Over tea, I spoke of Birgit.

‘Bir-git,’ he murmured. Names were a key to the person and their world.

Then he came to himself.

‘Why don’t you bring her along to dinner on Friday?’ Expansive and insistent. He believed in nothing as much as making an impression. ‘There is a very good place on Eisenacher Strasse.’ It wasn’t easy for him to say ‘Eisenacher Strasse’. I recalled the respect he commanded in Bangladeshi restaurants.

I didn’t know her well enough to pass on the invitation. Besides, I wasn’t sure she’d want to widen her social circle.

•

‘Would you like to come home for dinner?’ This query was put to me independent of Faqrul’s machinations. It showed up in my inbox a day after my Wittenbergplatz sojourn. ‘Where do you live? I’d love to, of course,’ I wrote after a hiatus. ‘I’m in Ostkreuz,’ she replied that afternoon. ‘You can take the train straight to Warschauer Strasse. It shouldn’t be more than 35 minutes. Thursday?’

•

The train is sturdy, crowded. It’s a wonder it doesn’t fall apart. It rattles. The outside becomes darker station to station, maybe because light goes fast this time of the year. The sky is pale, though. Warschauer Strasse is larger than I thought; my heart sinks as the train slows. But, because it’s a terminus, I’m caught up in its churning, its mass segues. I find myself on a bridge, looking below to where I came from, then ahead to where the bridge continues.

‘You keep going down that bridge,’ says Birgit (I disguise the apprehensiveness in my voice), ‘till you come to a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel you turn left.’

•

It’s extraordinary how close her home is. As soon as I go into the tunnel, the sky disappears. I become confident. I no longer feel lacking in directions – I know my way. In the meantime, lights have come on. I’m soothed by the young people coming towards me, heading out. They’re angelic. Are there any old people in Ostkreuz? When I emerge, the pale sky doesn’t trouble me. It’s cordoned off by buildings.

•

Birgit has something in the pot. She lives on the third floor. I climb up, savouring narrowness.

‘It’s Italian,’ she says, poking her head into the kitchen as if checking on an infant. ‘Vegetarian. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Not at all,’ I lie.

‘I’m not vegan any more. I crossed a threshold one day – enough tofu, I thought.’ She laughs, reminiscing, self-absorbed. Her hair glows. There’s a small piano to the right, bought cheap from a sale. It’s here, but it’s still a bit of another home. At the room’s end is a window. A desk is placed before it. On the left of the window, incumbents, a CD player and speakers. Along the wall, coming out from the shadow, a small sofa. I sit. I find myself sliding.

‘Are you tired?’ she asks, politely concerned. ‘Are you hungry?’