Author Archives: E

Most things are not dangerous, anymore. The Appalachians were once the highest mountains in the world, the jagged seam between this continent and Africa. Now they are rounded, forested: after the rain, you hike through afternoon light all watery and green. In the evening, you pitch a tent on soft ground, hunt for wood in [...]

The backyard is full of trees just now yellowing, and the trees are full of cicadas with abdomens like drums– and even in the morning, in August, the cicadas sing.

In June, there was the precipice. August began with waiting, and then unfurled. One day I was in the old world, walking the yellow bridge, eating stone fruit at the water’s edge, carrying ivory train tickets tucked inside my notebook. Five days later, I was napping in an airport parking lot with my cellphone on [...]

We ate breakfast early, sharing a plate of salted cucumber and cheese and an egg that Andras boiled while I packed my bag. He asked me to read his favorite Graham Greene novel, and I promised, and he asked me to return, and I promised to try. But you may be in Israel by then, [...]

Today was like autumn, Andras said, cool and dark and damp. We took the old metro through the city, standing together by the doors, speaking above the noise of the rattling carriage. In the synagogue, I looked up through the blue stained glass and looked out into the burial garden, and Andras talked about what [...]

Today in Budapest, a strong, cool wind from the northwest. I sit on the warm sandstone wall at the edge of the Danube, and I turn my face toward the wind, and I button my cardigan and close my eyes. The Danube gives way to the Sava. As I remember it, the Sava moves slowly [...]

In Budapest, in the kitchen overlooking the alley, Vesna boils coffee on the stove and pours it into glass mugs. I search my memory for the Serbian words for gratitude, and I think about drinking coffee this way in Chicago, in Sremcica, in Ivanjica. Three summers ago, we sat in his grandparents’ house outside Belgrade, [...]

An old Budapest flat filled with books, a high-ceilinged bathroom, a cast-iron tub. I plug the drain and turn the hot water faucet, and the gas heater hisses. I take off my dusty clothes and climb in. My legs are bruised from nights braced against adjacent seats in the bus or on the train. My [...]

There was a long night on a plane diverted through Dakar, then out from West Africa. A day in Paris, an hour watching the sun on the windows of Notre Dame. On the night bus to Munich, the man behind me shared the food his sister had given to him. Two days ago I was [...]

Deep in the unbuilt industrial district of this city, we sit at a terrace bar that shares a wall with an unfinished hotel. We listen to music at a dark table, my friend closing his eyes and shaking his head in his quiet way. I do not know how to describe the music here, the [...]