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and adjusted the gadget on the ceiling. Since then we haven’t had any trouble. We can smoke as much as we like and as long as we like.”
    *
    The old people’s home in Breitmoos. Naef: “They could call it ‘Seaview’.” Father: “Why not ‘Cataract’? Or ‘Sclerosis’? Or ‘Doddery’?”
    Breitmoos: broad marsh. Nearby, Lake Turben. “Lake” is a bit of an exaggeration, but on the other hand “pond” would be an understatement. There are even said to have been pile dwellings here, long before Gutenberg. But it was Gutenberg who first made pile dwellings known. Thus everything is connected. Not closely connected, but loosely so. The lake dwellers as ancestors of the Swiss confederates. Now the lake is polluted with fertilizers, the fish population is dwindling, algae are growing. Everything is connected.
    Naef: “No, the house isn’t built on marshland, not as bad as that, in fact we’re quite a bit higher up.”
    A chain of hills right through Breitmoos: a terminal moraine from the year dot.
    Father: “That means that right here, you could open a gravel pit in place of the home and the Löwen.”
    â€œA gravel pit?” asked Naef doubtfully.
    â€œYou’re right,” said Father. “What’s beneath us must be something firmer. Probably conglomerate.”
    *
    Whenever the weather was fine the old people would be sitting outside in front of the house. They turned their heads toward me as I came up the last bit of road on my moped, watched me prop it up on its stand, close the petrol tap, take off my helmet and hang it on the handlebars. Their shrivelled faces followed me as I came up to the house. I greeted them; they nodded back.
    Their chatter drifted up into the room through the open window.
    â€œIf only one could just switch off their simple-minded chit-chat,” said Father.
    Why not let them talk, I answered. Ten years from now and perhaps he’d be babbling too.
    â€œI’d rather die,” he said. “Besides, those people out there are hardly older than me,” he added. “It’s not age that counts. I bet that even when they were young all they talked was nonsense. You don’t have to be old to sit in the sun and talk drivel. What do you say, Naef?”
    Naef answered diplomatically: “People talk as well as they can.”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I mean.”
    Schertenleib, on his bed, burst out laughing. Father made a face.
    Outside they started to sing the old folk song:
Hab’ oft im Kreise der Lieben…
    â€œOh no, not that!” growled Father.
    *
    â€œOh, her…,” they said almost as one man, without even looking over to the front of the building. Father, tapping his temple with his forefinger, “Sometimes she does her dusting for hours on end. Never takes a break.”
    Again the arm with the duster came out of the window; waved around a little; then disappeared back into the dark inside.
    â€œProbably someone gave her too much chocolate. You know, she even dusts bars of chocolate once she’s really got started.”
    Naef smiled and shook his head.
    â€œReally, we have lots of fun here,” said Father. “I often say that this isn’t an old people’s home, it’s a children’s home.”
    Did the woman with the duster bother him, I asked.
    â€œBother me? No, not at all. How could she bother me? Does she bother you, Naef?
    Naef said no.
    â€œYou see!” said Father.
    *
    Another time there was a man doing exercises out on one of the balconies in the new wing. Holding on to the railing with both hands he slowly went into a crouch, slowly straightened up, then crouched down again, slowly. A red tracksuit, a gaunt figure, white hair. Like a film in slow motion he went into a crouch, straightened up – nothing else, the same thing over and over again.
    â€œHe’s an athlete,” commented