‘I’d like to show you something,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘The moon has to go in first.’ He turned and pointed at the grey wall of cloud rising up above the town.

‘Looks like it’s going to rain,’ I said.

‘With any luck,’ he said, and took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.

‘How long have you been a smoker?’ I asked him.

‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘Always.’

We lit our cigarettes. The match flared between our faces, and for a moment I felt as if I were beside a camp-fire. Two boys, somewhere out in the wilderness. We smoked and watched the clouds slowly drift in front of the moon.

‘You like her, don’t you?’ Regnier asked suddenly.

‘Who?’

‘Oh, come on . . .’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘We’ve never said more than a few words to each other.’

‘You like her,’ he repeated.

I shrugged. ‘You should look at her hands sometime. They’re so slender and white.’

‘Not the fingernails. They’re dark around the edges, from the soil in the flowerpots.’

‘Yes. So now what?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how these things work. I like her. You like her. There’s nothing more to be said.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Probably not.’

Darkness descended over the fields. It was as if night were falling only now.

‘Here we go,’ said Regnier.

He pointed in the direction of the Paulstadt leisure centre. Barely discernible, its outline rose up out of the flat fields in the distance.

‘I don’t see anything,’ I said.

‘Wait,’ he said.

I stared into the darkness. I heard Regnier shift his weight from one foot to the other, the earth crunching beneath his feet, and I thought of her hands, the dark edges of her fingernails.

‘Now,’ he said.

At first there was nothing to be seen, just a black hill in the black night. But then I saw a light flicker along the lower edge. It was a soft, floating light, and it suddenly seemed to lengthen, describing a shimmering arc in the darkness. At the same moment the hill beneath began to glow. It glowed a delicate, almost translucent blue that swelled and ebbed, like a wave illuminated by the moon. Or like the back of an enormous, breathing beetle. It was a miracle, right there in front of us in the dark. It lasted a few seconds and then it was gone, the glow extinguished.

‘It’s the motorway slip road,’ said Regnier. ‘It’s good around this time of the evening. There’s hardly any traffic. Even four headlamps are too bright. And the sky has to be cloudy. But no rain, or it’s too dark. When it’s like this, it’s just right.’

We waited and watched another three cars, then turned and headed home.

‘We should get out of here someday,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Regnier. ‘We should do that.’

We said goodbye under the old tree on Kernerplatz. I stood for a while and watched him go, then I left in the opposite direction. I strolled down side streets and along the old cemetery wall towards Marktstrasse. The wind had picked up and was whispering in the tops of the trees. I was tired, but remembering what I had seen out in the fields made me feel light and free. The first fat drops began to fall as I turned onto Marktstrasse, and by the time I reached Sophie Breyer’s tobacconist’s it was bucketing down. For a moment, I imagined what it would be like just to stand there in the rain with my face upturned towards the sky. But then I started running, sprinting, because the street was deserted and I wanted to hear my feet splashing in the puddles.