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second mother. So, perhaps, Rosa can be my third mother. It’s all so complicated and I get a headache when I think about it. Anna said not to worry about it. That for now she is my second mother, and when I’m older, I can go and visit my Peruvian family.
    “I guess it would be fun. And I would get to meet my sister. Papa showed me a photo. She’s a little younger than I am and very pretty. Papa told me that in Peru they have llamas. But they’re not in the zoo like here in Zurich. They walk around the fields just like our cows.
    “And Mama, I have a new kitty. It’s a girl. Its fur is black and it has white spots on its forehead and its chest. The paws and its calves are white, so it looks like it’s wearing white boots. It’s a little naughty. It scratches the sofa to sharpen its claws. Anna said that fortunately we don’t have any expensive furniture.
    “We have to give it a name. I wanted to name it ‘Puss in Boots,’ because of its white legs. Anna thinks that’s too long of a name. Perhaps, I’ll call it ‘Dotty,’ because it has white dots. Right now, it’s lying on my bed, all curled up and purring. I wish it could sleep with me but Anna wants it so sleep in the kitchen for a while, so it gets used to the litter box.
    “Yesterday, Papa flew back to Peru. I was sad for a while. But tomorrow we’re going to see Saint Nicholas again. I almost didn’t think about him when Papa was here. But I’m looking forward to my class. When Anna and Saint Nicholas and me are together, it almost feels like a family.
    “I’m tired now, Mama. Bye-bye until tomorrow. Do people sleep in Heaven? I’ll have to ask Anna.”

 
     
     
    PART TWO
     
    Chapter 16
     
    Anna glanced out the window as the train passed by a large dug-up field being prepared for a group of new homes. She wondered once again how the originally small farm villages had grown into towns and agglomerations. The rolling hills and woods in the distance, the occasional homesteads and small pastures were the last remnants of the predominantly agricultural area Anna had grown up in.
    Anna and Karla were on the way to Zurich to Karla’s drawing and painting lesson. It was a twenty-minute ride from their town to the center of the city. When the train arrived in the large modern train station, they got out and let themselves be transported to the main hall on the escalators. The station had been expanded over the past few years into a vast underground shopping mall. It was a tourist’s paradise and people from all over the world perused the great variety of stores.
    Today, Anna and Karla decided to walk to Jonas’s place from the main station. It was a beautiful early fall day in late September. The leaves on the trees along the Bahnhofstrasse were beginning to turn. The shops at the well-known shopping street donned their usual displays of clothes, furs, and jewelry.
    Anna noticed, though, that some of the former splendor and fame of the street was gone. Many of the old established luxury stores had given way to trendy outlets, to drugstores with colorful displays of makeup articles, chain bookstores, and discount clothing stores. There were still a few of the famous jewelry stores and high-end luxury shops left, but the trend was definitely toward outlets that appealed to the younger generation of shoppers.
    Halfway down the Bahnhofstrasse, Anna and Karla turned left and walked across one of the bridges over the Limmat, the main river flowing through Zurich. They headed in the direction of the Bellevue and the Lake of Zurich. Anna saw the sign of the old Grand Café Odeon, which, too, harked back to older times. It had been the hangout of famous expatriate writers, musicians, artists, and politicians during the First and Second World Wars. Such diverse celebrities and thinkers as Einstein, James Joyce, Kafka, Brecht, Arturo Toscanini, Trotsky, and Lenin had gathered there, drinking coffee, discussing art and literature, writing music, and planning