The Surprisingly Simple Return to Form

This is Martha Karolina Imogen, Baroness von Schlauch, known as Ayleen B. She is highly intelligent, talented and has a piercing curiosity. Until the age of twenty-two she lived a life of opulence and  privilege in the ancestral castle of the Barons von Schlauch in Pichelswerder. It is not known why (some say she couldn't stand the brass orchestra for which the town is renowned) one day she flew to La Paz, Bolivia. Apparently she wanted to prove that she can thrive in a life of penury in an environment of economic and political instability (rather than opulence and privilege). In La Paz she met, fell in love and married Francisco Gonzales Bernardo (Bernie) Rubin, poet and playwright. Bernie was in equal parts talented, left wing and alcoholic. They had two children Heloise and Abelard. In La Paz two equally fatal forces competed for Bernie's life: Cirrhosis and the secret police. Cirrhosis won.

Ayleen B, now a widow, started a theater to promote contemporary Bolivian Dramaturgy. She named it Teatro Babylonia, after her favorite aunt, but the registration clerk, a recent Greek immigrant, wrote down Teatro Bubulina. The name stuck and the theater became famous. At a recent Sunday brunch, her two kids, now 19 and 20 told her that they will return to Germany as they preferred a life of opulence and privilege. She cursed horribly and threw her coffee at them.