Munich, Winter 1973 (for Y.S.)

In a strange house, a strange bed in a strange town, a very strange me is waiting for you. Now it is very early in the morning. The silence is loud. The baby is walking about with his foaming bottle, making strange sounds and deciding, after all, to be my friend. You arrive tonight. How dull time is! How empty—and yet, since I am sitting here, lying here, walking up and down here, waiting, I see that time's cruel ability to make one wait is time's reality. I see your hair which I call red. I lie here in this bed. Someone teased me once, a friend of ours — saying that I saw your hair red because I was not thinking of the hair on your head. Someone also told me, a long time ago: my father said to me, It is a terrible thing, son, to fall into the hands of the living God.