Paper Love: Searching For The Girl My Grandfather Left Behind - Plot & Excerpts
It’s the summer of 2012 and I have an assignment from Travel & Leisure that fills up my days with tours of restaurants and shops, neighborhoods and activities, but in the spaces in between, it also gives me the latitude to search—and think—a bit more, about the city of Valy and Karl. I set out early each morning, to walk. Crossing the plaza in front of the Rathaus, the City Hall, one day, I am overwhelmed by a tremendous feeling of good fortune: it is a privilege to know this city well, to have close friends here, to feel I—if not belong, exactly, that I feel at ease here, despite everything.In the second district, I pause and look out across the Donaukanal toward the U-Bahn station Rossauer Lände; I have photographs of Valy and Karl at this very spot; she is pushing her hair back and smiling into the wind, he is contemplative, their faces smooth, unworried and young.I walk once more to the places she mentions in her letters—Heinestrasse, the Augarten. A Saturday farmers’ market bustles in suddenly hip Karmelitermarkt, and I wander through, sampling produce from vendors.
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