RIC J: Cavafy or Kawabata?

C.L. :   Cavafy, because he wrote,

“I will not fear my passions, like a coward;

           I will give my body entirely to pleasure,

           to dreamed-of joys, the most brazen

          erotic desires, the most depraved passions in my blood,

           all without fear.”

RIC J: Have you ever wanted to kill (if yes, who?)

C.L. : Of course – but the answer will depend on whether the death you refer to is the grand or the little one – le grand ou la petite-mort?

RIC J: Eat with your hands or with cutlery?

C.L.: In the middle ages, Catholic men and women wore a chemise cagoule that had strategic holes in them to allow them to have sex with minimum bodily contact. Eating with cutlery is eating with fear of food. I do not fear the senses. I eat with my hands. I want to have maximum contact.

RIC J: Love, with a man or a woman?

C.L.:   Men are incapable of love, that’s why I like introducing them to it.

RIC J: A book you would bring with you to a women’s prison?

C.L.:  A book of witchcraft. I have always wanted to learn how to cast spells. It takes time – I hope I will be in prison for a long time.

RIC J: Salty or Sweet?

C.L.:  This is a philosophical question, I thought we were just having a simple interview.

RIC J: Is there a cause for which it can be worth dying for?

C.L.:  Yes, and only one: Life.

RIC J: Light on or dark?

C.L.: There is enough darkness on earth. Lights on, always.

RIC J: Your fifth reincarnation?

C.L.:   I don’t remember anymore. This is my 14^th.  Memory has faded a little, maybe I am too old for bodies now. But I know that I have been a cat once, and once a vixen. I can tell because I still resemble my past body.

RIC J: If you were a dream, what would it be?

C.L.:  It would be a beautiful woman living in an apartment in Rio writing the most brilliant and the most mystical prose of the 20^th century. The title of the book the woman is writing in this dream would be something strange like The Passion According to G.H. or The Woman Who Killed a Fish.

RIC J: Alchemy or magic?

C.L.: Alchemy, for it actually does what magic merely promises.

RIC J: Hands tied or free? 

C.L.: I like my hands free only for writing. For everything else, hands tied. 

RIC J: In the memory of a Sufi patient, could you please define life in two words? 

C.L.:  Impatient heart.