My Life Among the Apes by Cary Fagan

sentence die out, for he didn’t want to talk in his usual way, boring the young people. He started again: “I had a very interesting afternoon. I saw the new memorial.”
    â€œDo you want to look at the menu?” Perhaps she hadn’t heard him. “Thank goodness for Turkish restaurants. If it wasn’t for them I’d have to eat that heavy German food all the time. We can share some dishes, unless you’d rather order your own.”
    â€œI put myself in your hands.”
    The waiter arrived and Sarah ordered in German, hesitant but nevertheless impressive. Listening to the waiter answer, he realized that he had been hearing the language spoken all afternoon and that it had sounded not harsh or aggressive but pleasing to the ear. He had once been able to speak a simple Yiddish, but now, with his parents gone almost twenty years, he’d forgotten most of it.
    â€œDo you want a beer?” Sarah said. “German beer really is spectacular.”
    â€œYes, I would,” he said, although he rarely drank. Nowadays young Jewish people seemed to like their liquor as much as everyone else. Over dinner, he gave a report of the family back home. She told him of difficulties getting a telephone and internet service, here where one expected such services to be quickly and efficiently provided. Mostly she talked about her work, how being in Berlin had changed her perspective; writing about Germany before, she said, had been like trying to describe a wolf without having actually seen one.
    Why a wolf? he thought, eating from the delicious little mounds of food and sipping tentatively at the beer. He was thinking about having something sweet when Sarah said, “What time is it? I promised to meet a friend. I hope that’s all right, Zeyde. There’s a lecture we’re supposed to go to.”
    He decided not to ask about the “we.” “Of course. Don’t worry, I’ll make my way back to the hotel. We can get together tomorrow.”
    â€œI’m not so sure about tomorrow. I have a lot to do.”
    â€œEven an hour would be nice. I’m only here for a few days.”
    â€œSure. How about coffee in the afternoon? We can meet at my favourite café in Kreutzberg. I’ll write down the corner. Say three o’clock?”
    â€œAny time is good. I’m not on a schedule.”
    ON ANY OF HIS TRIPS with Ida they would have taken a cab home, but the U-Bahn station was right at the corner. He walked onto the platform without passing any barriers and stood in front of the automatic ticket machine, trying to figure out what to punch when a woman in an imitation fur stepped up. There was no need to give the ticket to anyone or get it stamped, she said, but only to hold onto it in case an inspector, disguised as a businessman or a hippy, came through the train. He had to take the U7 line, changing to the U6 and getting off at Stadtmitte. The train he got into was modern and well-lit and he enjoyed the ride until two young men in studded leather jackets and black boots came into the car, each with a Dobermann pinscher on a chain. Were they neo-Nazis or some other sort of dangerous type? Would they notice the little Israeli pin in the lapel of his coat that he’d received for a charitable donation and never wore at home but had put on just before leaving for the airport? But they ignored him, and when his stop came he stood quickly up, pressed the illuminated button by the doors, and got off.
    His heart beat fast as he walked to the hotel. Although he felt exhausted, he propped himself up in bed and tried to read
The Clown
. He managed two-and-a-half pages before putting it down and turning out the light. But the timechange kept him awake for a long time.
    AT A NEWSSTAND IN HACKESCHER Markt he bought five postcard scenes of Berlin at the end of the war: buildings turned to rubble, smoke and flames rising. He couldn’t imagine how people could live with