Conversations are to be avoided at all costs. Other people’s loneliness is not yours. That’s what Walther used to say. Forty-­seven years in the postal service and only off sick once. Renal colic. Two days in bed with compresses and thistle tea, then back on his bike again. Later, he showed the youngsters the rounds. Oversaw the expansion to two postal districts, then four. Four neighbourhoods, four postmen, one stand-­in. If you’ve got a problem, ask Walther. He’ll know. If he doesn’t know, it means there isn’t a problem. Then one day, his heart. Keeled over on his way to the office, right outside Dürrstrasse 7, the house with the foreign travel brochures.

Leberstrasse. Greinerplatz. The Golden Moon stands in its own shadow, as if it swallows the sunlight. In front, on the pavement, a half-­empty wine glass with a cigarette butt. Three or four people still inside. The landlord lives at the back of the pub and refuses to give up.

Turning off Greinerplatz into Halbgasse. Gleimstrasse. Wernerstrasse. New houses on old foundations, like crowns on broken teeth. The blind windows of number seven. Never a soul to be seen, yet still the letters keep coming, small envelopes with pale blue handwriting. In front, the big construction pit where an excavator has lain for years, sunk, rusting, bucket pointed at the sky. No excavator holds its bucket up high after the end of the working day. This one does. The cherry tree outside number nine, and, barely discernible in the cherry tree’s shadow: Herr Rudolf. Sitting there, mottled hands in his lap, eyes swollen and red. It’s nice out here. Fresh air; can’t complain. This tree’s an old cripple, but it still has the juiciest cherries. Almost black already, and hardly any maggots. Want some? There’s the basket. Need eating before the pests get them. We can’t keep anything that grows, can we?