Down the street was the Goethe Institute. Passing it, my heart gladdened for a couple of seconds because it made me think of home. That is, my temporary home in Leipzig. When I lived in Certaldo, Italy, I took a train from Paris to Florence by way of Geneva. Hearing Italian spoken at the Geneva train station, I also cheered up because I knew home was getting closer, and I would be there soon.
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Home.
Long ago home was a network of very special attachments. But several decades and changes of place had blurred those to a mere fog of sentiment. In January of 1976 home was just some specific spot, and I arrived there at 2AM on a Wednesday morning. 240 miles north of Baghdad Mosul lies on the plain south of the mountains which form the first real feature distinguishing Kurdistan from the northern outskirts of the cradle of civilization. I walked the final 3 miles from the station to just beyond the University. On the way I passed Jonah's tomb and beyond that what once had been Nineveh, then later had been the wreckage of Nineveh, and finally, mute and defeated in the stillness, was even less than that. From Nineveh I could almost see the University. Following his miraculous escape from the belly of a fish Jonah preached to the Ninevites. I resolved that, in the land where algebra was born, I would teach the impossibility of rule and compass angle trisection. I would preach to the Ninevites. As with Jonah it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t understand.
Home now is but a forlorn wish.
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