A delicate drizzle: so light that one does not know whether to open one’s umbrella or not. Left, a long wall, grey concrete with water stains shaped like cow’s udders, now and then an ivy twine. Right, a row of houses with curtains never pushed aside. In white-marked fields stand automobiles with lacquer and water streaks. A city bus, No. 108, rolls by; in the third-last row sits a woman about sixty, her pale face shining like a moon out of the dark emptiness of the wagon. The engine is hardly audible; there’s just the soft swish of the rolling rubber tyres. The tyres leave bits and pieces of a watery-oily film on the street. But they disappear quickly, as if it is one’s look itself that causes them to disappear. Now, we hear our steps, a soft sound on the pavement, and the fine rustle of the windcheater, whose sleeves keep brushing lightly against our skin. Our mouth gulps a breath of moist air. No white cloud, really, it’s not cold enough for that. Rather, there’s this subtle dimming of atmosphere that produces a scantly visible blur – quite like the one you see in the space above a candle flame. There’s a smattering of maple leaves and fine twigs in the channel between the pavement and the road: a glimmering-wet heap of lightweight debris that has floated down from the tree behind the wall. Its sweat runs into our eyes, it burns: we get up, and while we splash some water into our face in the bath of our hotel room, the noise from outside slowly wafts into earshot – a honk, clanking and hammering, rattles and squeaks, clattering motor-engines, raised voices and, now and again, the harsh laugh of a gull.
First Publication: 5-6-2013
Modifications: 22-6-2013