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81 " EVERY FEW WEEKS AND SOMETIMES MORE OFTEN THAN THAT, the Benzes would receive in the postbox affixed to the wall outside their front door a notice printed on a half-size sheet of white paper, bordered in a bold black line. They were death announcements. Ein Bestattungsanzeige. The postman delivered them along with the mail whenever a Dietlikon resident died. It was a small-town courtesy, not a typical Swiss practice. "
― Jill Alexander Essbaum , Hausfrau
82 " Primarschule Dorf "
83 " indulged a pair of affable though persistent Zeugen Jehovas who, each month, arrived on her doorstep with a German-language copy of The Watchtower. "
84 " Dietlikon’s small weekly newspaper: Menschlich, offen, modern. Personal. Open. Modern. "
85 " Rosenweg. "
86 " Then Anna and Archie took the number 10 tram from Sternen Oerlikon, "
87 " A measure of narcissism is healthy. But out of balance, what was once appropriate self-confidence becomes grandiose, pathological, and destructive. "
88 " Given any two people in a relationship, one will always love more, the other less. Right? "
89 " Every mask becomes a death mask when you can no longer put it on or take it off at will. When it conforms to the contours of your psychic face. When you mistake the persona you project for your living soul. When you can no more distinguish between the two. "
90 " Grüezi mitenand, "
91 " Is it possible to fall in love over a single look? Anna couldn’t say. But at the behest of a glance tossed casually down upon her, she was made witness, victim, and slave to the culmination of all her mythologies. And every heretofore moment in her life, the ones that mattered and the ones that only seemed to matter, had added up to the sum of this intense instant, this instant alone. "
92 " Anna returned her gaze to the bankers' wives, who huddled into the company of one another. The women were young. Their husbands wore the jewellery of their beauty like elegant wristwatches. "
93 " Bergulme. Elsbeere. Hagebuche. Efeu. Scots elm. Service tree. Hornbeam. "
94 " As fussy as they were about cleanliness and order, the Swiss seemed to Anna to be rather lax about graffiti. "
95 " I have no knack for volition. "
96 " All had been knocked down. She stood in the rubble, ready to rebuild. "
97 " On another she made chitchat with the cashier at the Coop. That was an absolute first. The checker offered a forced, availing smile in return. "
98 " Was fuer ae huere Schweinerei "
99 " and rose from her stool to make a big, bullying point of walking to the scales and weighing them herself. Anna felt scolded and two feet tall. She carried the agitation all the way home and didn’t speak another word of German for the rest of the day. "
100 " I am impressed,” he said. “But it’s not Schwiizerdütsch.” It was a cynical, ungracious comment, but it was true. "