like a tour guide. She talked about stereometric form and the absence of ornament as a sign of spiritual force. To my mind the buildings were superficial and uninteresting. In their naive functionalism they were somehow of no particular period. Living isn’t just eating, sleeping, and reading the paper, I said. A living room is first and foremost a place of refuge. It has to offer protection from the elements, the sun, hostile people, and wild animals. Sonia laughed and said, well, I might just as well go to the nearest cave in that case.
We spent the night in a pretty basic hotel. On the staircase there was a vending machine for drinks, and we took a couple of bottles of beer up to our room. The floor in the hallway was linoleum, but the room was carpeted, with thick curtains in the windows, reeking of cigarette smoke. We sat down side by side on the bed, drinking our beer. Suddenly Sonia started laughing. I asked her what the matter was. She said this place was so awful, you had to laugh or cry. And she preferred the former. That night we made love. Sonia was much less inhibited than in Munich, perhaps the ugliness of our surroundings had a liberating effect on her. When I stood by the window later, smoking, she came up to me and took the cigarette from my hand, and had a puff. You’re cute when you smoke, I said, clasping her waist. Kiss me. Once in a blue moon, she said, pressing herself against me.
Sonia insisted on paying for the room, her father had given her money when she graduated. But surely not to keep a fancy man on, I said. Do they even know about me? Sonia hesitated, and I noticed that the subject was difficult for her. I had told my parents about Sonia, albeit in a casual way, and they hadn’t asked me any further questions.
Then my internship began, and now it was me who never had any time. The firm was on the edge of the city, and I rarely got back from work before nine or ten. I was so exhausted then that I didn’t feel like going out afterward. Sonia called me every day, but it didn’t seem to bother her that we only saw each other on weekends.
At the end of the month I had to move out of my bungalow in the Olympic Village. Birgit and Tania were fine with me staying in Sonia’s room until further notice. Before I could offer Sonia my help, she had already carted her things back to her parents’ house and tidied the room. I didn’t have a lot of stuff. A tabletop on two sawhorses, a mattress, and a couple of cardboard boxes full of books and records. I bequeathed the rest of my stuff to the person moving in after me. Rüdiger and Sonia helped me move, then we went for a meal together, and then they took the train back to Lake Starnberg. I had asked her to stay with me, but she wanted to spend her last few days in Germany with her parents. On the eve of her departure we met up one more time. Sonia was nervous and eager to get home. We said good-bye without making any promises. Be good, was all Sonia said as she got into her car. You too, I replied, and waved to her till she turned the corner.
We were a good match, so everyone said, but we both knew that plenty could happen in six months. Sonia had said she didn’t want to commit herself in any way. She was right at the beginning of her career. Maybe she’d stay in Marseilles, or she’d accept an offer to go somewhere else. She would love to work in a big bureau in London or New York. We’ll see, I said. Maybe it’ll be good for us to be separated for a while, Sonia said, and if we’re still together come the spring, well then, so much the better.
Sonia wrote me every week, so regularly that it seemed to me to express a duty rather than a need. She wrote to say she was fine, and she asked when I could visit. I replied that I had a lot on my plate, and wouldn’t be able to get away from Munich very easily. Maybe over the holidays. But she’d be in Starnberg with her parents then, she wrote. I got