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trained, through the swinging kitchen door into the dining room. The beef steak, flavors from Australia to the American commissary in Delhi, lie thick, juicy, blotted on the delicately flavored dinner china. Outside the driver in the t-shirt and striped shorts is polishing the car. Nutcracker suite on the hi-fi" Herbert Von Care-on and the Vienna philharmonic." Three large built in the wall wardrobes and two plastics clothes bags in the crowded storage room and assorted trunks, are tight with [ILLEGIBLE: looks like "broaked"] silks, lush fabrics from foreign tours. "Most of my furniture is in storage in Washington. I'm 1000 pounds over what I'm allowed. I have so much stuff I don't know what I have any more." Any flat, available surface is laden with jeweled match box cases, carved cigarette boxes, brass, knickknacks, ceramics, etc. all in reasonable taste. "In Belgrade you always knew your room was bugged, they bug the phone here you can tell when they switch in early in the morning." The bottle of J+ B Scotch is the 2 quart size. She must have been pretty one, red hair, pert and lively... "I had a magician boyfriend my first assignment in India. I danced my way through that tour. Golly every night. The Imperial Gaglords. Delhi was someplace then." She walks a bit stiffly now, is ready to

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return from the Foreign Service in a year. Doesn't care anymore, is taking it easy. Talks about herself, her possessions. Her buying sprees. Three hundred or more potted plants sit along the low railing on the vast roof "I'm going to have lattice-work put all along there. It will be a great place for parties" the thick blue rug on living room floor didn't quite come out the way she expected. "too bright, but it was the only thing big enough to look good in here. I'm going to change the one in the guest room. Wrong color doesn't go with the drapes." As you sit on the pleasant sofa and nibble the yellow salted assorted snacks you could be in Chicago or Kansas City or Westchester or Tacoma. the home culture exported intact in a complete, easy to assemble, but put together with piles of frozen rupees. It's so nice to have just Americans over for dinner, you don't always have to watch what you say."

Delhi July 19, 70

"I confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another." Nabokov p 109 Speak Memory

U.N. estimates world population mid 1969 at 3.552 billion 69 million more than last year. China 740 million India 537 million, Soviet Union 240 million and U.S. 203 million.

Coincidence of pattern is one of the wonders of nature. Speak Memory p 123