Roberta Gates

Roberta Gates has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a reader for The Examined Life Journal. Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Confrontation, Fourth Genre, The Louisville Review and Other Voices, in addition to two anthologies.

Number 12 rue Sainte-Catherine

The weather is cold and sleety when André Deutsch picks up his briefcase full of cash and heads for the UGIF office. Mondays are always a trial for him. On those days (allotment days) he has to lug up to 30,000 francs through Old Lyon with its medieval streets and narrow soot-stained buildings. André has never been especially brave (he was a yeshiva boy, an easy target for the roughnecks in his town of Borsec), but walking alone through this part of the city has never been safe. There are simply too many traboules.