As far as Regnier is concerned: one day he suddenly disappeared. No one in Paulstadt knew where he’d got to. He hadn’t said goodbye to anyone, and no one saw him leave. He was just gone. I often thought of him. I tried in vain to imagine what sort of person he really was.

Years passed, and I grew old and died. At my funeral the elderflower was in bloom, and a surprising number of people came. Regnier wasn’t among them. He didn’t come because he went before me, and I’ve never forgiven him for that.

Is my bench still there? And the birch tree?

ROBERT SEETHALER was born in Austria and now divides his time between Vienna and Berlin. He is the author of four novels, including The Tobacconist, which has sold more than one million copies in Germany, and A Whole Life, a finalist for the International Booker Prize. He also works as a screenwriter and an actor, most recently in Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth.

CHARLOTTE COLLINS studied English at Cambridge University. She worked as an actor and radio journalist in both Germany and the U.K. before becoming a literary translator. She received the Goethe-Institut’s Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life, which was also a finalist for the International Booker Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. She co-translated the The Eighth Life, the acclaimed novel by Nino Haratischvili, and her other translations include Seethaler’s The Tobacconist and The End of Loneliness by Benedict Wells.