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The jolts of the tracks were stronger now and came at irregular intervals With my arms outstretched, I held myself up between the walls of the tiny cabin A metallic drone rose from the spattered steel-can, a whining and hissing and, now and again, something close to a laugh, something that had to have been crouching in the abyss, in the crushed stone of the railroad embankment, and it rang in my ears like a miserable Semey-Semey I wouldn’t be able to stay much longer, not unless I wanted to give some kind of explanation when I returned, something that would immediately become twice as long in the translator’s mouth and ten times as long in the consul’s ensuing comments   As far as I knew in the meantime it wasn’t illegal to have a Geiger counter On the contrary, European travel-guides recommended it as a means of reassuring travellers, though they emphasised that the measurable levels in most areas had been below acceptable limits for a long time now I’d never considered buying such a piece of equipment before, nor had I ever conceived the possibility of owning one And so the grey-green, already somewhat worn little box, and the way I’d got it right before the train left from one of the many hooded peddlers blocking the platform with their strange goods, was all the more precious and peculiar Almost everything held out to me as a ‘Souweniiiir!’ seemed to have come from the stockrooms of an empire and its army busy undergoing the process of total dissolution And yet I’d also seen mountains of meat, animal skins, raisins, bread, and nuts in half-covered children’s wagons, often in continuous movement, being pushed across the snow-covered platform right up to the steel treads of the railroad cars In the end, though, no