1962

"Ethan", says Carl. "You have a story to tell." "I am not proud of what I did", he says looking directly ahead, and not at any one of us in particular.  "I was born in the mountains of Armenia, and moved with my father  to Byzantium, in what is now called Turkey, and he found work as a saddle maker, which was his trade, in the great city that came to be called Constantinople, but was then Nicomedia, which was also the New Rome where the emperor had his throne.  My father found much trade with the garrisons and as a youth I entered into military service.  I bought a Syrian slave boy and began to violate him, as was often the custom.  He was meek and passive.  And he also followed the cult of the Nazarene.  I became very tender towards my boy, who was just three years younger than me  I was eighteen.  One day he asked permission to meet with other disciples of the Nazarene.  I felt curious and said I would come.  He looked at me in a state of nervous terror.  But I loved him, and promised I would do nothing to betray him or his fellow Christians,  The meetings were, of course, clandestine, and I was careful to dress anonymously.  They were meeting in a grove of olive trees outside the city.  I was quickly impressed.  They were mostly humble folk, then one, an aged man who appeared to be their bishop turned to me and spoke the words of the Lord to me, "You are one of the emperor's foot soldiers", he said, "and we know that you are here not to betray us but to betray your own heart to the Prince of Peace.  Now, we enjoin you that you release this boy from the vile and unclean bondage you are holding him under and turn at once to the Saviour of men and even of Romans".  At that moment, as it were, the scales fell from my eyes and I sank to my knees weeping...