Chunks of gray sludge clung to the wheel guards of trucks. Tires ripped along the road. I had my thumb out. I was wearing an overcoat that I’d got from an uncle who was twice my size; it fit me like a house. When a car pulled up, it felt like a bright moment of luck, but then the driver got out and pointed a gun at me.
Polizei.
He was wearing a dark-green leather jacket, and I remember him being shorter than me, stocky and overpowering. He was bald, and maybe that reminded me of my father. His eyes were full of aggression. He stood with his gun pointing at my face, and I felt a familiar weakness in my stomach as he told me to drop my bag and keep my hands out of my pockets.
He wanted to know where I was going.
“Munich.”
“Why Munich?”
“I live there. I have a partner and a baby there. I work in a printing firm.”
He asked for proof of identity, but I had none with me. I told him I was Irish, and he crouched down to empty my bag: a half-finished sandwich, a Teddy bear, the book I was reading. The Teddy bear had a yellow tag with the name of the manufacturer clamped to one ear. The cop flipped through the book and threw it on the ground beside the Teddy bear. Then he stood up and asked me where I was coming from, so I told him I’d been in Frankfurt, visiting a friend—we were starting a band together.
He bore a look of extreme suspicion. The book I had brought with me didn’t help. It was the latest novel by Heinrich Böll, a writer who was seen by many in the right-wing media as an enemy of the people.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 23, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 23, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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GET IT TOGETHER
In the beginning was the mob, and the mob was bad. In Gibbon’s 1776 “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the Roman mob makes regular appearances, usually at the instigation of a demagogue, loudly demanding to be placated with free food and entertainment (“bread and circuses”), and, though they don’t get to rule, they sometimes get to choose who will.
GAINING CONTROL
The frenemies who fought to bring contraception to this country.
REBELS WITH A CAUSE
In the new FX/Hulu series “Say Nothing,” life as an armed revolutionary during the Troubles has—at least at first—an air of glamour.
AGAINST THE CURRENT
\"Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,\" at Soho Rep, and \"Gatz,\" at the Public.
METAMORPHOSIS
The director Marielle Heller explores the feral side of child rearing.
THE BIG SPIN
A district attorney's office investigates how its prosecutors picked death-penalty juries.
THIS ELECTION JUST PROVES WHAT I ALREADY BELIEVED
I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. Kamala Harris’s loss will go down in history as a catastrophe that could have easily been avoided if more people had thought whatever I happen to think.
HOLD YOUR TONGUE
Can the world's most populous country protect its languages?
A LONG WAY HOME
Ordinarily, I hate staying at someone's house, but when Hugh and I visited his friend Mary in Maine we had no other choice.
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
