Actually, I was convinced it wouldn’t happen.

I kept telling myself that Carlo Strenger had suddenly changed his mind. Or died. I know how that sounds, but, after all, he often writes in his books that the fundamental problem of modern culture is the denial of mortality. I’m about to board a plane to Tel Aviv and still no word from him. Before, he was answering my messages in a couple of minutes, or a couple of hours at most. Now there’s silence. It’s Thursday. On Monday, I e-mailed him asking for confirmation of our appointment. On Tuesday, I sent him another e-mail. Then another, plus a couple of text messages begging for a reply, because I already had the tickets, the hotel was booked, and so on. Now I’m at the airport and the worst case scenarios are going through my mind. Why this sudden communication breakdown?

I almost give up and go home – with all this silence, if I knocked on his door tomorrow I would feel almost like a stalker – when suddenly a pithy SMS shows up on my screen: “Interview is on. Looking forward.” What a relief. I board the plane and a couple of hours later I’m in Israel.

The next morning, I go to the house where we’re supposed to meet, but it turns out my information is incomplete. First of all, entrance B is nowhere to be seen. Second of all, a girl I ask for help in dealing with the Hebrew alphabet tells me that the name ‘Strenger’ doesn’t appear on any post box.

And he doesn’t answer the phone.

Well, that’s that, I think after a quarter of an hour. It won’t happen after all. I’m just about to go back to my hotel, when I notice an elderly lady watering flowers on a balcony. So I ask her, without much hope, whether she knows Professor Strenger.

She does, second entrance, top apartment.

I feel relieved again.

But then I’m at the door, I’m ringing the bell, and all I hear is a dog’s barking. He forgot. He won’t answer the door. Once again I lose all hope, and then the doors open. “You must be Tomasz,” Carlo Strenger invites me in, smiling broadly. “Meet Freud,” he adds, pointing to the dog, who barks, but is otherwise very friendly.

Freud will accompany us throughout our conversation, both the man (as a point of reference, for Strenger is, after all, a psychiatrist), and the canine, who wants to be petted the whole time. His owner talks to me spread out on some sort of couch