Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

A Wider Sea

from the mayor and songs accompanied by an organ, with the recitation of poems, a bouquet and gifts. The small afternoon ceremony takes place in the marriage room in the town hall. I feel like a bride and, moved, express my thanks in Hungarian. Between the church towers the sun shines horizontally into the town hall. Such a luminous moment, and only a few houses away fromMother’s pharmacy. Reb Nachman says: Through joy, the spirit becomes sedentary, but through melancholy, it goes into exile. He says: The world is a spinning die. And everything turns. I have arrived where I once was without remembering. I hurry from city hall on the north side of the main square to the library on its east side. I give a reading in the enlarged attic to seventy students from the preparatory school, who then pepper me with all the usual questions. In which language do you feel at home? How do you like your birthplace? Don’t you feel homesick at all? How do you feel when you are writing? I talk about the covertness of language, but don’t draw their attention to the parallel between writing and wailing. Their faces glow and even their German teacher (in an elegant little hat) looks at me expectantly. I have come from far away to test my affinity to this place. Pani K., the cheerful mistress of the building, leads me through the library as through hedgerows of shrubbery. On the paper tablecloth covered with bottles and finger

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