Question

The ferry from the mainland had been cancelled twice that week, so by the time Ilyas reached the island the pension was already closed. He found the landlady, Mrs Brandt, on her porch, shelling peas into a colander as though nothing could be more natural at ten at night. “You are the one who writes,” she said, not as a question. He admitted that he was. “The last one stayed a month and wrote about the weather. Nobody is interested in the weather.” She gave him a key whose tag had been worn smooth and warned him that the stairs “had opinions”. In his room he found a desk placed squarely in front of a window that looked out on a brick wall. He suspected a joke, and was unsure whether it was hers or a previous guest’s. Yet by the end of the first week he had stopped seeing the wall and begun to hear, through it, the radio in the kitchen next door; and he discovered that if he typed only while the weather bulletin was playing, the sentences came more easily. He never told her. The last paragraph contains a gentle irony because Ilyas

Accepted Answer

works best during the subject she finds dull

Answer

dislikes the radio playing in the next room

Answer

begins to write about the brick wall outside

Answer

is unable to write after the first week

The last paragraph contains a gentle irony because Ilyas

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