By Claire-Louise Bennett, from a manuscript in progress. Her first book, Pond, was published by Riverhead Books in July.
The idea of going out to dinner came about very suddenly — I wanted schnitzel — after having had absolutely no feelings at all toward it going out to eat schnitzel suddenly seemed vital, inescapable in fact, as if preordained. Lord knows what the urgency and its fancy consisted of, I’d had schnitzel before, of course, on several notable occasions in fact. The first time was many many years ago in a place called Eigg or Bugge, just outside Bamberg, which itself…