Across

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I shut my eyes and out of the black letters the city lights took shape. Not the lights of the Old City, but the streetlamps that had just gone on in one of the many housing developments on the southern periphery. The development, consisting of two-story single-family houses, is situated on the big plain at the foot of the Untersberg. Long ago, this plain was a natural reservoir; then it silted up and became swampland — there are still swampy patches and ponds — and today it is known as the Leopoldskroner Moos. At first the streetlamps barely glimmer, then they flare up with a pure white light. By contrast, the arc lamps affixed to concrete poles at the eastern edge of the development, where a turnaround marks the end of the bus line, glow reddish-yellow. Between the bus terminus and the development lies a canal dating from the Middle Ages, fed by the Königsee and by one of the Untersberg brooks; this is the Alm Canal, the “noble Aim.” The development lies right outside the city limits (just before the entrance, there’s a sign with a diagonal line through the word “Salzburg”); it’s called the Oak Tree Colony. All the streets take their names from trees: Alder Street, Willow Street, Birch Street, Fir Street. Only the road coming from the virtually uninhabited peat bog in the west has kept its old name: Cider Press Road. And within the development there are still a few of the old peat cutters’ huts, some fallen into decay, some used for other purposes.

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