Cosmopolitan

Prologue

"What a strange smell" thought Alexander. It seemed to him as if this smell evoked memories that lay far back, memories that had been hidden in the furthest corner of his mind for a long time. Angrily he shook his head. Don't get sentimental, he said to himself.
Oh yes, the time before the war. There it was, dancing in the mist of his mind like a restless ballerina. The ones he had admired as a little boy, back in November 1909, when they stood outside the opera in Paris and and stared up into the faces of the great composers, above all Mozart in the middle, waiting to get in and see a performance of "Swan Lake" or "Cinderella". And each of these spinning mystical creatures looking like Bethee at the train station, waving with her handkerchief.

"Ha, now you are getting sentimental again" he scolted. Instead of thinking of the past, he decided to look out of the window. If one tried hard, one could already see a slight green on the branches of the birch trees.

"I should really surround my brain with a cornea" he thought, at the same moment laughing at the repulsive comparison. "Well, at least I can laugh about my own jokes again. This is progress indeed."

The train stopped. Alexander picked up his luggage and stepped out onto the platform. There, on the other end, in the frozen afternoon sun, he saw the tall and meagre silhouette of his brother who, his hands crossed behind his back, looked stiffly in his direction.
Alexander knew this look. This was exactly the way Travis had stared when their father's coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. Unlike Alexander, Travis had always got along quite well with his father, and his death had affected him more than he would admit.

Travis showed no movement until Alexander stood directly in front of him. Then he raised his hands and for a second Alexander thought he was going to hit him, but instead he hugged him very briefly and firmly.

"Well, here I am again," he said.

"Did you have a pleasant trip?"

"Oh, most pleasant. I met a very nice girl on the train and she was the cutest thing I'd ever seen, until she told me she had a dozen self-shot hares in her suitcase."

"She did not."

Alexander smiled. "No, indeed she did not. She was engaged."

"Which is almost as bad," said Travis. "Come on, let's go. The Marquis of Brentwood is coming for dinner and I would simply hate to keep him waiting."

"Does he bring his wife?" Alexander asked, slightly panicking.

"Now, what do you think? Of course he does!"

"Oh no! Then I have to dance waltzes all evening again!"

They both chuckled and walked over to the large dark blue Rolls Royce that Jeffries, the chauffeur, had respectfully parked in the background.

"Of course I am glad to be back again," Alexander thought. "At least here everything is still the same."

When they had been driving for a while Travis leaned over to him and said quietly, "By the way, Maude Fidget is dead."