Im Saal: Novelle

In the warm glow of a late‑summer afternoon a family gathers in a spacious hall to celebrate a baptism. Relatives of every age sit together, but the oldest presence is the grandmother, whose memory stretches back farther than any of the younger guests. As the pastor finishes the rite, familiar stories begin to surface, each one threaded through the generations that have filled the room.

The conversations turn gentle, and the hall itself becomes a character—its red‑tinged light fading against ornate plaster and plaster roses. The grandmother, aware of creaking beams and sagging plaster, reflects on the building’s former splendor and the garden that once opened through its doors: a tuxedoed stair, a swing beneath a linden, apricot trees along a mossy wall. Her recollections of the garden’s fragrant mornings and the disciplined patriarch who tended it invite both nostalgia and a quiet worry about the hall’s future.