Elza will be handed a mug of hot chocolate; she will be advised to blow on it; and, just to make sure, asked to tie on a bib. A bunch of yellow flowers will be bought for her in the quiet, spring-touched city. Elza will talk and think in one and the same language. Elza will make love twice. In warm, yellow leaves and in a war-destroyed house with a torn-off roof. Over the shoulder of her beloved she will see rain clouds. Beyond them it will be thundering. Thundering without the characteristic evil intent of mankind. It will thunder in order to rain, and rain in order to grow. As nature intended. Without hate, with love. Peace of thunder on earth and good will toward Elza, because a beloved heart is knocking at her door. And then Elza will be alone. Elza will be Elza will be Elza.

Nabuco brakes suddenly. The escalator of thoughts and images stops abruptly in Elza’s head. The idling of the “coach” returns her to reality. Nabuco opens a low gate and, bending down, pushes Elza into a small garden. In the trees, the autumn plenty of bushes and flowers is battling with premonitions of decay. Nabuco guides Elza’s “coach” toward a bench at the furthest corner of the garden. Then she gets ready for a long-practised ritual. She takes the rust-coloured book, still tightly closed to make sure that the yellow flower does not slip out, from Elza. She lays out the serviettes and places the container of food on Elza’s lap. Finally Nabuco settles herself comfortably on the bench opposite Elza.

They begin their meal. The noises of the city beyond the garden wall sound like the foghorn of a boat on a distant sea. A grey squirrel jumps on the bench. She grimaces at the honey grilled salmon, gnaws delicately on the small chunk of white cheese. A pigeon spoiled by urban luxuries lands heavily. A thirsty wind blows over a plastic water glass. A hungry bush throws purple leaves at the diners. The sun snuggles up to the feast like a pregnant cat.

Keeping the same silence, Nabuco removes all vestiges of the meal, tidies and smoothes out the blanket around Elza’s knees, settles herself more comfortably on the bench and opens the rust-coloured little book.

“Sanskrit Lesson,” she says in a practised voice.

In caring for solitary people in Gotham city, Nabuco has come to know dozens of forms of old-age dementia and folly.

She has had to participate in all seriousness in a secret conspiracy against the Arabs, had to carefully help dress a Prima Donna each evening for a non-existent performance, had to make certain to lead a pug-dog to pee in a despised neighbour’s flower bed, be the single audience for one-man song and dance shows, dye grey hair to a fiery red or a pitch black, help announce the end of the world, and paste up slogans against communists, against genocide, for equal rights, against abortion, for celibacy, against, for, against, for …