Once, in a small round square at the corner of Wellington Street, we came across a bronze soldier with a flat helmet, a modest monument to all of the town’s citizens who had fallen in wartime: sixty-eight men in World War I, one hundred and three in World War II, and sixty in the Korean conflict. I thought of how many wars, campaigns, and losses there had been in the world, such countless numbers of them. Not to mention all the many secret conflicts and battles which few knew about. Cindy and I stood there in silence to pay our respects to the fallen soldiers, and I saluted them according to military custom. The dead do not ask for much, but they do need remembrance and respect.
We had just set off again when we saw Sinchenko on Vidal Street. He was popping in and out of various shops and
