Chop Suey

Painting by Edward Hopper (1882–1967). Source: Twitter

A cold front had suddenly blown in from Canada is what they were saying. I threw on a dark wool sweater and the blue stocking cap my mother had knitted with an ochre coloured silk scarf hanging loosely about my neck. I asked myself if maybe I should dress more seductively but instead decided to be conservative. On top of the worsening weather, the war news wasn’t good, a big battle raging someplace in Europe, ‘The Bulge’ the papers were calling it, but why that name I…