Can’t

In an unnamed town lives Nena—surely one of the world’s greatest eccentrics. Water burns her skin, to the extent that she can neither drink it nor bathe in it; she survives on ‘water capsules’ and does her ablutions with a mix of herbs and plants. She speaks several languages and still grieves about the books that were her childhood companions—that her heartless brother had thrown into the river. And she exults in telling stories about her late husband’s affairs—with a laughter that precludes sympathy.