The Böll Professor’s apartment is an oasis. Grunewald approaches. Like my shoes, the apartment is impermeable.

•

Birgit calls.

‘Have you seen Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham?’ I think I’ve heard of it, I say.

‘You think you’ve heard of it! Where have you been all these years?’

She tells me it’s a favourite film as if that were a category whose meaning is universal. Does she have a taste in irony? Auburn hair; this?

‘I have a DVD player,’ I say, quailing at the thought of being imprisoned for three hours with Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham.

‘Let me see if I can find my copy,’ she intervenes.

I tell her I’ve joined a DVD library at Adenauerplatz.

‘I think I can get hold of it.’

•

She’ll be in Dahlem tomorrow. I say exactly where the Böll Professor’s flat is, put my key under the mat. When I come back with the video, it’s dark. I step into snow again.

•

She’s on the sofa, clearly at home. She’s taken her shoes off – right leg crossed, foot on sofa. The rest of her is unaware of the foot and turned marginally to me.

‘Did you get the video?’

She’s increasingly direct. Already addressing me as hunter-gatherer.

‘Do you want to watch the film or eat first?’

‘We can eat and watch.’

I have Indian takeaway for the evening: aubergine, daal, rice; chicken for me. We swirl food on our plates in the film’s first fifteen minutes. Aubergine stains rice while daal leaks in several directions. Soon – I’ve yet to see Birgit not hungry – there’s nothing on the plate but stains.

‘What is it about this movie that appeals?’

It’s as if I’m on a long flight, and am curious about what I’m doing.

‘I think what we’ – ‘we’ I infer as ‘Germans’ – ‘love about Bollywood is the importance of family. It speaks to us. We’ve lost our sense of family. We’re alone.’ She moves one leg down, the other up. She smiles whenever Kareena Kapoor struts into the frame as she does when relating oddities in her day.

I don’t dismiss the words. Cliché is often the strongest way to convey a truth.

‘Where are you from? Did you grow up in Berlin?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘In a village near Hannover. You wouldn’t have heard of it. It’s by a river.’ She smiles. ‘I’m glad to be away.’

I envision her childhood. Whenever I focus, it’s the same music and set of expressions. The film allows me back in. It’s open house.

•

She goes to the bathroom. For a long time. The Böll Professor’s bathroom is a different country – she may find she’s in thrall and want to linger.

Back in the drawing room, she says:

‘It’s late.’

Barefoot, shorn.

‘Can I stay the night?’