Page 2 - Ausländer

The girls skirted the sandy recess that
encompassed the dry concrete basin. The basin
was a large shallow pool in the summer. Now it
was littered with leaves that hugged its edges. The
drop to the sandy margin, some twenty metres
wide, was about a metre and a half and hinted at
a larger pool in the past. Embedded in this margin
were children's swings, slides, climbing frames and
other apparatus.

The bleakness dispelled all traces of summer
and any memory of children's voices. Indeed they
appeared to be the only ones in the entire park,
except for the man they had seen from afar at the
start of their run. He had been walking his dog.

In the high summer the park teemed with
100,000 people picnicking, barbecuing, playing
football, Frisbee or simply strolling or lounging.
Parking too was nigh on impossible. Today, at this
time and time of year, they had chosen a prime
spot from which to start their jog on
Hindenburgstrasse, the road that split the park.

The sky was clear, the sun ornamental. The
path, normally clay, was hard like marble. At a
walk the crisp air was bearably cold, but when
they were jogging or the wind gusted it stung and

Page 2