Synchronised fires

The log fire in the lobby of Motel One in Leipzig is a simulacrum, a recurring loop of film on a flat screen, in which a large piece of wood near the front always breaks into ash embers at the same sequential moment. What’s more, all rooms in the hotel show the same fire, running off the same loop, while the human lives in each room play out their different dramas.

I was in Leipzig earlier this month for an Erasmus teaching exchange, one of the more enjoyable possibilities of a career in higher education. My hotel was right next door to the church where pro-democracy demonstrations helped bring in the democratic changes of 1989. The students spoke good English, and the faculty were warm and attentive.

I spoke about the lyric essay, a burgeoning form in English literature, and asked whether this was popular in Germany too. One class was put to work responding to the story title, “Things my father or mother never told me”. Afterwards, the thought struck that this standard writing exercise had another dimension in a country where, at one point, half the population might have been spying on the other half. Later, in the November chill, I stocked up on woollen tights and hats, and was struck by the kindness of the shop assistants.