Riding the train to the small city of Darmstadt to sleep over with a friend after a day spent at the Frankfurt Book Fair, I observed an impeccably dressed elderly gentleman sitting several rows away from me across the aisle.
He wore an elegant calf-length overcoat which men of a certain class in Germany are partial to wearing. His shoes were fine leather and shining. He was in possession of a large expensive-looking wrist watch to which he turned his attention occasionally.
And though I could see no evidence of a briefcase, his would have been top of the line. He had, in fact, the air of a publisher of tasteful literary titles on his way home from a successful but tiring day at the fair.
And I pictured him the sort who would have attended the fair every year without exception until the pandemic temporarily shut it down and would continue to attend, out of habit, for as long as he was able. Perhaps, he was the scion of a publishing empire, I told myself, a fitting story. It had been a long day, and I was happy to be on the train. Nothing else about the day had been happy, so eventually my mind wandered away from the old man to my own state of affairs.
I was cold and hungry and admittedly forlorn, none of this conducive to conjecture and true curiosity. I closed my eyes. And that is when a certain commotion broke out on the until-that-moment quiet and peaceable train.
