I’m sitting in the balcony of our new apartment. Ahead, five rows of near-identical sloping roofs are followed by a line of trees: the beginning of a Wald. To my left, two church spires compete to dominate the view,
and in the distance I see vineyards on low hills, clusters of cottages, arcs of electric wires. On the right there’s a three-storied cottage with a rose vine coiled around a pillar that mirrors, turn for turn, the adjacent metallic spiral staircase. Next to the cottage and just above the line of trees, a dipping sun forms a perfect circle of crimson .
We moved in on the 16th of June. The moving company from Brussels had hired a couple of local hands who arrived in the morning at eight-thirty, an hour after the agreed time. One, a tall German with a brusque manner, went about his business swiftly and efficiently; the other, an overweight Turk, walked about lazily (like a Turkey, Wife said), smoking a cigarette every ten minutes, talking about how to do something instead of doing it. A manager, one would have thought, watching him from a distance. The real manager, the Belgian who had hired these folks, seemed to be doing most of the work himself.
Parmanu 