—The body is discussed in one hundred and fifty-two places in the Bible, death in one hundred and forty-nine, and roses and other forms of plants in two hundred and nineteen instances. I counted them for you. Plants took the longest; there are fig trees and grapevines hidden all over the place. The same applies to fruit and all the types of seeds. He hands me a semi-crumpled sheet of squared paper with three columns of figures, and points at the totals he has double underlined at the bottom of each one, to corroborate his words; these three figures say everything that needs to be known about what lies in my heart. —There you have it in black and white, he says. The body, death, and roses, as if he were presenting some old pulp fiction paperback to me. —You should look into it when you get a chance, he adds. The sheet only contains a load of numbers that have been written with a blunted pencil, no scriptural references or page numbers. Then he says: —Let’s have an espresso and a bun before you go off to the garden.
