Will-o’-the-wisp eyes … he tried thinking about the woman. Her eyes really were so … But suddenly he was no longer interested in her. He pictured old Lustiger, his tired gait, his enthusiastic eating, and thought he could hear him say, “And for that I get to live to sixty?”

Once again Silbermann found himself in front of the train station.

I wanted to look up the address, he remembered. But he was already in line at the ticket counter, with people in front and behind him. Where to? he asked himself.

“One ticket to Munich second class, please.”

He left the counter, ticket in hand, and smiled.

At least I’ll get to know Germany, he thought.

NINE

Silbermann made his way through the cars, stopping for a moment to listen to two soldiers playing accordion in a third-class compartment.

This train should be in Dresden a little before noon, he thought. If I hurry I can make the connection to Leipzig. But why hurry? What’s there for me to do in Leipzig? Ride back to Berlin, then on to Hamburg, and from Hamburg … So why rack my brain about that now? Maybe I’ll change trains en route. The more often I switch, the safer I’ll be. I should have bought a pass for the whole network. As it is I’ve practically become a permanent fixture of the German Reichsbahn.

There was a man on board whose bearing and general demeanor reminded Silbermann of the fat police spy in the train from Dortmund to Aachen. Silbermann had already run into him three times, and when he saw the man once more heading his way, he opened the door to the compartment with the soldiers and took a seat.

“Keeping spirits up I see, eh?” he said in a lively voice.

The two soldiers smiled awkwardly and paused their playing. The man Silbermann wanted to avoid stopped in the corridor, so that Silbermann could see his back through the compartment window.

“That’s right,” Silbermann exclaimed excitedly. “Life in the army. There’s still something wonderful about it.”

He glanced at the man’s back.

“When I was a soldier—you were probably just born—I saw all sorts of things. I was there at Verdun. You have no idea what that was like. Drumfire, that’s something else I tell you!” He laughed.

The two soldiers looked at him, embarrassed. They didn’t know what to make of him or how they should respond.

Silbermann kept his eye on the man’s back.