"He became a regular feature in the library", says Maureen, "Always in the mysticism section, and often pausing to say hi to one of us. I think he figured out rather quickly that the three of us were friends as well as coworkers. He very quickly won our confidence as we found him very genuine. One day, he happened to be walking by the restaurant where we were having lunch It was a warm summer day, so we were all out on the patio. He stopped to say hi, and of course we invited him to join us. He only stayed long enough for a quick sandwich, insisted that he had to go, and after he left we realised that he had paid for all our lunches.
"That summer, he took to lunching with us once a week. He claimed to be a professor of theology on sabbatical from McGill University (he was a Montrealer) and was considering making Vancouver his home. He also claimed to be freshly divorced from his wife by whom he had an infant daughter. So, of course, he did appeal to our maternal heartstrings, somewhat. But really a remarkably charming and convivial man. And incredibly handsome.
"He said he was writing a book about mysticism and sorcery in the Middle Ages, hence his interest in esoteric reading material. He appeared to find us three quite interesting, given our divergent Christian denominations, and the fact that we not only were colleagues, and not only friends, but also living together in a form of intentional community.
"We invited him for dinner. It would have been late July, just four years ago..."
No comments:
Post a Comment