Portraits: Florian

The breakfast table was decked with salami, cheeses, fruit and bread, like a bouquet of snacks in a picnic basket. My landlord sat on one end with me on the other. At our sides were her visitors: Heidi and one of her two grandsons, Florian.

Florian, who can’t be older than six, stared at me with large brown eyes, fidgeting in his chair. He’s the kind of cute that makes you want to take him to a playground, push him on the swing and buy him a lollipop.

“Have you ever heard English?” Heidi asked him. He shook his head furiously, without taking his eyes off me, fiddling with the small polished rock on a string around his neck. Heidi asked me to speak it for him.

“What are you guys doing today?” I asked him in English. “Wa,” he said, his eyes growing larger and a smile creeping over his face. “What did you say?” he asked. I translated for him, awaiting an answer to my question, but shyness won Florian over.

“We’re going to see the bats,” Heidi answered for him in English, then explaining in German that there is an exhibit in Berlin where people can see bats in caves. I wanted to go with them, and hang out with the two kids, who speak the kind of German I understand best.

But instead I set off to work. “Have fun with the … ,” I paused and turned to Heidi. “What are they called in German?”

“Fledermäuser.”

“Viel Spaß mit den Fledermäuser,” I repeated, then left Florian and his brother, Fabian, to wrestle near the stairs.