ago. There were two men there, a man my
foster fatherтs age with a white
moustache, and an even older
Vietnamese-German man with one leg, who
said nothing the whole time.
The older man looked at me and said in
French, which perhaps he thought I
wouldnтt understand, "This is no place to
bring a little one."
Johann replied in German. "She asks many
questions." He shrugged, and said, "I
wanted to show her."
The other said, still in French, "She
couldnтt understand." Right then I
resolved that I would make myself
understand, whatever it was that they
thought I could not. The man looked at me
critically, taking in, no doubt, my
straight black hair and almond eyes.
"Sheтs not yours, anyway. What is she to
you?"
"She is my daughter," Johann said.
The molecular still was nothing to look
at. It was a room filled with curtains of
black velvet, doubled back and forth,
thousands and thousands of meters of
blackness. "Here it is," Johann said.
"Look well, little Leah, for in all the
world, you will never see such another."
Somewhere there was a fan that pushed air
past the curtains; I could feel it on my
face, cool, damp air moving sluggishly
past. The floor of the room was covered
with white dust, glistening in the
darkness. I reached down to touch it, and
Johann reached out to still my hand. "Not
to touch," he said.
"What is it?" I asked in wonder.
"Canтt you smell it?"
And I could smell it, in fact, I had been
nearly holding my breath to avoid smelling
