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Hans remembers her smile and her breasts, but the way she looks overall, he perhaps doesn’t know. But there she is, turning onto Schiffbauerdamm, and he recognizes her right away. She’s swinging her handbag as she walks, she’s dressed all in black, and as she comes closer, he sees she’s put up her …

— How was I lucky enough to meet you? he said.

They were having dinner amid the liveliness of the crowd, the intimacy within it, the voices all around. He had seen most of them. She was by far the prize of the room.

— We’re going to be friends for a long time, she promised.

Summer mornings…

In those days of desire so deep that it left him empty-legged, he did not behave unnaturally at home—if anything he was more loving and devoted although Lily, especially, was beyond increased devotion. He came home filled with forbidden happiness, forbidden but unrivalled, and embraced his wife and…

She had told them she had a doctor’s appointment and needed extra time for lunch. She told him that. As she entered the hotel elevator he could not help but notice her fine hips. Then, incredibly, they were in the room. His heart was uncontrollable and everything was prepared for them, the sleek fu…

— It’s right up there, he gestured. It doesn’t look like anything, just like another small star. It’s that extra one, by the Pleiades. He knew all the constellations. He had seen them rise in darkness over heartbreaking coasts.

— Come on, you can look at it tomorrow, she said, almost consolingly…