The worst was the first half year in the New York suburb, on the other side of the Hudson River. The days spent on those stones with the blacks who hated the whites, the whites who, with hate, turned away from the blacks. On Sundays he was able to meet with some old war cronies, who would then stuff themselves with sauerkraut and sausages, get drunk and whine about the past. But nothing could be changed any more. So he stopped meeting them. He started looking for cheap land in some remote out-of-the-way American village. And he found it – the mountainous Vanetten.

He came here for the first time in autumn. Pristine countryside, fawn-coloured fields, mountains clad in purple and gold. A heavy mist, momentarily pierced by the sun. Not a house for miles around. This was the place. He bought land here and started to build a house. Everything would be their own – fall asters, potatoes and black currants in the garden, a piglet in the sty, roosting chickens, two dogs and a cat.

Having fried up two eggs with bacon and brewed some chicory coffee, he feeds Bagar, and then goes out on the small terrace to eat his breakfast. There’s still no-one in the vicinity. Some time after buying his original piece of land, he had bought more, so as not to be disturbed. Across the fields and a corner of the forest the view looks out directly to the mountains. To one side a cluster of firs, which already grew there. He had merely cleared some bushes and tidied up. On the other side stands a gigantic lilac, which he had planted that first spring.

Ceriņi, cerines, plederi, sirināji, sīriņi, Vāczemes kārkli the many names for lilac in Latvian roll off his tongue.

A jumble of words clutter his head, not allowing him to eat his breakfast of eggs and bacon in peace. That language has him grabbed by the short hairs. Asleep or awake.

Later he was lucky enough to get good work. Repairing cars. His bosses understood nothing about engines and were ready to pay for golden hands. Later still he set up a machine shop at home and they came to him then. From time to time he had the good luck to buy an antique car, which he repaired to look like new. Now he can in any given week drive out with three different cars worthy to be museum pieces. They sit right there in the shop.

Once, on Christmas Day, his wife, wrapped in a cloud of gingerbread vapours, entered the workshop and said in German:

“You live under cars …” In German he replied: “I’m coming.”

He only had to tighten that last screw. He turned the screwdriver while in his head words turned round and round: you live, I live – no, I live, he, she lives, you live – no, we live.

“I’m coming. I’m coming,” he shouted twice in German, so that the screw would stop tightening in his head.