I slept very badly. I was restless. I was nervous. The next morning I was in a bad mood. What now? Was I ill? Or just shell-shocked? I felt sad, helpless! What could I do?
I decided to go for a walk, "Walking without Katherine". I was mourning, because I had to walk alone. I retraced our route. I looked up towards the houses, towards the sky. It felt as if Katherine's warmth had coated the walls of the houses in gold. It was a walk through a paradise of fantasy and dreams. At the end, at Katherine's apartment there was nothing but a closed door, so I went back to my house. In the evening I did the walk once again. Once again, there was no Katherine behind the bolt.
It's raining roses
On the day after the "day after" it was pouring with rain. I cried too as I awoke - shedding floods of tears. I wanted to be with her.
On this particular morning, it was 6 o'clock, i managed to pull off something special. In the market in the heart of the city, where the traces of two massacres are still to be seen, I saw roses soaked by the rain. Oh, what a stroke of good luck: It's raining roses for Katherine! I bought three yellow roses, three white ones and three orange ones and bound them into a bunch. With the roses under my arm, I made my way to the building where Katherine worked. I showed my passport to the guards and, lo and behold, was allowed to enter the building up the seven darkened flights of stairs to her office. The lights were on at the sixth floor but no one had arrived for work as yet. I made my way into Katherine's office without any difficulty, placed a chair in the middle and then put the roses on the chair with a letter: after ten minutes the eerie visitation was over. I left the building.
At 9 o'clock I got a call from Katherine: "O God, Renato, how did you manage to get through high security into my office?" She couldn't believe it. She warned me: "Please don't turn up like that again. I place great importance on keeping my private life separate from my work."
I was happy despite the criticism. Her warm, friendly voice brightened up my daily office routine.