More Than Everything () von Beatrix Ost

A proper young girl defies her family and gambles everything—or more than everything—on love. And she loses.

Before We Begin 6

PART ONE 8

The Sphere 9
A tale of innocence

A Farewell 18
Father’s dream of Africa

The Bird of Paradise Dress 25
How a young former officer became our family’s familiar

My Sister Becomes a Beast 40
Shoving a fiancé off to America

Hammer or Anvil 49
A saffron dress, a marital blessing

PART TWO 56

The Letter-Writer 57
They never doubted my cleverness

Black and White 70
Beauty causes a car accident

Coffeehouse Culture 76
There I saw him for the first time

The Villa 83
We became creatures of the demimonde

The Raft 89
The infallible omnipotent finger into the future

Love 98
A sandstorm of grandiose words

The Mother 112
They were accomplices

Proper Lies 119
Love is a powerful, moody god

The Song of Irresponsibility 130
The listener falls for the storyteller

Chaos Takes Over Order 137
Robust reality holds the thread of happiness

Elixir of Personal Freedom 145
The ampule in the desk drawer

Bob 157
Probably even the sofa is pregnant

Sympathy for the Object of Contempt 164
A kind of Machiavellian footnote

Smoky Language of the Wind 172
She carries a knife of obsidian at her breast


PART THREE 182

The Journey 183
Mankind must sacrifice its treasures to the gods

Ciudad de Mexico 193
Self-dramatization as an art form

Yo creo que es el 198
She called him Ixtla Octli

The Black Bull 209
God of seduction, pain and plaisir

The Castillo 226
Our wedding of Eros and Despair

What I Still Wanted to Say 241

A Thank-You Note 247