People assume, when they have not met him, that Augustine is lean and aquiline. They take as their model someone like Julian the Apostate, all nose and clavicle and sunken eyes. If they award him a beard it’s a long one, bushy and narrow so that he can stroke it in contemplation. They imagine a benign theological vulture, cavernous and cadaverous but filled with inner light—but Augustine was born in Thagaste and his mother’s people are brigands, of the respectable sort that are so successful as to become rulers. They hunt on foot and wrestle in the town square every seventh day, and there’s not one of them could not lift a dead gazelle across his back and carry it home. The bishop’s beard is black and cut very sharp. No doubt there’s a little grey in there, now, some salt amongst the pepper. But his arms are still the ones that lifted me and held me on his hips, and his hands would look better on a sea pirate. Picture me, then, slight and very female, standing him down. He uses my old name twice, and twice I correct him. He tries to tell me he is my father in the Church. I remind him that whatever relationship we now have, "father" is surely not an appropriate descriptor.