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making their selection. When it got too dark outside, they went into the living room and carried on there. They laid the remaining drawings on the wood floor. Renate was barefoot, and Heidi had taken her shoes off; suddenly she felt naked in this strange place. They walked up and down among the drawings, putting them in different piles, taking some out and putting in others. It was very warm in the apartment, and when Renate raised her hand to scratch her head in thought, Heidi noticed dark sweat stains rimming her sleeveless dress. They stood at opposite ends of the room, approached one another, stood silently side by side, squatted down in front of one sketch the better to take it in. Renate overbalanced, and caught herself laughing on Heidi’s shoulder, and left her hand there after they had stood up again. Heidi could smell Renate’s perfume, which didn’t drownout the smell of her body, but blended with it to make a warm, summery scent of milk and grass.
    In the end, there were only twenty pictures left, a few small portrait sketches, half a dozen landscapes, and a few recent things, colored-pencil drawings of strange organic shapes. Heidi felt confused when Renate had pulled the stack of them out of the box and asked what they were. She had shrugged her shoulders. This one looks like a vulva, Renate said, and this one too. She laughed, and looked Heidi straight in the eye. Heidi lowered her gaze, but not from shame. Do you have a boyfriend? Renate asked.
    HEIDI HAD FOUND her compartment. There was just a dim emergency light on. She could hear someone breathing. She sat down on the lower bunk, opened her folder, and looked through the drawings once more. Hello, said a voice. Quickly Heidi shut the folder and looked up. A young woman was looking down at her. Where are we? she asked. We’ve just crossed the border, said Heidi. Oh, God, said the woman and she sat up and dangled her bare legs over the edge of her bunk. I can never sleep in these so-called sleeping cars. She climbed down the ladder and went off down the corridor. In a while she returnedand stopped in front of the door to the compartment. She pulled down the window and lit a cigarette. Do you want one? she asked. She said that before boarding a night train, she always drank a beer to help her sleep. But in Zurich she had met some guys in a bar and had a few beers too many, and now she had to keep going to the bathroom. My name’s Susa. What’s yours? Heidi. Susa laughed. Is that your real name?
    The conductor stepped into the corridor and said there was no smoking allowed. Asshole, muttered Susa, flicked the cigarette out the window, and went back inside the compartment. She said she was from Kiel. She had been bumming around Europe for the past couple of weeks. She had been to France, and Barcelona, and Italy, and Zurich. Now she was on her way to Austria and Hungary, and if there was time, the Czech Republic. What about yourself? Heidi said she was on her way to Vienna to apply to the Academy of Fine Arts. Are you an artist then? asked Susa. Heidi shook her head. I’m just applying, she said. I think your accent’s cute, said Susa. Are those your pictures in there? Will you show me?
    Heidi hesitated, but she did feel a bit proud as well, to have been taken for an artist. She opened the folder. Susa settled down next to her. Those are the Three Sisters, said Heidi, that’s their name, they’re mountains. That’sthe Gonzen. That’s the castle at Sargans, there’s my mum, and she’s someone at work. And there’s you, said Susa. They’re good. Yes, said Heidi. And that’s a girlfriend of mine. And what’s that? That’s just imaginary shapes, said Heidi. Susa laughed and said it looked like a cunt. Heidi stopped turning over pages. She could feel herself blushing. Come on, said Susa, this is exciting. She pulled the rest of the drawings out of the folder herself. Don’t, said Heidi, but Susa had already flicked on ahead. Just a load of cunts,