’ +++++ The place was full of all the right people, I’m sure. A cool jazz quartet in a far corner and two open bars, tables of food and the conver...ation — oddly enough — not too loud. An interesting crowd in a woolen-tweedy way, very academic looking sorts, older men, obviously pretty well off by the looks of things, younger women, obviously well endowed in a physical sense, more than a few single and on the prowl. Odd. Very few older women, very few rings on fingers. A couple of the women gave. This is America. In America no woman must give up her child if she does not want. It is not for a father or a husband or the state to decide. It is for the woman to decide.“You have no idea what it’s like there. I spent 15 years with people speaking of me as if I wasn’t there. My father was asked many times why he did not abort me and try for a son or arrange an accident after my gender was obvious. In the small villages there are four times as many men as there are jobs – and as there are. Looking at his son, the father is panicking, shouting for help.A well dressed, attractive, and serious looking woman, in a blue business suit is sitting at a coffee bar reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee.At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the restaurant.Reaching the boy, the woman carefully drops his pants; takes hold of the boy’s’. Wer hat das Tagebuch geschrieben und wann? Wer hat es dem Museum gespendet und in welcher Beziehung standen sie zu mir? Welches Museum möchte nicht ein Originaldokument aus dem 19. Jahrhundert besitzen, und warum könnte ein Tagebuch „weder zur Ausstellung noch zum Studium geeignet sein“?Der beste Ort, um diese Fragen zu beantworte, schien das in Leder gebundene Buch zu sein, das auf meinem Tisch lag, und ich löste mit ziemlicher Aufregung und Neugierde die Riemen und öffnete den Band.Ich war.