Frankfurt halls

Frankfurt in mid-October is a weather system made of badges and carpet. I spent the first morning losing and finding my sense of direction among halls that all pretend to be unique while sharing the same fluorescent fatigue. Publisher meetings stacked themselves into thirty-minute compartments.

I drank water as if it were a professional skill, nodded through translation logistics, and tried to speak about the work without sounding like a brochure. Somewhere around the third espresso I remembered that no one here can tell how carefully you packed your black clothes the night before, only whether you arrive on time and seem vaguely vertical.

The signing hour was both exactly as brief as scheduled and somehow longer than a winter. A modest line, familiar faces mixed with strangers who had traveled with a book in a tote bag, my own handwriting deteriorating in real time. I am always mildly convinced someone will lean in and ask whether I have wandered into the wrong fair. Dry humour helps: I told one editor that my primary research method remains stubborn ignorance followed by correction, and she laughed in the correct place, which I counted as a diplomatic success. Then more carpet, more halls, a panel I attended from the back row so I could leave if my brain filled up.

Evening receptions blur into a study of shoes and white wine held for courage more than pleasure. I talked too much about archives and too little about sleep. Imposter feelings arrived on schedule, wearing their usual coat, and I handled them the way I do at home when the shortwave refuses a clean signal: acknowledge the static, keep listening anyway.

By the last full day my feet had filed a formal complaint and my voice had gone slightly rough at the edges. Still, there is a strange tenderness to watching a book move through other people’s hands in a city that is not yours. I left the halls sore, overstimulated, and oddly loyal to the quiet desk waiting in Bishkek, where the cezve does not require a badge.