Last year and the year before that and four years ago too we went down on the train to West Germany, to a tiny village lying under the skirts of the old woods. This is where my sweetheart was born. His father was born in the same house and to me the village, the house, […]
My dad has cancer. Our relationship has been so peculiar and, at times, so intolerably painful that my reaction to this news since we heard it a week ago has been mere confusion. He was told on Saturday that he had a “small, operable” prostate cancer. Today he had another barrage of tests and the […]
I must have lived in Berlin too long because it’s screeching hot on a Sunday afternoon, I am exhausted, and somehow the idea has crept into my head that I would like to drink a martini. It won’t dislodge. Opening my parents’ liquor cabinet is a dispiriting experience. It is a small, oval, glass-panelled thing […]