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bar of chocolate. Eat this before your exam, she said, it’ll settle your nerves.
    Heidi had got to the station much too early. She took a seat in the cafe garden opposite. The chestnuts formed a dense canopy, only a few dim strings of lights lit up the garden and made the night appear still darker. Only one table was in use—there was a group of men of whom she recognized none. Even so, the men greeted her exuberantly, perhaps to make fun of her. One of them was telling dirty jokes, one after the other. He kept his voice down, but in spite of that, or perhaps because of it, Heidi could hear every word. The men kept squinting across at her. She knew she looked younger than she was. When she went to the cinema, she had to show her ID, even now. The waitress came to her table, a girl not much olderthan herself, and said the cafe was closed. Last orders, she said, as she went by the men’s table. She disappeared into the restaurant and came back a few moments later with a couple of bottles of beer. We’re closed, she called to Heidi, who had remained sitting, and sat down with the men herself.
    Heidi stood up to go. As she turned around once more, she saw that one of the men was gazing at her drunkenly. He got clumsily to his feet, and she was a little afraid he would come after her, but he went instead to the little outhouse where the lavatories were.
    It was still warm. The foehn wind had been blowing for days, and even now at night the mountains seemed to loom unusually close. Heidi went over their names to calm herself, there was Helwang, Gaflei, the Three Sisters, the same peaks she could see out of her bedroom window. She remembered the story her teacher had told her at school. How instead of going to church on Assumption Day, the three sisters had gone up into the mountains to pick berries, and how the Virgin had appeared to them, and asked them for their berries. But the sisters hadn’t wanted to give them up, and ever since they stood there, turned to stone. Heidi had always been on the side of the sisters, she didn’t know why. She had sketched the forms many times and in all weathers, but she had neverbeen up there herself. It was an exposed path, and she suffered from vertigo.
    Two border guards with a German shepherd emerged from the underpass, and at the very back of the platform a railway worker in a luminous orange vest suddenly appeared. Then in the distance, Heidi saw the lights of her train.
    She walked up and down, looking for her car. She was starting to worry the train would leave without her, so she finally asked a conductor who was standing in the open doorway of the sleeping car, smoking a cigarette. He pointed her the way and said she had better hurry, the train was leaving in three minutes. The border guards had already boarded, they were just changing the locomotive at the front. Heidi ran along the platform, watching the time on the big station clock. When the hands reached the vertical, she jumped in and went on down the narrow corridors until she got to her car. While she was looking for her compartment, the sleeping car attendant came by and asked her for her ticket and passport. A little reluctantly, she handed them over. He sensed her unease, and told her everything would be returned to her in the morning, when he woke her. Then, with a jolt, the train departed. Heidi almost fell over, but the conductor caught her by the shoulder, and then let her go againimmediately, as if he’d done something wrong. He said good night and disappeared into his own compartment.
    The train crossed the Rhine bridge. Now they were in Liechtenstein, and in a few minutes they would be in Austria. Heidi remained in the dimly lit corridor, gazing out into the darkness. Gradually her fear and tension began to melt away, and she began to look forward to the journey, and to Vienna, where she’d never been. The Academy of Fine Arts, she said the name over and over to herself, she was applying to the Academy of Fine