He awakens in sweat-soaked pajamas. Faint gray light—the sun hasn’t risen yet. He searches his room for cool air. All the doors and windows are left wide open at night, and still the temperature never disperses.

He steps out onto the veranda, reaches for the iron railing, grips the metal with his hand. Not cold, but cool.

He stares out at the palm trees, blissfully limp. Instead of New York skyscrapers, instead of German ruins, and instead of Argentinian pampas, he now has these green giants all around him. Hemming him in, keeping watch on all sides. A faint smacking sound when their leaves brush together.

Off in the distance the green river, made of glass this morning. No movement at all on the water. The river reflecting palm groves and banana bushes. There’s nothing else here. Later he’ll dress and ride out to the Geographic Institute. Fly over Alajuela. They’re mapping Costa Rica, piece by piece: roads, rivers, lakes. They’ve acquired new machines, but they lack qualified workers; they roll out the red carpet for people like him. Dörsam wants to come up from Buenos Aires next month. Does it have to do with the report in Stern?

In Buenos Aires the Germans puffed thick cigars that made him feel ill. They talked and talked. About the conspiracy against Germany, about the government in exile that would soon oust the American puppet Adenauer. Sure. It was like a drinking song, they struck it up again and again; no one cared anymore what the words were. He was invited to the chess club and to tea and dancing at Club Union. Most of the time he kept his distance. When the opportunity came to work in San José, he took it.

Dörsam will be here soon enough.