I've just put Maria on the express train for Bremerhaven. I don't dare linger on the station platform to watch her departure. Neither Maria nor I likes to leave the other behind this way--it is almost like making a sacrifice to some minor god of punctual railway timetables. We embraced quietly and parted company, as if only until tomorrow.
Now I'm striding across the waiting room. I bump into somebody and apologize--too late; he's gone. I reach into an inside pocket and coax a single cigarette out of the pack. I discover that I have to buy myself some matches. Taking a deep drag of smoke, I pick up a newspaper, a hedge against the boredom of the long bus ride to come.
Then I must wait while the crowd of passengers, dressed in their autumn clothes, slowly feeds onto the escalator. At last I can make my move and I stand in the file crammed between two damp rubber raincoats. I like to ride escalators. I surrender myself to the pleasure of the cigarette and rise slowly upward, like its smoke. The smooth machinery of the stairs fills me with a sense of confidence. There's no need for conversation, either from above or from below. It's as if the escalator were speaking to me, and my thoughts fall into order: By now, Maria should have reached the city limits; the train should get into Bremerhaven precisely on time. Given a little luck, she's had no difficulties. Schulte-Vogelsang had assured us that we could rely completely on his preparations. And everything would go smoothly on the other side, too. Still, maybe it would have been better if we'd tried it through Switzerland? Perhaps--but everybody has told me how dependable Vogelsang is. He's done the job for lots of people, and it's never failed, they told me. So why should Maria--who really hasn't worked with us very long--be the one to get stuck?
The woman in front of me rubs her eyes and sobs through her nose. Probably she has just seen someone off on a train--but she should have come away from the platform earlier, as I did. The departure of a train can have more meaning than it's humanly possible to bear. Maria has a window seat.
I look behind me and I see hats--a long row of them. People are crowded at the foot of the escalator and, from where I stand, they are only a collection of hats, scarves, various headgear. It does me good not to have to look at the individual prints of human faces--that's why I don't want to look upward to the top of the escalator. But eventually I must turn.
I shouldn't have. Up there, where the hard rubber steps level out and are swallowed back into the mechanism, where, neck after neck, hat after hat, all move off and disperse--up there stand two men. I have no doubt that their earnest, quiet surveillance is meant for me alone.
I can't imagine myself turning around again, let alone pushing my way back down the stairs against the oncoming line of hats. This funny sense of security, this seductive feeling that as long as you live here on this step, you are alive. As long as there is somebody breathing right in front of you and somebody breathing right behind you, no one can thrust in between.
The two men call me by name. They show me their identification. Smiling, they assure me that Maria's train will get to Bremerhaven on time. There will be other gentlemen there to meet her--though they certainly won't be waiting with flowers.
How fitting it is that I've just finished my cigarette. I follow these men.
