In every generation there must be those who live as if their time were not a beginning and an end, but rather an end and a beginning.
—Manès Sperber, Wie eine Träne im Ozean (Like a Tear in the Ocean)
The last warm rays of the sun expire. Not a single bird takes off from the leafless trees, not a single wing beat can be heard. As if they have forgotten the point of flying, have lost the faith in being borne up by the air, the creatures perch on the slender branches. Slowly the long shadows of the telegraph poles, once meant to connect a continent to come, retreat in the harvested fields. The odd forgotten blade of grass waits motionless in the windless early dusk, in the distance scattered woodlands mingle with border villages history has forgotten. It’s getting dark.
Just maybe, though, there is a bit of light left. A fleeting night offers a glimpse of landscapes animated by unchanged field work. Here and there the dew clings to the waves of grain. The first cars take to the road, and for a few kilometers, they pass alongside the railway. Something warm seeps through the tiny cracks in the vehicle. At times the fog still clouds the view, which even without it would not be clear. After the daylong journey from Moscow, or further away, on to the Russian border, their eyes can grow weary watching the fields, which rush past and yet, in their immensity, seem stationary. But the eyes of the German antifascists, the communist emigrants, see nothing, there are no windows in their barred compartments. Perhaps outside, the first patches of light are grazing the ground while the mountains on the horizon stretch their stony heads upward into the dawning day.
