(If you don’t like trees, I have bad news. Earlier this year, Dorothea and I made a pact that I’d come up with a tree photograph for every entry she writes. Then came the Arbor exhibition, and now Dorothea sent in the sequel to her coverage of the Biennale in Venice. The upcoming series is from her summer in Paris and Budapest. The trees are from Central Park. Enjoy. JH)
We return to Paris, to the same flat as last year. There is a distinct pleasure of familiar surrounds: the court yard in click-clack yellow, blue and black; the elevator for a maximum of two persons, doors folding inwards (French engineering) which no amount of skill can close quietly or well. Inside, the window-shutters open with a squawk of metal. The birds of last year are roosting again with the neighbours. Only, I don’t remember the wire barbing upwards from the window-sill and downwards from the eaves. Inside, the place is as we left it. Only, there is one photograph more on the bookshelf—a family portrait—and a reading-light less. How to share the remaining one?