The following night, they arrived almost simultaneously at what had become their "official" meeting place. However, they could not sit on the bench. One of the park’s automatic sprinklers had broken, and instead of watering the grass, it had flooded the spot where they usually sat, filling it with puddles that reflected the streetlights.

They considered sitting somewhere else, but in the end, by mutual agreement, they decided to take a walk.

They walked through the empty streets and squares, along the boulevards, and down the main shopping street, with all its stores closed.

The unusual pair were a sight worth seeing. He was dressed, as always, in his everyday clothes: a tall, older man, gaunt and lanky, disheveled and awkward, walking wearily and wearing a shirt worn thin from having been used far longer than its manufacturers could ever have anticipated. She, however, looked radiant: she had put her hair up and wore a long white skirt and a sleeveless blouse of the same color with a boat neckline. She had even put on earrings, something completely out of character for her, and traded her usual sneakers for a pretty pair of low heels. She looked like a bride…

T hey talked about all kinds of things, and curiously, this time Emma said nothing about wanting to kill herself, nor had she gone near the notorious bridge that day.

They walked in silence for the first few minutes. The night air was pleasant, carrying that light breeze that only stirs after midnight. Their footsteps echoed on the deserted sidewalks.

"Alder, I’ve realized we’re always talking about me. And really, I know very little about you."

The vagrant looked at her with an expression that seemed to agree, yet simultaneously showed he didn't want to talk about himself.

"For instance, tell me. Like... what do you do for a living?"

"Nothing," he stated, without looking at her.

"Are you retired?"

"Well... not exactly."

"I don't understand." She looked at him, trying to get him to elaborate, but to no avail. "I mean, what do you live on?"

"Well... on Divine Providence."

"On... what...? Like..."

"Solely and exclusively on what God gives me to live on." He looked up at the sky. "The Lord is my sustenance, my provider, and the nourishment of my heart."

She looked at him. Emma couldn't help a faint, sarcastic smile. That was probably a poetic way of saying... that he lived off what he found in the trash. Yes, that had to be it. It certainly looked that way.

"But you haven't always lived, like... on divine 'providence,' right? I mean..."

"No, of course not. I used to have a trade."

"What trade?" she asked curiously.

"I was an encyclopedia salesman. I told you yesterday."

"Oh, right," she remembered. "And you sold them?"

Alder nodded. "Door-to-door."

"What do you mean, door-to-door?"

"Yeah. I went from house to house, door to door... trying to get people to buy them."

"And... like, did they sell well?"

"No. You could go weeks without selling a single one." It was a really hard job.

"I can imagine... and also, like, lugging around all that weight... you know..."

"The weight wasn't the worst part... Actually, I never carried entire sets of encyclopedias. Just a few sample volumes. If someone bought a set, then—sure—I’d have to deliver all the volumes."

"So, like... what was the worst part?"

"Dealing with people, Emma." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "Having to spend the whole day looking for people... talking to people... smiling... Yeah" he weighed the thought. "That was the worst part" he sighed. "Aside from all the grief I got... you know... from some of the female customers."

"Which customers?" she stopped. "Did they not pay you?"

"No, it’s not that," he hesitated. "Well, actually… some of them paid me too well…"

Emma looked at him, puzzled.

"It wasn’t their fault," he murmured. "It was mine. Entirely mine—I sought them out. Or rather, I stumbled upon them. Well… certainly…" he felt truly uncomfortable talking about it "I stumbled upon them, sure, but I could have just stuck to selling the books and left it at that."

"I think I get you now, Alder. Like… you didn’t just stop at selling a few books, did you?" She winked at him conspiratorially.

The vagrant grimaced, looking like a young boy whose mother had just caught him in some mischief. He looked away, and she noticed his discomfort. So, to break the tension, she started walking again and changed the subject:

"What I don’t understand, Alder, is how you know everything that’s going on in the world today—you don’t have a TV set or a cell phone, and you don’t talk to anyone."

"Well, I don’t know that much," he defended himself. "I guess I’m a bit ‘old-fashioned.’" He made a face, and she nodded in agreement.

"Right, but you told me we’re being indoctrinated, and all that sort of thing. How do you know all that?"

"Well… I hear it on the radio."

"Oh! So you do listen to the radio?"

"I don’t usually," he said with a shrug. "But when my player’s batteries run low and it can’t pull the tapes through anymore, I don’t have much choice."

"What do you mean? Did you say… tapes?"

"You don’t know what those are?" He looked at her.

"No idea."

"I have a lot of them at home. They used to give them away with the encyclopedias. Since those sets were so expensive, anyone who bought one received a free gift: the complete works of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven… as well as madrigals, motets, monks’ chants…"

"You mean records? Like…"

"No. Records were more expensive. Cassette tapes are… well, little cases" he made the gest with his hands pointing the size. "They’re small rectangular shells containing very thin plastic tape with metal particles embedded in it, which a cassette player can read with a magnetic head. The tape sits inside the ‘cassette,’ wound around two spools that a motor turns so the tape passes over the head."

Emma did not quite understand all of that and gave an indifferent shrug.

"The point is," he said "when the batteries get really low, they no longer have enough power to drive the motor that pulls the tape through, so I can’t listen to the chants I usually play. I have no choice but to listen to the radio—because the motor isn’t involved—until I’m supplied with fresh batteries."

"Who supplies them?"

"The Almighty," he replied solemnly, looking up at the sky and spreading his arms, palms facing upward.

Emma smiled. He probably meant he found them in the trash—batteries that still had a little charge left, enough to keep him going until he found some more.

"So what do you listen to on the radio?"

"Mass, mostly. The priests’ homilies keep me up to date on what’s happening in the world."

"Their what…?"

"Their sermons."

"Oh, right! So do you only listen to Mass?"

"No. Mass is only on at eight. The rest of the day, until I get the batteries, I listen to other programs. But always on Radio Maria. I don’t listen to any other station."

"Radio Maria…"

"It’s a religious station. They have a wide variety of programs, though I can only listen to a few: the ones where no women take part. That’s how I keep up with current events."

Emma had tuned out and hadn’t paid much attention to that last sentence. But she did clearly catch the word "women."

"Hey, Alder. I’ve been thinking about what we talked about yesterday."

"About what?"

"You know... me getting pregnant and all that."

"Oh. And what have you decided?"

Emma stopped and stared at him:

"You know what? I think... telling me all that nonsense about having a baby and the whole bit... it’s part of a scheme to get me into bed."

"What?" He stopped walking.

"It’s obvious, Alder. You know I’m a virgin and don’t have a boyfriend, yet you ask me to have a child. Without saying it outright, you were... offering yourself as the father. It’s plain as day."

The wanderer started walking again, letting out a soft chuckle. She continued:

"You take advantage of a vulnerable teenager—me—convince me of that nonsense, and in the end... you get what you’ve always wanted from me... ever since you met me."

The old man smiled and shook his head, continuing forward. Without looking at her, he said:

"Do you really think that was my plan?"

"It makes a lot of sense, Alder. Maybe not from the very beginning, but... well, I don’t know. You can’t deny it..."

He said nothing, and she continued with her theory.

"Besides, now that you’ve told me you were a professional salesman—Like... a lot of things make sense."

"What things?" He stopped and looked at her. Emma smiled, and after a few seconds, she said:

"Well, you’ve got the gift of the gab. Like.. that’s it. You’re able to convince people to buy whatever you want them to, and like… if you say you sold books that were hard to sell, and you still made a living at it... well... it’s just that you’re good at it. You were good at convincing people to listen to you... and getting your way."

He smiled, and they started walking again.

"Of course, like... if you’d wanted to abuse me... it would’ve been incredibly easy for you. But then again, I suppose it’s better if the girl goes along with it voluntarily, right?"

"Obviously," he replied coldly.

"So, is it true?"

The man stopped again. He was surprised by how analytically she viewed things. She was truly an intelligent person to have reached that conclusion based on isolated details, and he marveled at why she didn't apply that same approach to her own traumas. Surely, if she had coldly analyzed the facts, she wouldn't be in this state. But then, he told himself: the mind is far too complex to act rationally...

Alder then looked at her with a look of affection and kindness and blurted out:

"Emma, I can't intimate with a woman."

She was surprised by the answer and replied:

"Are you... gay?"

"No."

"No, right. The female clients..." she recalled. "So... like... are you impotent, or something?"

"In theory, no, but in practice... yes."

"I don't understand... Or is it like those guys who, you know... when the moment of truth comes... well... they just can't get it up?"

"Emma, just accept that you and I can never be anything more than friends who see each other at night but can't touch."

"Why not?" She looked annoyed.

Then she touched his arm with a finger, and he winced in pain, as if he’d been pricked by a needle. She looked puzzled, and he, after the shudder, tried to regain his composure by changing the subject:

"Look, we're almost at my place. This is where I live."

Sure enough, after leaving the commercial district, they gradually drew closer to the town’s residential area. They arrived at Alder’s house: a small cottage nestled between two newer apartment blocks. The contrast with the surrounding buildings made the old structure look even more forlorn in the moonlight. The roof sagged slightly with age, matching a wooden door flanked by two windows; these were covered by dark green chain-link blinds—the same color as the door—that were thick with dust and, like the door itself, in urgent need of a fresh coat of paint.

"Can I come in and see it?" she asked.

"Better not. It’s the home of a bitter, lonely old man. It looks the same on the inside as it does on the outside: everything is old, dirty, and cluttered. You wouldn't like it."

Emma was puzzled by that answer. The façade was clean and freshly painted, and the roof looked new... it seemed as though the place had been renovated quite recently.

She looked into his eyes, hoping he might let her in after all. But he wasn't having it, and she sensed that.

"Suit yourself," she said resignedly. "Will I see you tomorrow?"

"I don't think so."

That took her aback. He hadn't missed a single day in quite some time.

"In fact," the vagrant continued, "today is our last meeting. I’m afraid I have to leave for a place... far away."

"Where to?"

"You’ll find out. You’ll hear from me."

They stood there looking at each other. He wore a look of fondness—that affectionate smile that had managed to somewhat dampen the girl's desire to kill herself. And she, with an expression of some pain and a touch of melancholy at the thought of losing him forever.

"Can I give you a kiss, Alder?"

"I’d be delighted to receive one, truly. But it would be better if we just kept this memory of each other. What do you think?"

She didn't answer; instead, with tear-filled eyes, she watched him open that rickety door and, after stepping inside the house, offer her one last, tender smile.