Scenes fromĀ Berlin
Three figures on a street corner, each a cigarette in hand. Three unkempt columns of vapor drift down the street, following the call of their smoky maker.
The man speaks to his son, who listens with false earnest. His mother only holds the cigarette, letting it smolder. She burns the tobacco incense so that she can also be granted participation in the ceremony of truth-speaking.
The woman puffs unenthusiastically at the paper rod in her fingers. She can never stand holding it long enough for it to burn to the end. Putting it under her foot, she feels fine extinguishing it now that she has been admitted to secret conversations between her husband and son. She is permitted to listen on as they communicate decisions of import. Carrying on as if she may as well not be there, their own cigarettes puffing, the two men light up another.
Reluctantly, the woman follows suit. She pulls another from the pack in her purse. It is the price of entry for the secrets she would otherwise never have a chance to learn.