Awake in the Dark
Stories
From "The House on Kronenstrasse"
I.
Christiane. New York City, 1985
In this memory, which has haunted me the whole of my life, I am perhaps two and a half years old, and dressed in a special dress made of maroon velvet and lace. I am playing in a fountain that is ornate -- and dry. The dryness is a striking fact, for until this moment of recollection, I know it only as a fountain that furiously spurts; I am accustomed to leaping away from its spray.
I have virtually no memories of my early years aside from this one, which I attribute to the fact of a wartime childhood.
In the memory I am filled with a distinctive mood I've not known since, and which I can only describe as a feeling of luxury -- not of a trivial, material kind but in the fullness of the word's meaning: safety and ease, the promise of endless comfort, the implicit guarantee that all is right with the world and always will be.
My mother is nearby; I can sense her, if I do not see her. The ... read full excerpt from Awake in the Dark: Stories ebook
