I was sitting alone in the evening, watching TV. There was nothing to watch – the only channels I followed were CNN and BBC. I pored over the news – the burning and rioting outside Paris, the swarms of youth and black armies of policemen. From the BBC I turned sometimes to Heimat, which had been going on forever: its ambition appeared to be to rival, in longevity, the his tory it was recording. It was peacetime in Heimat. I stayed with the inexplicable images, of people drinking beer in the sun, of movement inside rooms, interminable conversations. I didn’t know which year it was – there was no ostensible period detail; everything was humdrum, ‘normal’ – 1970; 1980?

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Heimat absorbed me three days into my visit. I still hadn’t seen Berlin – nothing but the station at Uhlandstrasse and the bookstore. And yet I felt drawn – I watched without comprehension, recognising something in bits of each episode.

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Then, two days later, when I was having dinner on the sofa, I caught an oddity switching channels. Shahrukh Khan. It was 9.30: prime time. He was talking in German. There were two of him: one sat at a distance from the other.

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At the end of my third weekly seminar, I was walking towards Dahlem-Dorf station, a fairy-tale building. A woman who’d been sitting in on my classes was with me. She was tall and quiet, but not shy. She was a PhD student in Philology. I asked her if it was a popular subject.

‘Oh yes!’ she said. ‘It’s important in Germany.’ The gable at the road’s end grew larger.

‘I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.’

‘It’s Petra.’

‘Petra!’ I thought of my student days; film societies. ‘The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant!’

‘Sorry?’

‘The Fassbinder film? You know the one I mean?’

She smiled at the footpath.

‘You’ve heard of Fassbinder?’

‘I think so . . .’ she murmured.

We fell silent. I said:

‘Do you know – I came upon a Shahrukh Khan movie the other night. I think it was Veer-Zaara. On TV! Have you heard of him?’

This enlivened and provoked her.

‘Shahrukh Khan’s very popular here!’

‘Really?’

I must have sounded scandalised. She glanced at me with a vigorous nod.

‘Yes. We have a Bollywood night every Friday. Would you like to come?’

‘Bollywood night? What’s that?’

‘We listen to music. We dance a little.’

‘Oh, I see . . . I don’t know . . .’

She laughed and dived into the U-Bahn. Dogged, I took the road going left.

Then began my Faqrul-less days. He wouldn’t pick up calls. I didn’t resent his silence. He’d always felt to me the type who’d retreat, unannounced. He was also the sort who’d reappear, obeying some directive.

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