Reinecke smiled, revealing a row of white, even teeth. No doubt he was grateful for someone to show a little interest, and for a break from Alex Foss’s unrelenting chatter. There was something else about this Mr. Reinecke, I realized. All it took was a little animation of the features and it was obvious—the man was clearly a homosexual.

“From Tübingen.”

His accent was cool and pleasant to the ear.

“Ah,” I said. “Tübingen.”

A little silence descended on the room just then. Alex Foss had been occupied with something in the refrigerator, but now I felt the beam of his attention wander across the room to settle, unwelcome, on me. Both men seemed to be waiting for me to respond. As for me, I desperately would have liked to make some remark, but Tübingen … Tübingen … the truth was that I had never heard of it.

“Well,” I said at last. “Welcome.”

Reinecke smiled, perhaps a little more perfunctorily than before. An uncategorizable noise escaped from Alex Foss, halfway between a cough and a hoot. You could always count on him for social delicacy.

I did my best to disregard him, and smiled back at Reinecke. Life is full of moments like this, I would have liked to say, moments of uncertainty, of false steps. Where there isn’t time to say what one really means. It would have been preferable, infinitely preferable, if I could have said something, anything, about the city in question. But there you are, such is life, often we lack the information we need.

“Well,” said Alex Foss, putting his half-full cup in the sink. “Should we hit the road?”

“Nice to meet you,” said Reinecke.

And they were gone.

“I think I’d better be on my way, too,” I said softly to myself, when I could hear their footsteps retreating down the hall. I washed my mug, set it to dry, and made my way out into the hallway, where sunlight streamed through the window and onto the floor in fat lemon-colored slabs. Despite the early hour, I thought, it was shaping up to be a pleasant morning.

Then I came around the corner, and my thoughts came abruptly to a halt. There, only several yards away, were Alex Foss and young Mr. Reinecke, stopped in the middle of the hallway with their backs to me. They had not noticed my arrival, I was sure, and without knowing why exactly, I retreated several steps backward, so that I was hidden from sight behind the corner.

And why, I thought, did you do that? Are you a dog, cringing to avoid a blow? Go ahead, I told myself, go on! But in spite of myself I remained firmly rooted to the spot.

Reinecke spoke first. His voice was too quiet for me to distinguish his exact words, but I could tell by his rising inflection that he had asked a question.