JE PROTESTE!
BY PALVASHA H.
Hello from the hole into which I’ve fallen since
you-know-what happened; stuck in the
birdsong-permeated, graveyard-like stillness of the
place where I (sadly) live, with no work-related chance of
escape to the city in the foreseeable future, I’m trying, with
mixed results, to keep it together.
What absolutely didn’t help was my rash decision to get
Girl, Woman, Other and actually attempt to read it. I’ve
finally put it down, long before the end because, frankly,
the thing’s unreadable at the best of times. Hilary Mantel’s
The Mirror and the Light, eagerly awaited and pre-ordered,
if shot through with a strange sense of foreboding on my
part, finally arrived, only to disappoint initially: this great
author of the first two wonderful novels in the Cromwell
trilogy has inexplicably succumbed to the highly-overrated
and by now overused literary device of an opening-scene
death, in this case none other than a tedious description
of Anne Boleyn’s execution (surprise, surprise!). Persisting
with gritted teeth for the next 20 pages, I had to put it
down temporarily. I reserve my final judgement on it until
I’ve figured out a way to deal with its (physical) weight while
lying in bed, as I only enjoy reading novels before going to
sleep.
One day, having crept out of Uetersen wearing a pesky mask
to my favorite café in Hamburg, “as the hart panteth after
the water,” so to speak, I ended up being the only customer
on the premises: patrons were unwilling to give their
contact details, required in case tracing became necessary.
It had also stopped serving American cheesecake. At least I
could see signs of life on the street while sipping my coffee
and reading the newspaper, telling myself to count my
blessings.
Eager in the beginning to participate in webinars organized
by the Berlin foreign-policy think tank of which I’m a
member and whose events I hardly ever get around to
attending in person, I am now tiring of it as well, as indeed
are many others who didn’t spend their lives online before
the virus struck. Just as I’ve had enough of the much-madeof
ample opportunity for self-reflection, a process I didn’t
need a vacuum in my life to undertake.
When will anything remotely like civilized life be possible
again, I wonder, as I sit penning this on a bench in the local
park I’ve cycled to; at this stage I can’t help but admire the
brave Swedes, taking the bull by the horns and carrying
on largely as usual. Who knows, they might well be over
the worst as we sit cowering, dreading a second wave.
Meanwhile, I finally got around to reading The Catcher
in the Rye, and am enjoying it greatly. On that happy and
irreverent note, au revoir!
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