Kairos

by Jenny Erpenbeck

And then they add up their birth years, and they make the discovery that their sum is one hundred. Surely no coincidence! A hundred years and we happen to meet. I feel ill, he says, when I think of the odds of us sailing past each other, and never meeting.

We still need you, Eisler had told Brecht. Take good care of yourself, you’re irreplaceable.

How to endure the way that the present trickles down moment by moment and becomes the past?

Ludwig chose the most wretched-looking Christmas tree because he felt sorry for it.

Because everything is avoided that might make one or other of them sad, sadness suddenly comes to occupy a lot of space between them.

How should he manage his finances so that he can get by? Does he have to quit smoking? Or not eat out anymore? With all these constraints on it, what if his life no longer feels like his life anymore?

The stars and a miserable woman, competing for the attention of anyone interested in understanding mysteries.

Has time no physiognomy anymore?