Half Past Seven

A small office in a country town in Saxony on a January morning just after half past seven, blue dawn light and ice crystals in fern shapes on the window panes, a dark wooden desk with a green-shaded lamp switched off, on it a small electric heater with a curved copper reflector, its rods fading to a dull red, a candle burning on a saucer, files in plain grey card covers, a woman in a long winter coat and knitted cap seen from directly behind, face turned fully away, holding her hands over the cooling heater, far beyond the window a red steel lattice mast in the haze above snowy roofs.