We were saying goodbye to some relatives, after a visit. D. and S., and B. Then we took a train for the long journey home. In it my dad held forth about the privations of World War II in Europe. He described how restaurants would pick the icy snow off of customers’ hats and coats and serve it to them as sorbet. After eating the customers played cruel games with each other, one of them involving singling people out for whipping with napkins. I had a sense of Nazism infecting the spirit of the people.