XI. I FOLLOWED A LONELY ROAD I followed a lonely road that led me away from all the new horizons, away from friends and the ravaged ruins of family. I entered the old world naked, broken and battered, my life in pieces and my heart in tatters. How was I to know she was waiting there for me, deep in the heart of Central Europe, beyond the ends of my world? A girl with a face like Garbo, her body my one true dream. Her hair had been crimped and curled by angels, and her voice was pitched by sad history. I wanted to lose myself in the gothic shadows of cathedrals, in sorrow that went down a thousand years. I stood in the ruins and saw her slowly emerge out of the just-risen sun. She was made of sky, of earth, of air, a sacred fire burned in her. In her eyes I glimpsed the creation of the world, in her arms I wrestled tenderness. With the deftness of her touch she lifted me up, with the words "I want you" she claimed my soul. I followed a lonely road past the old horizon where the sun had come up, and I saw her slowly emerge out of the light the sun had left behind for me.