TE20 Migrant Mosaics

Matthias Nawrat

Her short grey hair seemed as light as feathers. At that moment, I had the impression of something very lively revealing itself in her features, the intelligence of generations of professors and scholars. It turned out she came from Opole, like I did.

I haven’t been back there for a long time, though, she said.

We spoke for awhile about different streets in the city. I described to her where I had lived as a child. I told her, too, that many of the old German buildings around the town hall square and on the canal had been renovated and painted pastel colours and that there were new paths along the River Oder with sports equipment installed for the town’s residents to improve public health, financed by EU grants.

That sounds like a good idea, she said.

In answer to her question of what I did for a living, I told her I was a writer and had published three short-story collections.

A writer, she said. Interesting. Then you must know a lot about architecture.

Not really, I said.

(…)

Before I left her flat, she handed me an aluminium-wrapped parcel which, when I pressed it with my thumbs, gave way in a conspicuously rubbery manner.

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