And when I go home from work early in the morning, when I cross paths with people who themselves are on their way to work, I see happiness nowhere, and even less abundance. When I ask why we print so many lies, Gaspar answers, "Whatever you do, don't ask questions. Do your job and don't think about anything else."

One morning Sarah is waiting for me in front of the printing press. I walk by without recognizing her. I turn only when I hear my name: "Klaus!"

We look at each other. I am tired, dirty, unshaven. Sarah is beautiful, fresh, and elegant. She's eighteen years old now. She speaks first.

"Won't you kiss me, Klaus?"

"I'msorry. I don't feel very clean."

She gives me a kiss on the cheek. I ask, "How did you know I worked here?"

"I asked your mother."

"My mother? You went to our house?"

"Yes, last night. As soon as I arrived. You were already gone."

I take out my handkerchief and wipe my sweaty face.

"You told her who you were?"

"I told her I was a childhood friend. She asked me, 'From the orphanage?' I said, 'No, from school.' "

"And Antonia? She knows you came?"

"No. I told her I had to go enroll at the university."

"At six in the morning?"

Sarah laughs. "She's still asleep. And it's true that I'm on my way to the university. In a bit. There's time for us to have a cup of coffee somewhere."

I say, "I'm sleepy. I'm tired. And I have to make breakfast for Mother."

She says, "You don't seem so happy to see me, Klaus."

"What a thing to say, Sarah! How are your grandparents?"

"Well. But they've grown old. My mother wanted them to come here too, but Grandfather doesn't want to leave his little town. We could see each other a lot, if you want."

"What are you going to study?"

"I'd like to do medicine. Now that I'm back, we can see each other every day, Klaus."

"You must have a brother or sister. Antonia was pregnant the last time I saw her."

"Yes, I have two sisters and a little brother. But I'd like to talk about us, Klaus."

I ask, "What does your stepfather do to keep such a crowd?"

"He's high up in the Party. Are you trying to avoid the subject on purpose?"

"Yes. There's no point in talking about us. There's nothing to say."

Sarah says softly, "Have you forgotten how much we loved each other? I never forgot you, Klaus."

"Nor I you. But there's no point in seeing each other again. Can't you see that?"

"Yes. I've just come to see it."

She waves down a passing taxi and leaves.

I walk to the stop, wait for ten minutes, and take the bus the way I do every morning, a smelly and overcrowded bus.

When I get home Mother is already up, which is unusual for her. She has her coffee in the kitchen. She smiles at me. "She's quite pretty, your little friend Sarah. What's her last name? Sarah what? What's her family name?"

I say, "I don't know, Mother. She's not my little friend. I haven't seen her for years. She's looking for old classmates, that's all."

Mother says, 'That's all? What a pity. It's time for you to have a little friend. But you're probably too awkward for girls to like you. Especially girls like that, the well-bred sort. And with your menial job and all. It would be completely different with Lucas. Yes, that Sarah is exactly the kind of girl that would suit Lucas."

I say, "No doubt, Mother. Excuse me, I'm terribly tired."

I go to bed and before falling asleep I talk to Lucas in my head the way I have for many years. What I tell him is just about what I usually do. I tell him that if he's dead he's lucky and I'd very much like to be in his place. I tell him that he got the better deal, that it is I who is pulling the greater weight. I tell him that life is totally useless, that it's nonsense, an aberration, infinite suffering, the invention of a non-God whose evil surpasses understanding.

I do not see Sarah again. Sometimes I think I see her on the street, but it's never her.

One day I go to the house where Antonia used to live, but none of the names on the mailboxes is familiar and in any case I don't know her new name.

Years later I receive a wedding notice. Sarah is getting married to a surgeon, and the addresses of both families are on Rose Hill, the richest and most elegant part of town.

I was to have a great many "little friends," girls I meet in bars around the printing press, where it is now my habit to go to before and after work. These girls are factory workers or servants; I rarely see them more than once or twice, and I bring none of them back home to introduce them to Mother.

I spend my Sunday afternoons with my boss, Gaspar, and his family. We play cards and drink beer. Gaspar has three children. The eldest daughter, Esther, plays with us; she's nearly my age and works in a textile mill where she has been a weaver since the age of thirteen. The two boys, who are slightly younger and typesetters too, go out on Sunday afternoons. They go to soccer matches or the movies or walk around town. Gaspar's wife, Anna, a weaver like her daughter, does the dishes, the laundry, and cooks the evening meal. Esther has blond hair, blue eyes, and a face that recalls Sarah's. But she isn't Sarah, she isn't my sister, she isn't my life.

Gaspar says to me, "My daughter is in love with you. Marry her. I give her to you. You're the only one who deserves her."

I say, "I don't want to get married, Gaspar. I have to look after my mother and wait for Lucas."

Gaspar says, "Wait for Lucas? Poor madman."

He adds: "If you don't want to marry Esther, it would be better if you didn't come see us again."

I do not go back to Gaspar's. From then on I spend all my free time alone at home with Mother except for the hours when I walk aimlessly around the cemetery or the town.

At the age of forty-five I become the head of another printing press, this one belonging to a publishing house. I no longer work at night but from eight in the morning to six in the evening with two hours off at lunch. My health is already very bad at this point. My lungs are filled with lead and my badly oxygenated blood is poisoned. This is called saturnism, a disease of printers and typesetters. I have stomachaches and spells of nausea. The doctor tells me to drink a lot of milk and get a lot of fresh air. I don't like milk. I also suffer from insomnia and great physical and nervous exhaustion. After thirty years of night work it is impossible for me to get used to sleeping at night.

At the new printing press we produce all kinds of texts- poems, prose, novels. The director of the publishing house often comes in to oversee our work. One day he examines my own poems, which he has found on a shelf.

"What's this? Whose poems are these? Who is this Klaus Lucas?"

I stammer because usually I have no right to print personal texts.

"They're mine. They're my poems. I print them up after work."

"You mean to say that you're Klaus Lucas, the author of these poems?"

"Yes."

He asks, "When did you write them?"

I say, "Over the past couple of years. I wrote many others, before, when I was young."

He says, "Bring me everything you have. Come to my office tomorrow morning with everything you've written."

The next morning I go to the director's office with my poems. They add up to several hundred pages, maybe a thousand.

The director hefts the package.

"All this? You've never tried to publish them?"

I say, "I never gave it a thought. I wrote for myself, to pass the time, to amuse myself."

The director laughs. 'To amuse yourself? Your poems aren't what you might call amusing, exactly. Not the ones I've read, anyway. But maybe you were more lighthearted when you were young."

I say, "When I was young, certainly not."