Summary

In "The Muse in Winter," Anja reflects on how she has lived in the city of her now deceased partner, Peter Meisner, for the past 30 years: “now that he is gone, it turns to her an unfamiliar face … she loved him, but she has never loved where he brought her” (25). She has taken the last of his academic papers to the university, and while “the city grieves all of him,” it “has shifted from its half-hearted attempt to woo her to its campaign for revenge” (26). Anja describes herself as “just another rich old white lady carrying her groceries in a neighborhood of rich old white ladies” (26). A young man is waiting on her doorstep; she has received more attention in the media since Pieter’s death and assumes he is one of the actors and film students wanting her autograph (27). She recognizes that he...