matched Victor’s, it got straightened out, and a woman in a velour tracksuit handed me two boxes. On my way out I stopped to smile at a little girl hopping around in ballet slippers, and when I looked up again I noticed a note left on the blackboard. It read, in elegant teacher’s cursive, “Due Monday: Your predictions for the future.” I started to laugh, but caught myself when I turned back and met the cool gaze of the small prophet in scuffed ballet slippers.

Ask Victor, and he’ll tell you that the Middle Ages were more passionate times than these. Extreme contrasts and violent conflicts existed side by side, lending a thrilling vigor to life that order can’t provide. He’ll sit with you over a bottle of wine and explain to you in a breathlessly articulate manner how now all anyone wants is conflict resolution. They want to shake hands and settle matters; they want tolerance for all points of view, so long as those points of view are expressed through the proper channels and procedures. It’s not that Victor would have us all back in the thirteenth century, cheering in spasmodic effusion at public executions. His sense of morality is finely tuned. But he refuses to accept a system designed to reject conflict and force us all, like a fat lady through a keyhole, in the direction of a stable average. That’s the phrase he uses, a fat lady through a keyhole.