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introduced to the actors, and taken to their box. Then the curtain went up. He didn’t recognize his play. The night during which a terrorist on the run takes refuge with his parents, his sister, and his brother was a travesty onstage, in which everyone made themselves ridiculous, the terrorist with his jargon, the parents with their nervous legalisms, the business-oriented brother and his moralizing sister. But it worked, and after a brief hesitation he allowed himself to go onstage and be applauded with the actors and the director.
    Therese hadn’t read the play and was uninhibited in her delight at his success. This did him good. At dinner after the premiere she kept smiling at him so warmly that despite his normal awkwardness at social events he felt his own inhibitions slip away. He realized that the director hadn’t twisted his play toward travesty, but that that was how the man had understood it. Should he accept the fact that without his own knowledge or intent, he’d written a travesty?
    They went back to the hotel elated. The room had been made up for the night, the curtains closed, and the bed turned down. He ordered a half bottle of champagne, they sat on the sofa in their pajamas, and he popped the cork. There was nothing more to say, but it didn’t matter. There was a CD player on the chest of drawers, along with some CDs, including onewith French accordion music. She snuggled up to him, and he put his arm around her shoulders. Then the CD and the champagne both came to an end. They went to bed, where after a fleeting kiss they turned with their backs to each other.
    The next day they took their time on the homeward journey; they visited the art museum in Baden-Baden, stopped at a wine grower’s, and went to the castle in Heidelberg. Once again it was easy to spend time together. Although the sensation of the phone in the pocket of his trousers made him feel queasy. He’d switched it off—what pile of messages might there be waiting?
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    None, as he discovered back home that evening. Anne, his girlfriend, hadn’t left any word. He couldn’t tell whether any calls from her were among the ones that had come in; maybe the blocked number was hers, maybe not.
    He called her. He was sorry he hadn’t been able to call from the hotel last night, it had been too late. He’d left early this morning, he hadn’t wanted to disturb her so early. Yes, and he had forgotten his cell phone at home. “Did you try to reach me?”
    “It was the first evening for weeks that we haven’t talked to each other. I missed you.”
    “I missed you too.”
    It was true. Last night had felt wrong. The closeness in the shared bed had been too much. It hadn’t corresponded to any inner closeness born of love or desire or even a longing for warmth or fear of loneliness. With Anne, the shared bed would have felt right, as would the night.
    “When are you coming?” Her question was both tender and urgent.
    “I thought you were coming.” Hadn’t she promised to come for a few weeks after the course she was giving at Oxford—weeks that made him both nervous and full of anticipation.
    “Yes, but it’s another month till then.”
    “I’ll try to come the weekend after next.”
    She said nothing. When he was about to ask if there was a problem about the weekend after next, she said, “You sound different.”
    “Different?”
    “Different from before. What’s wrong?”
    “Everything’s fine. Maybe I partied too long after the premiere and got to bed too late and got up too early.”
    “What did you do all day today?”
    “I did research in Heidelberg. I want to set a scene there.” Nothing else occurred to him on the spur of the moment. So now he’d have to write a scene in Heidelberg in his next play.
    She was silent again, before saying, “This isn’t good for us. You there and me here. Why don’t you write here while I’m still teaching?”
    “I can’t, Anne, I can’t. I’m meeting the head of the Konstanz