Thursday, February 22, 2007

People in My Neighborhood

Her name is Gudrun, and she runs a bed and breakfast some two kilometers from where I live. Born East German, she has called France home for the last thirty years.

"I came before the Wall came down," she told me over coffee and biscuits.

Looking at the cane she held in her right hand and remembering how earlier she had had me run up to the second floor to fetch a forgotten key because she managed the stairs but with difficulty, I went for the obvious; I asked, "So you jumped over from the other side?"

"Ah," the reply came with the appropriate enigmatic smile, "it was much more complicated than that." Gudrun paused for a beat, and after would give me nothing more to satisfy the curiosity. She changed the subject.

Impossible to resist whispers of intrigue and mystery! I have turned village tsismosa, and am determined to get invited another time for coffee.

6 comments:

Arashi-KIshu said...

I am also intrigued! I have a 25 year old Algerian classmate in my German class whose mom's East German. He won't tell me how his mom got there!

decorator said...

oh my...

we have our own local version here... how about boat people from saigon?

Anonymous said...

Well, since she’s that old, you could have asked her--

Kung dumating siya bago na -construct ang Berlin Wall? O baka
spy- defector siya? LOL

Or beware maybe she was once a member of the dreaded Stasi? Hala ka.

Anonymous said...

i love stories of mystery and intrigue! kwento ka when you have more details ha. :-)

Laurel said...

Hi, just wanna say I'm an avid reader of your blog. Your blog and Bryanboy's website are the only ones I visit. Think your great so do keep writing often. Keeping a blog's nice, ain't it? I keep 3 'coz they give me something to occupy my time.

Apol said...

Yes, KATHY and PETITE, abangan ang susunod na kabanata...

GWYN, they still come over?

MITSURU, thanks pala for the Valentine greeting in the last post. Would you believe you're the only one who greeted me??? And, yes, that includes my husband :)

Hey, LAUREL, I used to read Bryanboy a lot, too. He was my guilty pleasure! And thanks a lot for the thumbs up.