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At the corner bar, I met Elizabeth Taylor having a whisky and smoking. She was leaning on the bar, not looking very happy. “Do you know how many people could eat with just one of your bracelets?” I asked her. “Gad, another preacher,” she said. “I’ve been a convert to several religions , already. What are you suggesting to me now?” she asked as she watched out of the corner of her eye Richard Burton, who, with an obscene, senile gaze, was chasing a little four-year old blonde girl as she ran around the tables like a fox terrier being stalked by a bulldog. “Richard, leave her alone,” she warned him mildly. “He’s hopeless,” she commented to me, “and after buying him so many dolls. You were saying?” “Listen, I’m saying that just one of your gems would satisfy the hunger of many families,” I repeated. “I can’t figure out what religion you are. Muslim? Mormon? Zoroastrian? Idolatrous?” Right then, Richard Burton came up to fill his glass. For a moment, in an identical gesture, she and I simultaneously, nervously scanned the room looking for the little girl. Where was she? With a certain relief, we spotted her under the stairway, sucking her finger with an air of surprise. “She has a flat nose, I’m not interested,” Richard Burton commented as he served himself another whisky. “I could give you a piece of jewellery that I no longer wear,” Elizabeth Taylor proffered. “I’m tired of it and you’ll know how it could be used. But I insist, I will not convert to any new sect.” “Who might the female officiants of this religion be?” Richard Burton asked, now getting interested in the topic. She threw an lemon peel at him, hitting him in his eye, the eye that’s insured for a hundred thousand dollars, and hence a very important eye. —— 81 —— 35 ...

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