Glass and spring light in Leipzig

Leipzig in March has a particular clarity. The glass hall of the fair throws a pale, even light over the carpets and the stacks, and for a few days the whole place feels like a greenhouse devoted to paper and voices. I walked the aisles in my usual dark clothes, slightly underdressed for the weather and grateful for it, stopping wherever a spine or a snatch of conversation snagged me.

The panel went the way panels do when everyone is slightly tired and genuinely curious: less performance, more thinking aloud. Afterward a few readers stayed to talk, not about rankings or noise, but about the women who slip out of official records and the strange loyalty a novel can owe them. I left with a full notebook and the good fatigue that follows being listened to with care.

Trams carried me back through streets washed in that thin spring light that has not quite decided on warmth. I watched the city slide past and thought about how public a private craft becomes for a weekend, then folds itself away again.

Tonight the hotel room is quiet. The cezve travels poorly, so ordinary coffee will do. Tomorrow the glass hall again, and then the long way home to Bishkek and the desk that knows my worst habits.