I walked by that Italian church on Magheru Boulevard and I was striding, but I stepped in for a sec, enough to be merrily anointed by the passing priest. When I went home I was feeling the mystique in the air, the unreality. It was then that I met Florinel. He was enquiring for the way to Constanţa; he was walking all the way there. No one wanted to show him. Everyone ran away from him in a fright. He was wearing a white cap and had something weird about him, as if he lacked instant, natural reactions. At the same time, he did not seem to be a person with schizophrenia or some ardent prophet. I liked him a lot. I took him home. At first, I wanted to send him to Adi, but then I thought I'd shelter him since I lived nearby. Peliel said it was okay, if he wasn't dangerous. Since the first Florinel, the one brought in by Ştefan, she'd gained more trust. I got canned beans and cooked for him. He went into the bathroom. I told him to shower, and he was in there for a long time without turning on the water, as if he didn't know what to do or how it was done. When Peliel went in she asked loudly, “What's with this guy?” And I told her to shut up, to avoid offending him. I gave him my clothes and he looked like me. Sometimes, when he was standing, it seemed to her that she was seeing me. We talked a lot about religion and morals. He had stern opinions, which I countered. He would say, “Poor dear,” glancing sideways as if talking to someone, when he liked something that I said. He talked exquisitely, wonderfully, and it was a pleasure to listen to him. His legs were extremely swollen, like two pillars up to his knees. I said I'd give him an anti-inflammatory drug and he refused it—he wanted oil. He oiled them. While we were talking about the tribes of Israel and other things, Peliel said running herds and other correlations would appear on TV. He would talk nonsense. He'd say he lived in Alba Iulia and had no heating and electricity (like me at Ştefan V once) and sometimes made coffee over a cardboard fire on the balcony. At some point, I told him that I did things for other people or something like that, and I can't remember what he said, but Peliel told him, “You operate at a greater wavelength.” When we went to bed, I stayed awake. When I looked at him he would suddenly turn and look back, all smiles.

At some point, I woke up sharply and saw him make his way to the bathroom. He made his way exactly like that other tramp—like a spook—like a reanimated corpse. He moved past our bed slowly, blind to anything to his left or right. Peliel told me she'd been dreaming when someone covered her with a black blanket. When she woke up, I looked at her and soothed her. At night, he said his stomach ached and I gave him some random pill as a placebo 'cause I couldn't find the good ones. In the morning, he read Psalm 50 to me and Peliel, exquisitely, but like an actor. Peliel went to work and we were left alone. I told him to give up his tramp outfit, that I'd give him new clothes. At first, he didn't want to. Then he did. I gave him the suit I had from the baron that I said I would wear at Peliel's colleague's wedding. I also gave him slick shoes I got from Marian the stylist. He was thrilled to have a cufflink shirt. It suited him very well—he even moved with intelligence. He also tied his little beard, said he'd got himself the beard of a beranger—a shepherd. I asked for his white cap in exchange. He wouldn't give it to me, but in the end, he had to. I got it somewhat by force. The thing was for him to catch the 2:00 PM train to Alba. I convinced him that he must go back home. I mean, I rather urged him to return home. Afterwards, I thought of calling Pronoia to have him filmed at our red cabin, Hell's Gate (or Heaven's?). I took him to the cabin, and on the way there, we talked about various things. Mom also called. She told me to give alms, for it was the day of the dead. He was delighted at Ismail and Pronoia's, and he wanted to smoke weed; I told the two not to give him any, 'cause he had arrhythmia. He'd told me so. I left and let them film him, just in the other room, not at the cabin, which wasn’t ready yet.

I went and had some borscht. The baron called me. I told him of our guest, would he want me to bring him to him (I was thinking of placing him somewhere, in case he missed the train), and the baron asked what the deal was, and when I said God had sent him over, that he’d walked all the way from Alba Iulia, he told me:

“I was afraid of that; there’s been another one like this and we’re stuck with him, he’s been running into the walls of Bucharest like a bumblebee; I can’t, Dan, I’m afraid I’m not kind enough.”

Pronoia called me: “C'mon, are you getting here?”

I went over to find Ismail had left. Florinel (that's what he called himself: Florinel) spoke of himself in the third person.

He'd say: “Florinel also liked cufflinks,” and his ID read Paul Florin. I'd looked when he had forgotten it on the washing machine, but the following day he hadn't understood how I knew his name. He had changed. His face had fallen somehow. I thought it was from the weed; I rebuked Pronoia for having given him any. She flushed, but it wasn't that. He figured something out. I learned that he watched the recordings of me. I sat next to him on the couch and he wouldn't even look me in the eyes.

“I slept at daddy's last night and I didn't know,” he said.

“What were your parents called?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Pronoia said, smiling, “What were your parents called?”

But he wouldn't answer.

Later he said we acted in the play called Judgment, subtitled Tramp, but I played a Moldavian tramp in a tracksuit drinking plum brandy in a play directed by Dabija. He played a dashing character in a play directed by Lelio.

“Yo, who's Lelio?” I asked (the Lion, as on his ring—the Lion of Judah, he'd say—or the devil roaring like a lion?).

And then, like the night before, much sophistry, which I kept dismantling, careful to escape its traps at the last moment, especially careful not to waste energy on false baits. Anyhow, he was somewhat enraged, and there was no time left to catch the train. I rushed him, but he was stalling, telling the tale of the adulteress, but spinning it out, and I was saying, “C'mon, c'mon, c'mon.” Pronoia called a cab. It wasn't coming. Then, an Uber. Little time was left, but first I went out of the room and returned with the black jacket on, the suit jacket that he'd left in the hallway. When I sat next to him in the jacket, he asked, “Why did you put it on? Why?” I was cold, I was shivering next to him, but could he have been frightened because I had the little cross underneath? And before we opened Facebook so I could check out his page, he said he was Didi the Shy in there and there were many with this name, too many, and a lot of them with no picture, no nothing. I spurred him on—“Hurry up”—and he kept stalling. Eventually I took him downstairs, and he cheered up there. His mood changed, he seemed at peace, and he told me, “We say that God is far from people, but He's our daddy; He's mine.” Upstairs he'd also said something about how “for hours he fought the devil.” With me? Whom with? The camera recorded none of it, only video, no sound, 'cause it had no batteries, though Pronoia had told me to get some at first, then decided against it.

He also said, “You're given a gift like a time bomb, it blows up in your hands.”

And I, “Oh well, so what if you die, if we die.”

But I didn't really know what I was saying and said, “Come on, give it to me, let's be done with it.”

I'd already started to test whether he was the Angel, whether he had something for me. The Uber wasn't coming and he was glad. Was it because we were late, because we were missing the train? I told him he let himself get caught in the competition because of Pronoia, and he said, with an honest voice, “Wha…? We fought like two men, not like two fuckers.” He talked as if the weed had fully worn off, clearly and beautifully. The Uber arrived, though we had 10-15 minutes left. But we got there in time.

At the railway station the driver said, “The ticket office is over there,” pointing to International.

“No, it's that way,” I said with a sense of ultimate emergency.

He kept insisting it was over there to confuse me. There were huge queues inside, like I'd never seen before, so I handed him a million and told him to give it to the inspector. I also got him some water and a croissant, and he said there was no need. Some days later, when I took the initiation train, I would understand why he hadn't wanted them, 'cause you mustn't eat or drink anything on the train. But perhaps I'll tell this tale some other time. Or perhaps I shouldn't tell it. I sat him on the train and that same evening I started seeing clearly on Facebook the spoof of some, the demonic sneers and all the rest.

I went to the christening (the next day? I can't tell anymore…) and about three girls were dressed in black, plus the groom's mother. Then to the wedding, with a new series of tests, the last of which when we stole the bride and asked the groom, the son of the director of the gas company in Syria, to play the drums. Finally, the drummer arrived, large and curly-haired, and taught them to play “For your people,” ritualistically, as if he had known from the start that it would be part of the schedule. After the drums everyone quietened down, resigned. They understood that their time was gone. Just like those people on Facebook or in the streets. I saw them take a turn for the better and perhaps even forget what they'd had. Others didn't get it. Perhaps that's why I must say all this—to let them know.

God help us. God have mercy on us.

I left home determined, but I nearly made a mistake when stopping by the Turks to have some soup—and they only had red lentil soup. My naïve, direct faith saved me: I knew red lentil soup had stopped Esau. The shopkeeper even smiled at me when he saw I'd made the right choice. I went the long way ‘round for a bit, aimlessly, when heading to the Conservatory to look for a drummer. T hat boy I found there in the basement said he drummed hard, but he wouldn't be coming with me unless an official “project” was set up. He even said I wouldn't find anyone willing to play drums at the Conservatory. I smiled in comprehension and he smiled back. I speedily went on, and various people kept trying to stop me. Phone calls intensified, a girl who couldn't have known I had set out was relentlessly calling, Isma`il was after me: “Dan, let me give you something,” and Vlad as well. I went on like that—drumless—and by Izvor Park I found a PET bottle of Neumarkt beer. I recalled a stupid book title, Neumarkt Gardens, not a bit stupid then. With that little bottle, I went on tapping my hand and shouting with a voice larger than me, as I never had before, perhaps only when I was a kid and bellowed for all the valley to hear. The first row of gendarmes told me there was still no one in the Palace of Parliament, and that anyhow, that wasn't the entrance. Only by the third gate did one of them try to stop me—the phone at the gate went off.

He told me, “Take that.”

And I said, “You take it, it's your job.”

He took it and I sprinted to the main entrance. Some officials elected by the people or whatever were getting out and I performed my show: “Daddy's here, you're finished, get out of here!”

I went in and fought this bulky cop, and then another one. I somehow felt I was fighting at half strength, that I could've done a lot more, but that wouldn't have been right, and the cop felt it too. I saw the fear in his eyes, and he was sweating. He looked exactly like all the bullies who'd ever picked on me.

I told him, “Let me go so I can send the message, d'you want this ceiling to collapse over you?”

Technicolor. 1950s Hollywood. But how else? Haşem has humor and appreciates a bit of ridicule. They put me in handcuffs, the sort that hurt (and the next day my wounds would disappear; I would show Peliel and she wouldn't make any comment, though she'd seen them too. That's how it was meant to be, for me to be alone in my faith. Still, how could one accept something like that? I would've searched for explanations). The gendarmes liked me 'cause I talked pretty and stood up for them. It wasn't their fault that I went past them. I was saying sensible things and I was dressed nicely: blue jacket, blue shirt, blue shoes, Human Energy. One of them, the one at the gate, said: “Everything was being recorded anyway. You didn't need to go further.” But then, “It's better this way, to have it on paper.”

I say madness is too pure like mother sky.

I didn't go to the Parliament like a fool. Since the evening before, I had the certainty that God had cleared the way for me. It started in Ferentari, when I was walking with Gabi and Adi passed us by on his bike. Gabi called his name and Adi, frightened like never before, glancing backwards furtively, said, “I was rushing home ‘cause I forgot to lock the door; that's why I didn't stop.”

I called mom and she also sounded cornered.

“I'm burning up…”

And I, “Why are you burning up, mom?”

“Because it's cold in here…”

I got to Adi's place right away and he wasn't home, hadn't been there, wouldn't have had the time. I dropped him a message: “Come on, it'll be half an hour, tops, and then you'll be happy.”

He called and replied, “I can't right now 'cause I've been drinking. Can't tomorrow either, 'cause I'll be hungover and cursing life.”

I looked for him in the neighborhood pubs. I went back to his place and he stayed behind the door for a bit, behind the viewfinder, before he let me in, stalling, “Sociu, iiit's youuu…”

Finally, he let me in.

I drummed on his table and on his closet hard, and the downstairs neighbor rang instantly, the one who tormented her child. I'd heard her shouting at him viciously so many times before, but this was worse—in an angered voice—she was outraged that I was drumming, though previously she hadn't minded the loud music.

I left and drummed on fences on the way. Then in the streets, when I became increasingly aware that they were staying away from me, after I stopped by a pizzeria (those usually haughty hulks wouldn't look at me for a second, except for a kind-faced employee who had been bullied by those guys and was now smiling), the same thing happened at a kiosk some ways ahead. I called mom and drummed for her too next to the phone, and when I truly realized it was so, nothing could stop me. I walked down Magheru shouting loudly, in a voice more colossal than the boulevard, “Daddy's coming to get you right now!” I called collage girl to come make a revolution at Victoria Palace, but she played for time. I called Peliel and she also played for time. I called Antibody and Cosmina, and on the way my voice kept growing and police cars were passing me by without pulling over. I shouted at the National Bank ahead, then never a bother, and cops usually cluster there, and those in black in the streets went on giving me a wide berth. When I shouted at Victoria, a gendarme told me they'd all left and I should come back the next morning. Antibody, Peliel, and Cosmina showed up, and Antibody said, “Come to our place to drink some water.” Eventually he got me some tea from a vending machine. He thought I didn't know what he meant to do, what water does when you pour it over a fire (and the next day, as I was heading towards the Parliament, Antibody said from the other side of the road, “Dan, come drink some water.”). Cosmina also gave herself away then, said something about cycles and the world that begins anew but then degrades again, though we hadn't discussed that, and everything she and her boyfriend said was like an acknowledgement of the hidden meanings of the story. For years I roamed the streets of Bucharest looking people in the eye—I didn't know why—to search for something in them or because I wasn't looking down, as in the old days, and they'd always had some reaction, always made some sort of contact. It was only now that some didn't anymore, at all, not even when I went into the shops they owned and talked to them. Gabi saw it too, and Peliel; some halted and talked to them, but they wouldn't look at me for one second. They were nervous and wanted to hastily slip away. Gabi and Peliel acknowledged it was so, but then they started finding meagre explanations. All of a sudden it seemed they no longer feared God and the enormous stake of the moment—all of a sudden, they wanted to go back to their lives as if nothing had happened, but they wanted to return to humanity, as I also do, and as we must.

On St. Nicholas Day, I went to church in Răchiţi where they say they have some particles of the saint's relics, but I found the church closed. I went back up to town. Around Săvenilor Street I saw a pink church a little further out, one I'd never seen before or hadn't paid attention to. I reached it by Antipa Street. The yard was filled with crows, the church was exquisite, Russian. The main gate was closed and I saw someone in red going in by another gate. I went down and came upon a blue painted gate. It was closed. I knocked, quietly, but as I knew—knock and it shall be opened unto you—there was no chance on earth I'd be heard, but it wasn't earth I needed to be on. I went a little further down, looked at the windows, and a red-bearded priest came out. He opened the gate and left it ajar. I asked him whom the church was dedicated to and he said the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I asked if I could visit it and he said yes, but there was scaffolding inside. Didn't sound too convincing. I went in and there was some scaffolding indeed, too little to be a problem though. A beautiful, peculiar church. I crossed myself and got out. When I stepped into Antipa Street (Antipas had been so faithful that Satan had settled in his town), almost all the crows rose and flew away from the yard and the tree. I went into town, to the Mall. There it seemed to me that there was great sorrow in some. The song “At least we stole the show” was playing, but even the singer's voice seemed sluggish. I went into St. Elijah's Church from my childhood, kneeled, and prayed. When I got out, a white-bearded priest had come out on his doorstep. His gaze followed me. I left. On Unirii Street, by the cinema, out of nowhere, as there's nowhere to go from that corner, there's a fence and beside it a restaurant with steps that light up in the evening, but not from there, some guy with metallic red pants popped out, synthetic orange rather, and started shouting: “The Maker fucks His creatures in the ass!” with a kind of grief.

I went to him. I asked “Who are you?” and he twisted away, as if fending me off.

I asked him again, “Who are you?”

And I said, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”

And then he turned back and bellowed wrathfully, “Christ?” and said something again about how the Maker could possibly fuck His creatures and asked, “How long are we gonna hump on this earthly globe? Endlessly? What will we do?”

He said some things about powers and whatnot, but I didn't even try to comprehend.

I said, “Well, so what? It's good to be alive.”

“Be alive? What's so good?”—he spoke beautifully, sadly, smartly. I'll give him that.

“You can breathe, eat,” I said.

And he went on, “But how will I live, when I don't even exist? Eat? What, am I, nuts?”

Again, he said some complicated things (he even said to me, “Why do you talk like the twin, don't you know it's dangerous to talk like that?”).

I told him that was too complicated for me, and I left. I got two pretzels from the kiosk up the street, where the lady who handed them to me wasn't looking friendly at all, and I went down with them.

I gave him one. “Eat this, see how good it is.”

And he went: “Why have you brought this to me? Have I spoken to you in secret and asked you to bring it?”

And I said, “I don't get what you're saying.”

Once more, he asked, “I haven't spoken to you in secret, so why have you brought it to me?”

(Didn't he know that from then on there was no point in speaking in secret, as he wouldn't convince me anymore?)

“To eat it, to see what it's like.”

And he said, “But who's eating? Only nutcases eat.”

But he was no longer enraged or arrogant. I left him with the Lord.

I started towards the sun. The sun was strong, the bells were tolling. In the evening, many were crying in the streets in spite, not tears. They were swearing furiously—even Viorel, who's usually so angelic—in front of my apartment building. A large group of guys and girls in light color climbed the lit steps beside the cinema, laughing beautifully.