She takes you by the arm and leads you to the bushes by the road, up at the place where the street on the hill joins the much larger road, just by the tower of the hospital, intent on smelling these flowers for which she does not know the name in English.

Look, she says, "Jorgovan! Lovely. What are they called here?"

You don't know.

"So beautiful. Jorgovan. The partisans loved these. So many songs about them, how the "jorgovan" are in blossom and how happy the partisans are.."

*

Memory:

as we stand waiting in the subway one rough looking quasi-homeless guy ahead of us on the platform stoops to pour water from a bottle down into the gulley of the tracks. His friend meanwhile squats on the tiles that bounce florescent light and holds his hands out to wash them in the stream of water, the excess falling, dispersed/redirected and unseen to the ground below.

*

X mentions a couple he met (English/French) who when speaking of their already bilingual kid mentioned that they will soon 'introduce' Chinese. What you mean X asked - you're going to learn Chinese? No, they'll just hire some nanny-type person to speak Chinese to the kid. X looks a bit blank. Chinese, the mother says, it's the economic language of the future. To teach him that - it's a great investment we can make for him.