Zurich in winter is often smothered in fog and low clouds for months on end. Prevailing winds from the north ram the clouds coming in from the Atlantic against the wall of the Alps, and there they stick. Gray day after gray day, in a gray city by a gray lake, split by a gray river. On many of these days a train ride or drive of less than a hundred kilometers will lift one out of the fog into alpine sunlight. Then again, it’s the time of year to get down to work.
So Mary worked. She read reports, she took meetings, she talked to people all over the world about projects, she wrote legislative proposals for stronger national laws governing legal standing for those future people and creatures and things without standing. Every day was full. In the evenings she often went out with Badim and others of the team. They would usually walk down to the Niederdorf, and either cross a bridge and eat at the Zeughauskeller, or stay on their side in the dark alleys around the Grossmünster, and gather around the long table at the back of the Casa Bar.
On this day the sun had broken through the clouds, so they took the tram down to Bürkliplatz and then another one toward Tiefenbrunnen, and ate at Tres Kilos, which they usually did only for birthday parties or other big occasions. But this was a day to celebrate. First sun of the year, February 19; by no means a Zurich record, as Jurgen noted lugubriously. The Swiss like to keep records for these kinds of weather phenomena.
A short day, so that by the time they got to the restaurant, night had long since fallen. The string of chili-shaped lights draping the entryway glowed like spots of fire. Inside someone else was celebrating too, and just as they walked in all the lights went off and a waitress carrying a cake with sparklers sparking off it walked in from the kitchen to the sounds of Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday.” They cheered and sang with the rest, and sat back near the kitchen where they always did if they could. Mary sat next to Estevan and Imeni, and listened to them flirt by bickering. This was getting to be an old routine, but they seemed stuck in it.
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future
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