“Your wife decided to become a stripper?” I asked my friend, wondering about how that might have affected his status as a university professor. Dave nodded and smiled, briefly.

“My students would say ‘Dr. Dave, we saw your wife last night’. I knew they meant  ‘all of her’. Soon I was a laughing stock. Eventually, I divorced her.”

He told me this sitting on a large shaded terrace in Kigali, where beautiful yellow flowers hung over our heads. My wife and I were renting the house for a couple of years. I was working for an NGO. We had a nice dog. I was in a blues band. Life was good. Dave the academic had become our friend.

Every year since the genocide, he would visit Rwanda from his home in California to lecture voluntarily on journalism in Butare, a town in the south where, in 1994, some Rwandan professors had organised massacres of their own students. He was American. Perhaps he felt guilty about Bill Clinton’s failure to intervene. He loved Rwanda and was learning the language, bit by bit.

He was quite a character: 55 years old, teetotal, non-smoker, global cyclist and fit as hell. He liked target shooting and had climbed Kilimanjaro. Sharp as a razor and best of all, he was fun. Crack a joke and he’d crack two back.

But today he was in pain. He had twisted his back that morning, reaching for the alarm clock in his hotel room. The dull ache now seemed a source of considerable irritation, just like his ex-wife, although I found her rather more interesting.

“Did she ever explain?” I asked.

“Not really, actions speak louder than words.”

“Meaning?”

“One day she collected me from the airport, LAX. I couldn’t believe my eyes: she had new tits, like nuclear warheads. Then she got her lips done and became a waitress. Next thing I know, she’s pole dancing with $300 stuffed in her thong. Fun for everyone on campus, except me. Now I’m with Mary. She’s a lawyer. I needed one. Christ, my back is killing me. Glad I’m on my way home.”

We met again that night at his hotel, where the British Embassy was throwing a party for the Queen’s birthday. The lavish event coincided with the arrival of a film crew from the UK for ‘Shooting Dogs’ with John Hurt and Hugh Dancy. The stars wandered the party, Hollywood friendly. Champagne flowed and everyone clapped the speeches for Liz 2: God Save the Queen. Smiles all round. Except Dave, who spent the evening bent double with his hands on his knees, staring at the neatly clipped lawn like a best man who had lost the wedding ring.

“I need painkillers,” he growled.

“You need a medic,” replied my wife.

“Good idea. I’ll phone from my room. Night, folks.”

Then he shuffled towards the elevator, twisted like a corkscrew in his tux.

Early next day, he rang us with an update and a request. “I’ll see the doctor at 11 and check out of the hotel at 12. Can I spend the afternoon on your sofa? My flight to the States is at 7pm.” No problem Dr. Dave.

Around lunchtime, he hobbled out of a taxi like he’d been shot in the ass with a bazooka. ”Belgian doctor stuck three needles in me. Where’s your sofa?”

We woke Dave at 5pm and drove him to Kigali airport. When we dropped him at the check-in, his face had lost its usual rosy glow. He looked pale, exhausted. Most of all, he looked worried.

“I have to chair a conference when I get back. But this is an 18-hour flight with three stops, economy all the way, no legroom. Jesus, it’s going to kill me.”

We asked him to send an email when he landed. We helped him with his bags and told him he would be ok. But we were wrong and he was right.

Because the email we got a few days later was not from Dave. It was from Mary, his lawyer girlfriend. Her message was brief.

Dave had landed in California looking very ill, saying he needed sleep. Instead, Mary took him to hospital where grim-faced medics ran tests and put him in an oxygen tent, on a drip. He joked with them about his chances. A few hours later, on June 15 2004, he was dead. Cause: septic shock, a sort of blood poisoning apparently caused by a combination of his twisted back, a possible misdiagnosis in Kigali, the long flight, an infection en route and a ton of bad luck.

Rwanda’s students will remember Dr. Dave’s expertise. Angela and I will remember his friendship. And in some bar in LA, there is a pneumatic stripper wrapping her legs around a steel pole, who perhaps remembers, under the dazzle of the spotlight and the gaze of her admirers, a professor who disapproved.

(Author’s note: This story was first published in FHM Romania, June 2009)

The last time I saw Dino he had a black eye: a real beauty, with touches of yellow and blue and pink, sitting on his handsome face like a badly fried egg. He had a couple of cuts on his mouth too, and a scratch on his square jaw. One of his silver earrings was missing – usually he wore three in the same ear – small, medium and large – like some designer pirate. That was Dino – young, connected and street-smart. By rights, he should have died during the war. But he survived, and I’ll never forget how.

He contacted me recently, on Facebook. Hey Mike, I’m Dino, remember? As usual, he didn’t say much. Just a photo, looking cool in a red hoodie, making gangstah signs. Where it says ‘Interested In’, he has added one word: ‘Women’.

We’ve had no contact since I left Sarajevo in 1997. In those days, I was training journalists: Bosnians, Serbs and Croats. Dino was one of them. A couple of years earlier, they had been sworn enemies, fighting in rival armies. Now they were sitting in my class, taking notes and taking the piss out of each other.

They all had war stories. There was Bojana who looked like Barbra Streisand and had been shot in the back by a sniper. She spent nine months, lying paralyzed. Then one day, she just got up and walked – talk about Lazarus.

There was Lunyo, the class clown but traumatized too. Most times he was OK. But sometimes his behaviour was inexplicable. We’d send him to buy twelve doughnuts and he’d come back half an hour later, with no doughnuts, and ask: “Have you got a bag?” Often, he did not seem to know what day it was, never mind how to write news. “What’s up?” I would ask. His reply was the always same: “I cannot help it… my mind… the war?”

But Dino’s story was the best. So I’ll tell you, just as he told me.

Before the siege of Sarajevo, I worked in nightclubs, sometimes as a DJ, sometimes as security. When the war kicked off, I got drafted into a small mobile unit, Special Forces they said. After dark we would drive around the hills, armed to the teeth, looking for trouble. Usually, we found it. There would be contact, gunfire and mortars, sometimes closer with grenades, bayonets and knives. After a while, we began to wonder if our commanding officer was nuts. Pretty soon, we knew it for sure. One night, after some serious shit, I realised: get out or die.

I stuck my pistol in my jeans, took food and water in a knapsack and started walking. It was tricky getting out of Sarajevo, but I had friends on the barricades. I walked over the hills, heading for Mostar, fifty miles, south-west. That was risky, but I knew how to avoid minefields because I had helped plant them. I hitched a couple of rides, slept rough and arrived two days later.

In Mostar, people needed weapons so I swapped mine with a Croat fixer for a ride to Split, 75 miles up the Adriatic coast, plus a ferry to Italy. It sounded too good to be true. As things turned out, it was.

The trip to Split went ok, except for some Croat thugs who wanted to hang me from a tree and cut my balls off. Luckily, my story checked out: let the Muslim go.

On the ferry to Italy I smoked a pack of cigarettes, feeling damn lucky. By now I had no money and no food but I was alive.

When I landed, the Italian cops were waiting. Someone tipped them off. Two hours later, I was sailing back to Croatia on the same boat. It was midnight.

I walked up and down the deck, smoking and wondering what to do. I knew my luck would not last long in Split. I was a dead man walking. I looked back at the lights of Italy, disappearing into the distance, like my freedom. I saw I had no choice. I stripped to my boxers and jumped over the side of the ferry.

The water of the Adriatic was cold but I was only a couple of kilometres out. I started swimming, nice and slow. I’m a smoker so I can’t go for long. When I got tired I just floated on my back and watched the stars and told myself: “Stay calm and you will live. Panic and you will die”. I was 23, too young to drown.

About ninety minutes later, I walked up the Italian shore, shivering and exhausted and alone. Six months later I was in Milan, selling Armani suits from the back of a lorry, and wearing one myself. Don’t ask me how.

So, that’s Dino’s story. In 1997, back in peaceful Sarajevo, he became a journalist. When I asked him about that black eye, he just smiled and said:

“Unfinished business, from the war. The other guy is in hospital.”

(Author’s note: This story was first published in FHM Romania, May 2009, as my monthly column ‘Frictiuni’, and reappears here by permission of S.C. Sanoma Hearst Romania SRL))

“Do you like comics?” asks Razvan, rummaging in a kitchen cupboard. He’s ten years old and has a large collection to show me.

“Everyone likes comics,” I reply.

“Not in our house,” sighs Tudor, his younger brother, looking concerned. Tudor is five years old, leaning in the doorway, watching us with big blue eyes. He wears green flip-flops and Mickey Mouse shorts. Sunset illuminates the scene like a sepia postcard. The kitchen smells of fried onions.

I’m tired after a long day exploring the delights of Cluj-Napoca: the National Museum of Art with its Romanian masters, the Ethnographic Museum with its bee-pots and animal traps; the botanical gardens with a Japanese bridge, exquisite orchids and huge palm trees. It’s nice to relax with kids. We’re not related but we’re buddies, it seems. Razvan carries a stack of dog-eared comics to the table where I’m sitting.

“Maybe you could read for me?” I suggest, “Your Dad says you’re rather clever?”

Razvan shrugs modestly and ruffles his black curly hair as I peruse the bright graphics and bold titles: Spiderman; Totally Spies; Witches.

“Which one?” he asks, cradling his dimpled chin in his hands.

“Yeah, which one?” asks Tudor. I consider my options and point a finger.

“Scooby Doo in Ancient Egypt?” says Razvan. “Excellent choice.”

“Excellent choice,” adds Tudor, settling beside me.

Razvan reads well, quickly flipping the coloured pages. I can hardly keep up. His Romanian is clear and melodic, music to my ears. But he stops when his mother appears in the kitchen, wearing a pinafore. Tudor groans quietly as she surveys us, hand on hip.

“Comics?” she asks. Tudor whispers my ear: ”Told you so.”

Mum marches past, barking orders:

“Time for dinner! Wash hands and move to the terrace. Quickly now….”

Outside we gather around the dinner table, filling our plates with baked fish, roast peppers, barbecued chicken, tiny sausages, smoked aubergines and new potatoes. There are eight of us at the feast  – six adults and the two boys. A ginger cat lurks below, sniffing the air. The wine flows and lively chat follows.

We talk about Romanian writers, politics and history. Inevitably, young Razvan and Tudor seem to find this boring. So I tell a joke about a duck that goes shopping. At the end Razvan laughs and says: ‘Magnifico!” Tudor looks puzzled and reaches for a chunk of meat, which he dangles above his face. “Magnifico!” he says and chews with his eyes closed.

“I know a joke!” says Razvan and we all turn to listen as he begins: “Three men are building a house. But they can’t use the toilet until they finish. So, the first man – ”

“Razvan!” snaps Maria. Razvan stops. “That’s not a very good joke,” she suggests.

He observes her for a moment before he answers.

“But how do you know,” he asks coolly, “if I haven’t even finished?”

“Yes you have,” replies Maria. And that’s that. We resume eating. “Razvan is very intelligent,” she explains. “Top of every class. So frankly, I think silly jokes are beneath him.”

Razvan blushes beetroot, apparently mortified.

“It was just a joke, Maria,“ I intervene, “and probably my fault for …”

Maria lays down her fork and gives me a severe look: the case is closed. The other adults munch in silence. The cheery mood seems to have evaporated, but not for long.

“I know a joke too!” announces little Tudor, “and there won’t be any problems with my joke like there was with his!” He jabs a greasy thumb towards his brooding elder brother.

“Oh really?” sighs Maria, warily. “OK, let’s hear it.”

“He’s five by the way,” Razvan mutters at me, “Just so you know.”

“And a half,” adds Tudor, flashing a perfect smile.  Then he breathes deeply, inflating his little chest. He scratches his ear and chuckles, perhaps rehearsing the lines in his head. We wait and wonder. Razvan drums the table with his fingertips.

“So?” he asks.

“So what?” inquires Tudor.

“So tell the damn joke!” growls his brother.

“OK,” replies Tudor. “Three men are building a house, but they can’t go to the toilet until they finish. So the first man …”

The rest of us exchange mystified looks.

“Tudor!” hisses Maria, suddenly.

“What?” asks Tudor, eyes widening.

“That’s the same joke, the one I just asked your brother not to tell!”

Tudor blinks, chewing his lip.

“Oh, really?” he replies. Maria nods. He sits down, picking at his meat.

“Try a knife and fork, you monkey,” advises Razvan in a low voice.

“Good idea,” says Tudor, reaching for his cutlery, still wrapped in a yellow napkin. Razvan puts his head in his hands, in private despair. Tudor hacks meat and glances at me.

“Was my joke funny?” he asks. I wink discreetly to signal my approval. Tudor winks back, like he’s got grit in his eye. Then he glances quickly towards his Mum, leans forward and asks me in a low, serious voice:

“Do you like comics?”

(Author’s note: This story was first published in FHM Romania, Jan 2009, as my monthly column ‘Frictiuni’. For Romanian translation, click on ‘Dependent’, when it is posted, in the list, right side) >

Photo by Nick Supple



Dora the Doberman sees it first, on the grass in the park. She stops dead and glances back at us. Look what I’ve found. The bundle of brown rags seems to inflate as my wife and I approach, puzzled. It is a hawk, a Black Kite, milvus migrans. There are thousands here in Rwanda. Some people say the genocide boosted the population, all that carrion. We stand and stare at the dark plumage, perfectly engineered. The black bill curves like a cutlass, the tail fans across the grass.

“She’s a beauty,” says Angela. For her, any animal is female until proven otherwise. This is logical to her and a lesson to me; but why is the bird here? Usually, the closest we get to a black kite is when one dives to snatch a sandwich from our hands on a sunny terrace.

“What’s up, dude?” I ask. The hawk glares back: What does it look like, birdbrain?

Angela spots a cord tied around one leg. The talon is swollen, bent and paralyzed.

“I’ll call Peter, the British zoologist.” I pull out my mobile. Dora wags her stubby tail, evidently impressed. Soon I hear the scream of Peter’s battered motorbike down the line. I picture him bouncing up some dusty red dirt track, like he’s exploring Mars without a helmet.

“I found an injured kite,” I tell him, walking in circles. Dora cocks her head. Sorry, who did?

“Put it in a box,” yells Peter. ”I’ll come tonight!“

When I walk back, Angela is whispering to the kite in Romanian, words of comfort.

“OK, eHeHehere’s the plan,“ I announce, “first, we put it in a box.”

My wife replies without looking up.

“Good plan. What box?”

The kite looks at Dora: You know these guys? Dora wags her tail: Wanna hear me bark?”

I pull off my T-shirt. “We’ll wrap it in this.”

The sky is darkening and studded with diamante stars when Peter snarls down our path on tyres that spit gravel at the windows. Dora stands alert, glancing at me. Want me to bite him? Red-faced and overweight, Peter climbs off his bike and sidesteps her like she is a potted plant.

“Hello doggy.”

Dora’s eyes narrow to indignant slits. Say that again, I dare you. I lead Peter onto our terrace and point to a large cardboard box. He lifts the kite out, firm but gentle.

“A young one,” he observes. Huge wings batter the air, a twenty-four inch span. Peter speaks in Kinyarwanda. The bird stops. Dora watches, intrigued: Doctor Doolittle?

A warm breeze chimes through the avocado trees, crickets scratch a beat, and a bullfrog burps like a ship in fog. Peter feels the bird’s breast, examines the swollen leg.

“Foot’s finished,” he concludes, grimly. “Malnourished too, no muscle mass. Some bugger tied it up.” He puts the bird back in the box. “Needs feeding.”

“I owe you a beer,” I reply.

“Cold Mutzig,” he grunts and settles into a banana-leaf chair, wiping his bald, tanned head. Dora curls under the thick glass coffee table and yawns.

Soon we are sipping drinks and gazing at the purple slopes of Rwanda’s infamous Milles Collines. The Thousand Hills, a place of savage brutality not so long ago.

“Saw you out running recently with your dog, and a line of street kids following,“ says Peter, “muzungu amafaranga, I assume?“ White man give me money.

“No, they just want Dora,” I reply. He looks unconvinced.

“The RPF shot dogs during the genocide. For eating Tutsi corpses,” he says.

“I know. But the kids just want to play, with DORLA! DORLA!”

Our dog’s head jerks up and cracks hard against the coffee table. Her eyes swim.

Angela joins us on the terrace. She tells Peter about the street kids: Emmanuel, Bosco, Alex and tiny Claude who runs barefoot carrying mushy blue flip-flops. They have hair like soot and Bel Air smiles minus the bill. When I go running they wheel and flip around me like wood sprites born of magic spells. They kick a football made from bin bags lashed with twine and they can put a twenty-yard spin on it. Peter grunts again and checks his watch.

“Give that bird a month of raw meat.”

Dora catches my eye: What about me, no bone? I smile and pat her sleek head. Peter makes a pinching gesture.

“Use tweezers. Needs a good feed.”

I listen and nod. Then a moral dilemma shivers down my spine like iced water. Because the hawk is not the only one who needs food; so do the skinny, wide-eyed street kids who chase me when I go running, clapping their bony hands like firecrackers. And yet the meat I buy tomorrow from the costly ex-pat supermarket will not be for Emmanuel, Bosco, tiny Claude or any of those who lost their families under the machetes of 1994, the boys who tell us their short stories in low voices. The meat will be for a skinny wild hawk, whose ancestors* grew fat on the land. A warm wet nose is snubbing at my bare heel. Lighten up, dude.

(Author’s note: This story first appeared in FHM Romania, December 2008)

Aged 18, I hitch hiked 800 miles from my parents’ home in Liverpool to the south of France to look for a summer job. It took five days and I got brown waiting under a hot sun for friendly drivers in trucks or preferably a Mademoiselle in an open-top Merc.

Just outside Monte Carlo, I found casual work at an exclusive language academy for rich teenagers: happy Americans, stylish Italians, reserved Brits from posh schools. They spent the summer learning French and swimming in the Med. I spent the summer cleaning their rooms and guarding their shiny little cars. In the autumn I took a train north east to try my luck in the French Alps.

There I found a job in a boutique hotel made from logs of wood, designed by some hip architect. Seven days a week for six months I slaved in a hot kitchen, peeling and chopping vegetables, washing pots and pans. I started at 6pm and eight hours later I would scrub the ovens and dump the bin bags outside. Knee-deep in snow at 2am, I would pause to watch the stars glitter above vast white mountains. I was tired and stinking but glad to be in Val d’Isère, one of the best ski resorts in the world. Because I knew that by noon tomorrow, after cleaning fifteen bedrooms and bathrooms, I would be free to explore the steep slopes. I learned to ski and soon became addicted to snow, like any other ski bum.

I also learned some good recipes from our chef. Madame Paulette was a talented, middle-aged, chain-smoking battle-axe from Lyon. One of her best dishes combined ham, soured cream, paprika, Gruyere cheese and a banana. The plates always came back clean and when a client peeped into the kitchen for the recipe, Paulette just smiled, puffing smoke as she explained. After the guest had disappeared I said: “But Madame, you forgot to mention the paprika.” She winked at me and replied: “Think I’m crazy?”

Every night after work, I would join the waiters and other casual staff for drinks in the basement where we lived. If the windows were blocked up by fresh snow, we knew there would be good skiing tomorrow. We’d drink some wine, complain about Madame and fall asleep in our clothes.  Sex if you got lucky.

All sorts of folks came through that hotel: the Canadian ski team, a British F1 driver, pop stars and hordes of hard-drinking young Swedes who trashed their rooms like Vikings. My morning job was to clean their mess. That night, they’d do it again.

I worked two consecutive winters in the Alps. Today, teenagers call it Gap Year and write blogs; back then, we just went.

As my second winter passed and the snow melted, I began to wonder what do over summer, before University. The answer came from two of our guests: Wayne and Carl, young ski dudes from Colorado who were addicted to French girls.

They told me they had a construction company back home. I asked for a job on their site and they agreed and so that final ‘gap’ summer I used my dishwashing money to fly cheap to New York and took a Greyhound bus to Denver. By the time I arrived three days later I had run out of money and had to pawn my guitar for the final bus to Breckenridge, their little town in the Rockies.

Wayne and Carl had a crew of twenty carpenters who could put up a 3-floor condo in a month. One guy was an ex-sniper from Vietnam, who told me he had scored “94 certified kills.” My job was to carry wood, chainsaw forest and stay out of the way, man.

Their favourite restaurant was Mexican where Carlos the chef had long nails on his little fingers and said I am hate French cuisine. Over tequila slammers, I told him Paulette’s secret recipe, including paprika. He was not impressed: “Banana in ham. Think I’m dumb?”

Next day he turned up smiling at the flat I shared with a mountain rescue guy who liked J.J. Cale. “Good recipe, amigo,” said Carlos, “Can I come in? I am wanting to reward you, real nice.”

Inside, Carlos rummaged through my flat-mate’s vinyl and played ‘Cocaine’, original version. Then he sat on the floor, took a tiny silver and turquoise bowl from his pocket and removed the lid to reveal a mound of fine white powder. He dipped his little finger in then held his nail under my nose.  “They say you like snow,” he whispered, “Want to try some of mine?” Twenty minutes later I was speaking fluent Spanish and abseiling over the balcony.

That’s all from the sports desk, boys and girls. If you want that recipe, email me. And if you kiss a pig, don’t do it French.

(Author’s note: This story was first published in FHM Romania, August 2009)

The hospital smelled of faeces and disinfectant. Skinny patients played cards under cracked windows as flies buzzed the peeling walls. A woman doused broken tiles with a ragged mop, singing a sweet melody in a desperate place. Father Frank wore a faded pink robe and sat on his rickety bed, legs dangling like brown twigs.

“An interview?” he asked, smiling. His French was cute, girlish. Long eyelashes fluttered as he spoke. He was about sixty, small and skeletal. Big eyes dominated a sharp face. His head resembled a walnut.

“Research,” I replied, opening my notebook, pulling a pencil, “Given your reputation?”

He smiled again. A bloodstained dressing clung to his shin, secured by blue tape.

“An ulcer,“ he explained. “Too much contact with Satan.”

According to my sources, Father Frank was diabetic. His followers provided money for medicine. A beautiful Congolese teenage girl sat nearby, staring at us. I told Father Frank I was researching demonic possession, the so-called ‘child witches’ for which Kinshasa was now infamous. At least 20,000 were sleeping rough, every night. Some tortured in the name of Jesus. He listened carefully.

“Easy to spot one when you know,” he replied. A lizard clung to a wall as if listening, its beady black eyes shining like caviar. “They wet the bed,” continued Father Frank, “They steal, resent authority. Their eyes are dreamy. Their belly button glows in the dark.”

I stopped writing to ask a question.

“I used to steal cigarettes, argue with my parents. Was I a child witch?”

Father Frank stroked his chin, watching.

“You’re smart. But Satan is smarter. It takes a religious man to see the perfidité within!”

“And then what?”

“I am guided by a higher authority,” he replied, pointing a bony finger upwards.

ET Call Home.

“Usually I open the belly button, to release the demon. I use my fingers, then scissors.”

“Doesn’t that hurt the kid?”

Suspicion flickered cross his leathery face. Silence.

“Did you study, Father? Were you ordained?”

“I had a vision and started a Church. I have many followers. Perhaps I save souls. But I fail more often than I succeed.” He pointed at the girl. “For example, she is still possessed. Would you like to see me exorcise her demon?”

“Yes, please, Father Frank.”

He pulled on a tatty white cassock and a red scarf with a yellow cross. He said the girl had wanted to join her sister in Belgium for work. But their dead mother had conspired with Satan to block her visa.

“Furthermore, he now resides in her soul.”

He laid a hand on her shoulder. She arched her back with a sexy moan. His eyes lit up.

“Our third exorcism. But perhaps today?” He closed his eyes, singing: Jesus, Hallelujah. Suddenly, he yelled at her.

“Satan, are you present?”

The girl sat up as if electrocuted.

“Yes,” she replied, with a squeaky voice.

Father Frank gripped her arm.

“And why do you block this girl’s ambition?”

She poked her tongue like a snake, eyes rolling.

“Antwerp is costly! She should stay here in Kinshasa! Her sister makes false promises!”

After a few questions, Father Frank turned to me.

“Do you wish to commune?”

“Pardon?”

“With Satan.”

I leaned forward, wondering what to ask the Prince of Darkness.

“Bonjour, Satan.”

“Bonjour Monsieur,” squeaked the girl, chewing air, squirming like a sweaty babe on MTV, straining inside her tight dress. The Devil has all the best tunes.

“Satan, how long will you stay?” I asked.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On me.”

Father Frank shrugged: Negotiable.

“Why don’t you trust her sister?” I asked, playing Devil’s Advocate.

“Belgium is a bad place,” hissed the voice.  “I saw it on television!”

Beelzebub has cable.

“What do you think of Father Frank?” I asked.

“He’s powerful, a Servant of God.”

Father Frank folded his arms in satisfaction. Word is spreading in Hades.

“Goodbye Satan,” I concluded. “Nice talking to you.”

“Enchanté, Monsieur,” said the squeaky voice. The girl seemed relaxed now. Until Father Frank grabbed her braided hair.

“By the power of Jesus, leave!”

“No!” she howled, writhing. A button popped open. Father Frank slapped her head, left and right. He grabbed her throat. No more Mister Nice Guy.

“Satan, do you acknowledge Christ?”

She finally gargled her submission.

“Yes!”

Her lifted her up, by her hair. “Relinquish! By the power of Jesus, I cast you out!”

He pushed her backwards, hard. The canvas chair buckled as she fell to the floor, with tears on her face. Father Frank turned away.

“It is over.”

After a moment, the sexy young She-Devil clambered to her feet and looked around, as if puzzled. She tidied her dress, fastened her button and gave me a dignified, superior look. That’s All, Folks.

”She remembers nothing,” said Father Frank, relaxing on a pillow. “Excuse me, I must rest before my medication.”

I slipped him a few ragged banknotes. “For your pills, thank you.”

Father Frank nodded graciously. I turned to leave. Behind us the other patients were kneeling in rows, watching wide-eyed, their hands clasped together as if containing rare butterflies.

(First published in FHM Sept 2008, by Sanoma Hearst, Romania. Photo by Kim Gjerstad)