For Echo Is The Soul Of The

Before The Real City Could Be Seen It Had To Be Imagined, The Way Rumours And Tall Tales Were A Kind Of Charting.

I Believe In Such Cartography – To Be Marked By Nature, Not Just Label Ourselves On A Map Like The Names Of Rich Men And Women On Buildings. We Are Communal Histories, Communal Books. ... All I Desired Was To Walk Upon Such An Earth That Had No Maps.

Every Immigrant Family, It Seems, Has Someone Who Does Not Belong In The New Country They Have Come To. It Feels Like Permanent Exile To That One Brother Or Wife Who Cannot Stand A Silent Fate In Boston Or London Or Melbourne. I’ve Met Many Who Remain Haunted By The Persistent Ghost Of An Earlier Place.

He Walked Out Of The Hospital Into The Sun, Into Open Air For The First Time In Months, Out Of The Green-lit Rooms That Lay Like Glass In His Mind. He Stood There Breathing Everything In, The Hurry Of Everyone. First, He Thought, I Need Shoes With Rubber On The Bottom. I Need Gelato.

Between The Kitchen And The Destroyed Chapel A Door Led Into An Oval-shaped Library. The Space Inside Seemed Safe Except For A Large Hole At Portrait Level In The Far Wall, Caused By Mortar-shell Attack On The Villa Two Months Earlier. The Rest Of The Room Had Adapted Itself To This Wound, Accepting The Habits Of Weather, Evening Stars, The Sound Of Birds.