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“small gardens,” it led to the local cemetery. The winter landscape was unchanging, and would remain so at least until the Christmas and New Year holidays were over. Every morning after breakfast we read a book, prepared something simple to eat, and watched some monotonous TV program; at night we listened to the radio, and three times a day we took Benny out for a short walk. In between that, we passed the time by doing the laundry, cleaning the bathroom, and taking the tram into town if there was something we needed to buy. Switching over to MTV, I stretched out on the bed, a wave of drowsiness surging over me. I’d barely gotten any sleep the previous night, having arrived at Joachim’s in the early hours of dawn after a six-hour train journey. I’d flown into an airport outside Berlin, which meant two train changes with all my luggage, though Joachim had met me at the airport and helped carry the heavy bags. Arriving back in the city after a three-year absence, the first thing I saw was the night bus-stop near the station, in the falling snow. I sat on a suitcase while we waited for the bus; they came every half hour. The snow was falling heavily, too heavy for an umbrella or hat to be of much use. The roads had completelyiced over because of the sudden drop in temperature. The train had been delayed by around two hours and after catching the bus we had to change again to take the tram. It was the Christmas holidays, and on top of it being late at night the snow was really coming down, so there were barely any passing cars even on the main road. The first thing that struck me was how unimaginably cold the bus stop was. That infinite, embalmed silence, the frozen torpor of the season, compounded by the extreme cold, pincered the heart in a viselike grip. Snow, rain, agonizing cold, the blank sky, the air heavy as if weighted down. Even when we got back to Joachim’s and got into bed the cold still did not completely dissipate. The sound of the wind continued until morning, and until the sun trembled over the rim of the horizon, rising as cold as the thin layer of ice that rimmed the outside of the window, I couldn’t shake myself free from the memory of the airplane’s narrow seat, the continuous roaring of the engine, the vibration of the train as it rattled over the tracks. And so of course I was incredibly tired, and just as I was thinking to myself how tired I was, I fell asleep.
    When I woke from sleep I was at a loss to say where I was. The room was so dark I assumed it was the middle of the night. It was completely silent, the curtains were drawn, and there was no sign of either Joachim or Benny. It had been a dreamless sleep. The only source of illumination was the light from the TV, showing a live broadcast of a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic. Karajan’s face appeared on the screen. Only when I looked at the hands of the clock on the bedside table did I realize that I’d only slept for three hours. It was unusually dark for daytime; when I opened the curtains I saw that the whole city lay overshadowed by black clouds, from which the snow had slowly started to fall. The Berlin Phil was doing Rossini’s William Tell Overture. Perhaps Joachim had changed the channel and left it on when he wentout. Unfortunately, it was almost at the final movement, and after a brief commercial the program continued with Ravel’s Boléro. I wasn’t fond of the Boléro. It was a shame I hadn’t woken up a little earlier, when the William Tell Overture was still on. I must have slept in an awkward position, because my right arm and my entire torso were tingling. I lay there in the bed and stared at the old ceiling. Originally there’d been an electric bulb suspended from it, but now all that was left was a short wire. Joachim had thought the light made the room too bright, so he’d pulled it out. As a replacement, he’d put a desk lamp on the small table