I look at this town for the last time. I will never come back; I do not want to die here.
I didn't say good-bye or farewell to anyone. I don't have friends here, much less girlfriends. My many mistresses must be married, housewives, and no longer so young now. It has been a long time since I last recognized one on the street.
My best friend, Peter, who had been my tutor in my youth, died of a heart attack two years ago. His wife, Clara, who had been my first mistress, killed herself a long time before that; she couldn't face the prospect of old age.
I go leaving no one and nothing behind me. I have sold everything. It wasn't much. My furniture was worth nothing, my books even less. I got a little money for my old piano and my few paintings, but that's all.
The train arrives and I get in. I have only one suitcase. I am leaving here with little more than I came with. In this rich and free country I have made no fortune.
I have a tourist visa for my native land, a visa that expires in only one month but that can be renewed. I hope my money will last me for a few months, perhaps a year. I have also stocked up on medications.
Two hours later I arrive at a large metropolitan train station. More waiting, and then I take a night train on which I have reserved a berth-a low berth, since I know that I will not sleep and that I will often get up to smoke a cigarette.
For the time being I am alone.
Slowly the compartment fills. An old woman, two young girls, a man of about my age. I go out into the corridor to smoke and look at the night. At around two I go to bed, and I think I sleep a little.
Early in the morning we come to another large station. Three hours of waiting, which I spend at the canteen, drinking coffee.
This time the train I board is from my native country. There are very few travelers. The seats are uncomfortable, the windows dirty, the ashtrays full, the floor black and sticky, the toilets almost unusable. No restaurant car or even bar car. The travelers take out their lunches and eat, leaving greasy paper and empty bottles on the windowsills or throwing them to the floor under the seats.
Only two of the travelers speak the language of my country. I listen but say nothing.
I look out the window. The countryside changes. We leave the mountains and come onto a plain.
My pains start again.
I swallow my medications without water. I didn't think to bring a drink with me and I am repelled at the thought of asking for one from the other travelers.
I close my eyes. I know that we are approaching the border.
We're there. The train stops, and border guards, customs officials, and policemen come aboard. I am asked for my papers and they are given back to me with a smile. On the other hand, the two travelers who speak the language of the country are lengthily questioned and their bags are searched.
The train moves off; at each stop now, the only people who get on are from this country.
My little town is on another line than that of the trains coming from abroad. I reach the neighboring town, which is farther into the country and bigger. I could make my connection immediately; I am shown the small red train, only three cars long, that leaves for the little town on the hour from Track One. I watch the train pull out.
I leave the station, get into a taxi, and have myself taken to a hotel. I go up to my room, get in bed, and fall asleep immediately.
When I awake I draw the curtains from my window. It faces west. Over there, behind my little town's mountain, the sun is setting.
Every day I go to the station and watch the red train come and leave again. Then I take a walk around town. At night I drink at the hotel bar or at another bar in town, surrounded by strangers.
My room has a balcony. I often sit there now that it's getting warmer. From there I look at an immense sky of the sort I haven't seen for forty years.
I walk farther and farther in the town; I even leave it and go out into the countryside.
I skirt a wall of stone and steel. Behind it a bird sings and I glimpse the bare branches of chestnut trees.
The cast-iron gate is open. I enter and sit down on the big moss-covered boulder just inside the wall. We used to call this boulder the "black" rock even though it was never black but rather gray or blue, and now it is completely green.
I look at the park and recognize it. I also recognize the big building at its far end. The trees may be the same, but the birds probably aren't. So many years have passed. How long does a tree live? A bird? I have no idea.
And how long do people live? Forever, it seems to me, since I see the center's director approaching.
She asks me, "What are you doing here, sir?"
I rise and say, "I am only looking, Madame Director. I spent five years of my childhood here."
"When?"
"About forty years ago. Forty-five. I recognize you. You were the director of the Rehabilitation Center."
She cries out, "What nerve! For your information, sir, I wasn't even born forty years ago, but I can spot perverts from a mile away. Leave or I will call the police."
I go, return to my hotel, and drink with a stranger. I tell him about what happened with the director. "Obviously they're not the same person. The other one must have died."
My new friend raises his glass. "Conclusion: Either directors across the ages all look alike, or they live for a really long time.
Tomorrow I'llgo to your center with you. You can see it again for as long as you want."
The next day the stranger picks me up at the hotel. He drives me to the center. Just before we turn in, at the gate, he says to me, "You know, the old woman you saw, it really was her. Only she's no longer director here or anywhere else. I looked into it. Your center is now an old folk's home."
I say, 'I'd just like to see the dormitory. And the garden."
The walnut tree is there, but it seems stunted to me. It will die soon.
I say to my companion, "It's going to die, my tree."
He says, "Don't be sentimental. Everything dies."
We enter the building. We walk down the corridor and go into the room that belonged to me and so many other children forty years ago. I stop at the threshold and look. Nothing has changed. A dozen beds, white walls, the white beds empty. They always are at this hour.
I take the stairs at a run and open the door to the room where I had been locked up for several days. The bed is still there, in the same place. Perhaps it's even the same bed.
A young woman shows us out and says, "Everything here was bombed out. But it was all rebuilt. Just like before. Everything is like it was before. It's a very beautiful building and it must not be altered."
My pains come back one afternoon. I return to the hotel, take my medications, pack my bags, pay my bill, and call a taxi. 'To the station."
The taxi stops in front of the station and I say to the driver, "Please go buy me a ticket for the town of K. I'm ill."
The driver says, "That's not my job. I brought you to the station. Get out. I want nothing to do with a sick man."
He puts my suitcase down on the sidewalk and opens my door. "Out. Get out of my car."
I hand my wallet with its foreign money to him. "I beg you."
The driver goes into the station building, comes back with my wallet, helps me out of the car, takes me by the arm, carries my suitcase, accompanies me to Track One, and waits for the train with me. When it comes he helps me in, sets my suitcase down beside me, and asks the conductor to look after me.
The train leaves. There is almost no one in the other compartments. Smoking is forbidden.
I close my eyes and my pain fades away. The train stops nearly every ten minutes. I know that I once made this journey forty years ago.