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was a boy. If it moved to the left, it was a girl. I was almost never wrong.’

He paused, sipped his steaming tea, and then went on.

‘I have some kind of power. I’m some kind of medium. That was the way I decided to come to South America. When Monica suggested the trip, I tested the idea with the needle and thread. The answer was that I should go. I didn’t want to. I kept trying, hoping that the needle would go to the left, but it kept moving to the right, ordering me, “Go!”’

‘I believe in that type of thing, though I am a good Christian. I do say my prayers.

‘Monica didn’t believe in such things, but she loved me nevertheless. I thought I would die when she wrote that she was leaving me and asked her to come see me. I knew she would not refuse, but when she arrived in Peru, it was horrible, just horrible. I felt myself losing her. Then I heard about a brujo [witch doctor] in Lima and went to see him. He told me that it was all over. There was no future for us. Before I left, he warned me that he felt danger hovering over me in South America. “You or someone close to you will die here. Be careful!” I knew he was right, but I didn’t care. There was no other place for me to go. Not then. Not after I lost Monica.’

Later at the old-folks’ home I thought how lucky I was to have come on this trip. I had wanted so