Article: "My Sweetie" or "Love and Lessons in the City"
First written in the Nineties

Earlier this afternoon, Mia and I were walking to French lessons, following a lunch at Verena's. I guess I was in a fairly good mood myself, and I must have been more open to things outside myself than I usually am. Normally, I think, in running from one place to another, I just don't notice what's happening around me, or at least, I am so seldomly transported into another world as I was today.

I heard a man, standing across the road from the prison, yelling over the wall into the window of the room where, presumably, his girlfriend was staying.

"Kopf hoch, meine suesse Maus," said the man, "ich bin froh, dass ich Dich habe."

["Hold your head high, my sweet mouse," "I am happy to have you."]

Then, the somewhat more vulgarized tongue of the woman returned the compliment with the words: "Ich bin auch froh, dass ich Dich habe, Schatz."

["I'm also happy to have you, Treasure."]

The conversation between the two continued for a while as I and my daughter walked across the road. Since the situation intrigued me (I found it hard to imagine that anyone staying in that place could look like anyone's "suesse Maus"), I pricked my ears all the more and decided to throw a glance at the man standing on the sidewalk.

If you want me to be technical, the person in question turned out to be more of a boy than a man: he was probably no more than 22 years of age. He was well-dressed (or at least, expensively dressed, in his suede jacket, new blue jeans and leather boots); he had nice and kept brown hair; he carried a backpack slung leisurely over the right shoulder, and had a yet very young and innocent face. In any other situation, I would have taken him for a typical college student. The boy's accent, although he did not speak what you would call "hoch Deutsch" ["high German"] was not very thick, and even if he had grown up on a farm, he had probably studied, and had been in the city of Heidelberg for some time.

More words such as "Schatz" and "Goldstuck" drifted through the air as we made our way along, and I couldn't resist smiling. I imagined how the thought of her man must have pleased and warmed the woman, and how it would continue to do so, especially in the damp, nighttime hours in that dark cell. She would feel after his visits, perhaps, that someday, she had some kind of a life to return to.

My daughter asked me why I kept smiling, and I told her:

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