THE RED POINT, Excerpt 3

On the train. Early morning at the border outside Basel. I am awakened from
a light sleep by a Swiss customs official. He takes my passport and thumbs
through to my student visa.

"Herr Lambert?" he says.

"Ja?"

"Sie sind Student in Freiburg?"

"Ja."

He seems satisfied with the dates on my student visa and reaches for the
heavy metal stamp in his side holster.

"Haben Sie irgendetwas zu deklarieren?"

"Nein."

He stamps the passport and hands it back to me.

"Danke schn."

"Bitte, bitte."

With a brisk half-nod, he backs out of the compartment and slams the
sliding door shut.

I rub my eyes and yawn. It's 6:33 a.m. We're due in Basel at 6:47. This
is Switzerland, so we will be on time. That gives me fourteen minutes to
get dressed. I dangle my feet over the side of the couchette and ease
myself down to the floor. It is overcast and muggy outside. A group of
cows are standing in a field just beyond the tracks, gaping dumbly at
the train as if hypnotized.

We arrive at the station one minute early. I scramble with my bags to the
exit and climb down the steep metal steps. As my feet make contact with the
concrete platform, a shiver, beginning at the solar plexus, radiates outward
through my chest and face and arms.

I'm back in central Europe.

The local train to Freiburg is scheduled to leave in thirty-five minutes.
I could wait an extra twenty minutes for the express, but the thought of
stopping at all the little villages along the way is somehow comforting.
And now that I'm this close, I can afford to take my time.

The people here look different from those in the Amsterdam Station. There
are the usual businessmen, children off to school, ubiquitous backpackers.
But the cut of the suits is different, the demeanor of conversation more
serious and subdued. Children stand poised and adultlike with their shiny
red school bags and dark leather shorts. Even the backpackers attain an air
of near solemnity.

Back in the core of Germanic culture. No room for frivolity, for childish-
ness, a place for everything and everything in its place.

The train arrives. I carry my gear into a long open car, which I share with
a sunburnt farmer, a young woman with an open book in her lap, and a group
of boys who horse around quietly in the corner seat. Familiar names pass by:
Lrrach, Badenweiler, Villingen-Schwennigen, Mllheim, Waldshut, Sankt
Ottilien. I pronounce the name of each village to myself as we pass through
the station, testing my intonation, reaccustoming my tongue to the movements
of the German language, wondering how much my pronunciation has deteriorated
in the last six months and how long it will take before I can once again
converse by feel instead of conscious effort.

The flat Rhine plain gives way gradually to the foothills of the Schwarzwald.
The landscape becomes more and more mountainous. But these are smooth,
gracefully arched mountains. No abrupt rises to rocky peaks. No wild,
untended woods. The Black Forest is as perfectly manicured as a Japanese
garden and as tamely beautiful as a Walt Disney movie.

A familiar marquee flashes by the window and I stand up to look outside.
Studiohof Theater -- a landmark. In about three minutes we will be in
Freiburg.

I gather my things and look over at the young woman. She is packing her
book into a blue nylon knapsack with a red sticker on the outside,
"Sagen Sie NEIN Zu Kernkraftwerk!" -- "Say NO To Atomic Energy!"
A university student for sure, and not bad looking. We glance at each
other as she walks by. Her gaze is serious, probing, charged with an
animal wariness. In the space of a few seconds, she classifies me:
friend or foe. There is no trace of vulnerability or softness in her eyes.
They are blank and piercing and pathetically severe.

German eyes.

