Trafika Europe 4 - Armenian Rhapsody

matter how unthinkable it was for them having or wanting to take care of a child, there was always someone to keep an eye on me. Max was most often at home. He had founded the commune three years earlier when he moved from Rosenheim to Munich, where he studied at the Art Academy. Skinny and chain-smoking, he sat for hours and hours at his drawing table. He was a comic book artist, a genius in typography, a chronicler of stories that bloomed from his small town loneliness. With only a ruler, a pencil and an ink pen, he managed to perfect an art, which, in Germany, was yet to have a name: the graphic novel. When Max was working in his room, I crawled on to his futon and pressed my head into the pillow, thinking I was hiding. When I was older, I lay on the floor and, tongue stuck out, scribbled on the back of the sheets of paper that he gave me. Later, when I’d learned how to submit hand to will, he gave me discarded drawings from a stash he kept in a drawer for me to colour in. We spent many days together like this, sharing his pencils and our silence, which was broken now and then by the rustling of the bag of prunes, the sound of his lighter clicking into flame and Max’s occasional inquiries as to whether everything was all right.

“Hungry, Lulu?”

“Thirsty?”

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