Her surprise is muted, if only because they do have this great unsettling mystery to unravel at their feet--she wishes she could get excited about this kind of thing like she used to, and maybe it'll come back, but now all she feels is trepidation. Most people don't recognize her surname. Turkish Assyrians are sort of a minority in a minority, and although she's only one fourth, it's enough to make her feel some loyalty, even if her predominant identification is with her Kurdish ancestors.
"That's right. Hardly anyone recognizes it," she says, seeming a bit pleased he did. "I'm mostly Kurdish, though. You don't sound German."
That's not a direct calling-out, precisely, but she figures she ought to note for the record she can tell he's from somewhere in the vicinity of her people, because who outside of it would even know that? Maybe some anthropologists, that's it. She climbs up the steps to the house they're heading toward, hesitating at the door.
"Here goes nothing," she says, and steps inside.
What she finds is not exactly heartening new evidence.
Every square inch of the foyer's walls has been decorated, painstakingly, with what looks like pencil, then charcoal, then something flaking and red, possibly now-dried blood. The decoration is repetitive and constant, comprised of dozens of intricate spirals, each one a disturbingly perfect replica of the other. Most of the furniture in the narrow, already-sparse student's house has been pushed to one corner to make room for accessing the walls. Lea turns to look at Wolfgang over her shoulder, stopped at the end of the slender foyer, just before it leads into the living room.
no subject
"That's right. Hardly anyone recognizes it," she says, seeming a bit pleased he did. "I'm mostly Kurdish, though. You don't sound German."
That's not a direct calling-out, precisely, but she figures she ought to note for the record she can tell he's from somewhere in the vicinity of her people, because who outside of it would even know that? Maybe some anthropologists, that's it. She climbs up the steps to the house they're heading toward, hesitating at the door.
"Here goes nothing," she says, and steps inside.
What she finds is not exactly heartening new evidence.
Every square inch of the foyer's walls has been decorated, painstakingly, with what looks like pencil, then charcoal, then something flaking and red, possibly now-dried blood. The decoration is repetitive and constant, comprised of dozens of intricate spirals, each one a disturbingly perfect replica of the other. Most of the furniture in the narrow, already-sparse student's house has been pushed to one corner to make room for accessing the walls. Lea turns to look at Wolfgang over her shoulder, stopped at the end of the slender foyer, just before it leads into the living room.
The entire first floor is like this.