Earlier, at breakfast in the dining room downstairs, you only heard polite good mornings in German. It was a German tourist group of hefty, middle-aged and elderly couples at buffet breakfast, so everyone had a plate full of diced sausage and fried bacon. They eat a lot but aren't worried about putting on weight. The thought crossed your mind that it was unlikely that these women would have been crying out in bed. They were all engrossed in eating and seldom spoke, and their knives and forks made very little noise. At a table by the window was a young woman, sitting opposite an elderly man. They had finished eating and were drinking their coffee. They were not talking, but looking out at the street. The fine weather of yesterday had changed, the ground was wet, but the rain had stopped. They did not appear to be lovers, but were more like a father on vacation with a daughter who was still not financially independent. Probably the woman who was wailing and laughing loudly last night was still fast asleep in her room.
The organ and a choir. The hotel room has stylish old furniture, a heavy oak table, dark-brown carved wardrobes, and a wooden bed with round carved posts. Outside the window, no cars are flashing past the round streetlights. It is Sunday, late morning, and you are waiting for friends to take you to the airport to catch the plane back to Paris some time after noon.
1996 to 1998, in Paris