CHAPTER 17This land was one of the flattest Hubert had ever put his feet on. “It's the flatness of this land that is getting to me,” he wrote in his journal. “Definitely, this land has charm. I like the people. But when I walk around, when I take the bus, I have no sense of getting anywhere. There is no sense of achievement, because the destination always looks like the place you started out from. There are the same telephone poles everywhere, sticking out from flat sidewalks, the same brick houses and dollhouse curtains. There are the same canals crisscrossing the flat land to separate the same tulip fields from the same pieces of pasture sprinkled with the same black cows. God, have I had it!
The idea of visiting Aunt Frieda, which had started out as a project of humanity and goodwill,
