Dear Cyndy,

Racoons! that's what you get for living in the woods
and not capitulating into a condominium in some elegant
gated housing development with paved sidewalks, paved
driveways, paved parking lots, paved eyes and paved brains.
we've had racoons in our Belmont chimney for years. We saw
them at night parading on the ridge of the roof. Two months
ago I fashioned a plumb line of polyester-nylon, weighted 
with a 1 1/4" galvanized iron coupling that I had lying around,
and instructed the roofer to plumb the chimney for racoons before
installing the chimney cap. They happened to be vacationing
somewhere else that day, and now, of course, they can't get
back in.

Even though the calendar says October 1, and it's turned cold
and rainy, the hummingbird refuses to migrate. She still
frequents the feeder from dawn to dusk, and for all I know
at night, when I can't see her.

For reasons I don't understand, my sleep pattern has changed.
Not long ago, I was going to bed at midnight, and waking from
deep sleep at 9 a.m., more or less. Now I awaken at 5 a.m.
with novel thoughts on my mind, turn on and write at the computer
until I fall asleep, go back to bed in midmorning and sleep
until early afternoon, at which I time I resume writing.
It's turned out to be a very productive rhythm, with the
consequence perhaps that my letters may temporarily become
shorter, not necessarily to be lamented. I wish I could direct
you to the Internet to read what I've been writing, but it's
all in German.

Chapter 41 seems to be complete. Its final 1/3 is an account of
the "hearing" before the police commissioner, which I started
to describe to you. On the rationalization that The Island is
"The Island of Lies" Mengs reasons that to survive there or to
escape, lying is unavoidable, and he represents himself to 
Commissioner Brandes as also being an enthusiastic reader of
Nancy Drew books; Mengs invites Brandes to give a lecture on
Nancy Drew at the University, and to become a consultant for
organizing at the University a department of Law Enforcement.
Not unexpectedly all the flattery has changed Brandes' view of
Mengs and Magus; he no longer considers them terrorist suspects,
but wants to discharge them and orders the policemen to escort
them home. Joachim in particular, however, doesn't want to abandon
his friend Katenus, whom the Islanders insist on keeping in jail
because over the years he's made such a nuisance of himself. Mengs
and Magus, accordingly, are not released, but for lack of jail
cells, the three of them are confined in the room used for jury
deliberations, which has the advantage of an adjoining bathroom,
and no less important from the authorities' perspective, the
advantage of being bugged with microphones and video cameras,
because there is on The Island a tradition of routine jury
surveillance. Favored lawyers are permitted to eavesdrop on
jury deliberations so as to be better positioned to blackmail
or to bribe jurors on whose vote the outcome depends. All this,
of course, with the tacit endorsement of the judiciary.

Mengs, Magus and Katenus don't know, but they suspect such chicanery;
and caution each other with the lines which you may or may not know
sung by the prisoners in Beethoven's Fidelio: Sprecht leise, haltet
euch zurueck, wir sind belauscht mit Ohr und Blick. (Speak softly,
hold yourselves back, we're being observed with ear and eye.) Accordingly
their conversations evolves into a sophisticated dialectic, where what is
said is the opposite of what is meant. At the same time they discover that
jail is perhaps the ideal place for discussing what really matters,
(cf Plato's Crito and Phaedo) and to the distress of almost all potential
readers, and especially of any hypothetical publisher, they engage in
lengthy conversations about a variety of subjects, even attracting a
as a literature "buff", the Chief of Police. These seminars, so to speak,
come to an end not so much by the boredom they engender, but by the
arrival of Joachim's girl friend Charlotte, who wonders what's been keeping
him and who secures Joachim's and Jonathan's release by blackmailing the
town authorities, threatening to disclose their traditional systematic
bugging of jury deliberations. Katenus, however, is not released. He remains
in jail awaiting an Appeals Court decision which has been outstanding for
two hundred five days - and counting.

These chapters will take some weeks - months? - to write. But I'll keep
you posted about what happens on the Island. You keep me posted about
the racoons, and give my best to Ned.
Jochen