So who is that behind the old man? The plaid jacket and the hat indicate this is a woman, or at least, it seems like that to me.
Granddaughter? Wife? His nurse or assistant? She’s on a tour, and he’s the guide. She’s a lost tourist, and she speaks only Norwegian. He’s Norwegian too, but he’s been in that city (London? Rome? Beijing?) for fifty years. He’s showing her the way to the drugstore so she can get something for her headache.
Your turn.
It’s his sister Liz who wonders why she didn’t just push him off the Leaning Tower when she had the chance. It’s time to go back to the elder hostel for a nap and he’s gotten them totally lost. Are they even still in Pisa?
They aren’t related. He’s a backpacker passing through Madrid, while she’s a local woman on her way to work as a medical transcriptionist for a podiatrist. It is already very hot on that morning and she is shielding her eyes from the blazing heat.
He is Ernest Hemingway and they are in Havana, Cuba. Ernest has just made a pass at her which she cannot understand. She is thinking “Dressed in these old rags and he makes a pass? What is wrong with him?”
A stiff breeze blows across the square and she almost passes out from the smell of alcohol on his breath. Recognition dawns.
“Ah”, she thinks. “it’s that Hemingway fellow. Saints preseve us, I hope he does not write me into one of his novels. He will probably describe my clothes as being even worse than they are. If he gives me any at all.”
He’s intently looking at the bikini-clad babes; his wife is wanting to cover his eyes but can only cover hers. They’ve saved and saved for this vacation; is this what she has to look forward to for the whole damned vacation? They should have stayed home and saved their money and let him go to a few girlie shows. It would have been cheaper.
Alma Durant is a bona fide hat-lover. She’s wearing a particular favourite of hers today on the occasion of the All Saints Church flea market held each spring in the parking lot after the 9 a.m. mass. Oh oh. Harold Dooley, who installed himself in the pew behind hers, about five years ago, just asked her for advice on the wearing of hats. It’s been 5 years of sitting behind her, and this is the first he’s mentioned her clearly superior knowledge of hats. He picked up the first hat he touched at the clothing table, and hasn’t even the wherewithal to arrange the chin straps properly. She can’t believe someone could have sat behind her perfectly arranged hats for so long and not gleaned anything at all. Good grief!
She is his granddaughter, she came to visit New York for the first time and he was to show her all of the amazing sites. While in town, she learns her grandfather is ill and has been trying to take care of him and talk him into going home with her. Of course it’s not working very well and he is still taking care of her.
He is Dr. Albert McCauliff, Bertie to his friends, a cultural anthropologist visiting Calcutta, India. His wife died of cancer three years ago, and since then he has gone on sabattical from his teaching post, throwing himself into field studies to forget his grief. His guide today is Marisha Avinash, the wife of a Calcuttian politician who helped Bertie secure the appropriate visas and permits for his studies. Mrs. Avinash’s husband roped Marisha into playing tour guide for Bertie as he examines the impact of the caste system on developing technologies. She silently curses her husband’s hospitality while shielding her eyes from the blaring sun, trying hard to ignore the stench of the slums through which Bertie is so intent on prowling. She stealthily glances at her watch and vows to make it home in time for tea with her daughters, a much more civilized way to spend the afternoon than her morning’s occupation.
Nadia shields her eyes from the glaring Guatamalan sun as the aura that precedes Nadia’s head-splitting migraine starts. So after only a few minutes in their search for food, brother and sister anthropologists, Aldolfo and Nadia Martinez, are on their way back to the hotel without getting anything to eat. Aldolfo is not only worried about how this will affect their plans for the dig at the old temple, which they are supposed to start in two days, but if he needs to find a doctor for his sister. So many headaches are not normal.
Yes, go on, snap your pictures! I do not care: I will not hide my face! My snivelling daughter in law may try to shield herself from your flashes and cameras, but Angus McGregor – THE McGregor if you don’t mind – hides from no man.
I will tell them in this court, as I have told them before; I did not kill that man, although I would have if I had had the chance! He was a reprehensible villain of the worst kind and I am not sorry he is dead after what he did to my family!
I am here in the city because I have been required to come, and when this sorry business is finished with I will return to my highlands, and do not expect to see me here again. I have no time for this moral desert that the world has become!
No! I do not have any further comments! Now let me pass, and I will attend to what has to be done.