7 June 2000
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Dear Ms. St. Jacques du Pre:

Please excuse the lengthy delay in my response to your delightful letter. I am on tour right now and have only just received your post. You sound like a perfectly charming lady--and such an interesting life, too. Hmm. Indeed....

But enough about that. In direct answer to your question, yes, that is me pictured in the photo you enclosed. That photo, however, was taken some time ago, shortly after my 25th birthday. (My family has a history of going prematurely grey, as you can plainly see.) Today, I look slightly older but am, incidentally, no worse for wear: Mens sana in corpore sano, as they say--or used to, back in the halcyon days of gladiators, crucifixions, and the long-lost vomitorium. I stand approximately 5'5" in my stocking feet, my eyes are icy blue, my hair a rich silver, and then there are other attributes that you might find interesting were you of a mind to enter my bedchamber wearing naught but raw eggs and a well-placed feather boa and order me to wax the floor. These and other items we may discuss at length should you choose to visit me in Memphis.

As a side note, I am intrigued by the fact that you were once a dancer. I, for my part, was once visited in a dream by none other than Nijinsky himself, who warned me to avoid the perdrix a la puree de lentilles at the very restaurant at which I was to dine the next evening. Well, dear lady, I am here to tell you that I did avoid that meal and have successfully lived to tell about it (though, to be fair, I have never heard tell of any client at that particular eating establishment being poisoned unnecessarily). What do you think of that? Rather unsettling, is it not?

I must away now. Someone is speaking to me in thoroughly incomprehensible French--what would they think on the streets of our mutually beloved Paris?--about a lion or a tiger or Isabella Rossellini. Frankly, I can't tell. Please write to Eduardo, my housekeeper, at the Memphis address and ask him to make your travel arrangements. I should be returning in a couple of weeks' time. I do hope so, at any rate; the heat here is thoroughly unChristian.

With the utmost regard for your chastity and virtue, I am

Sincerely yours,
Theodore P. Sturtle

P.S. Below is a photo of my guide, Alberta (pictured, appropriately enough, beneath a warthog crossing sign). Should I turn up missing or mutilated, please urge the authorities to begin their doubtlessly extensive investigation with her. I do believe she tried to poison my yams last eve.