We landed in Berlin, coming from Nice. For six months we had lived an easy life on the Riviera. My son had rented an apartment for us in the quiet Quartier des Musiciens, ten minutes from the ocean. We had begun to think about staying in Nice when a letter came from Toni Mackeben in Berlin. It was an answer to the single letter we had written to Germany. Her letter was full of joy over our friendship. Both my wife and I are unable to resist human warmth, and we decided to visit Toni and stay for three days in Berlin.

We took the train to Munich. In Milan, a man took a seat in our empty compartment and spoke to us in German—a big event. For twenty years we had spoken and been spoken to in a foreign language.

Toni was waiting for us at the airport in Tempelhof. We embraced. We brought our luggage to the hotel, then drove to her apartment through the gloom of the poorly lit city. Ruins alternated with rubble heaps. Entire streetcar lines were torn up. And yet the shock wasn't there yet. I could still sleep that night.

The next morning, in daylight, we walked through once familiar streets whose houses all had vanished. At the cramped corner stores, shashlik and sausage were being sold, and the smell of cheap fat mixed with plaster dust was everywhere. We looked for Lützowplatz, which no longer existed. I saw, through the iron curtain, the ghostly landscape of the Potsdamer Platz. The horror of it overcame me. I sat up in bed at night wracked by a nervous cough. I wanted to leave, but I didn't know where to go. I had found my language again. I stayed in this half-Berlin with its visible scars, its deformed face and its sad charm and optimism, like that of the severely wounded who are happy to have gotten away with their lives.