I've no time and no money, I tell W. on the phone. Why would I need time?, says W. What would I do with it? What great work would I realise? Now, no money, that's more serious. He's poor himself, W. says. He's living on toast, he says, nothing but toast.
But with my appetite, he sees the problem. He knows how upset I get when I don't eat. In fact, he knows that my appetite is greatest when I am upset. 'You're at your worst'. For his part, W. enjoys his penury. His life is being stripped down to its barest dimensions, he says. Soon it will just be W., a room and his books on Messianism.
How are my studies in Messianism?, W. wonders. What have I learned? What am I reading? It's the most unlikely of subjects for me, W. says. It requires the deepest learning and the greatest loftiness of thought. And what do I bring to the study of Messianism? The greatest absence of learning and the greatest triviality of thought. What do I know of revelation? What of the great tradition of Messianism across all three of the religions of the Book?
I'm obsessed with celebrity gossip for one thing, W. says. And I'm lazy, lazy beyond all belief. And I'm shameless. There's no sense of guilt in me, despite everything. No desire to repent, despite everything I've done.
The Messiah comes when he is least expected, says W. He comes when hope is almost entirely lost, which it is when someone likes you is drawn to write about Messianism. And perhaps that is why my studies are pecularly appropriate in these times of apocalypse, W. muses. Perhaps that's when the Messianic idea will shine most brightly.
The Talmudic teachers were continually asked was whether it was right to force the coming of the Messiah, W. reflects. Should one exacerbate the horrors of the present time? Should one break the law even to the extent of committing apostasy, like Sabbatai Zevi? W. wonders whether it's the apocalypse that's pressing forward in me. Maybe my ignorance and love of celebrity gossip are its attempt to force the coming of the Messiah, but then again, maybe not.
