It's summer in the global north (which is winter in the global south), and for the month of August Literatur.Review is bringing them all together, publishing previously untranslated or unpublished stories from the north and south of our world.

Christoph Nick has a German master craftsman's certificate in hand weaving and ran a project with traditional hand weaving in rural Chad with his family as a volunteer from 1985-1987. After returning from Chad, he studied history as well as English and French literature in Heidelberg. He worked for 13 years for green politicians, ten years as a journalist and taught German to managers for six years. He lives in Brussels, has written his autobiography and is currently working on his next literary project.

Christoph struggled to get up that morning. He felt limp and grey - he, who usually jumped out of bed, cheerfully greeting the new day, his mouth full of words that just bubbled out if there was a willing victim ready to listen. No, it was not an easy morning on this autumn day in Heidelberg in 1990. It became no easier once he was standing on the platform, even though he had a quiet journey ahead of him, where he could forget what was weighing him down, what he was holding on to with all his might and neither wanted to nor could let go of. He would drive to Bad Honnef, to the Rhine. Though he had not grown up there, he had been born on its banks and felt a connection.

For two days, he would leave student life behind him. For two days, he would teach regional studies to someone who would shortly be leaving for Chad to do 'development aid', still so called in Europe at the time though soon to be glorified as 'international cooperation'. Christoph was against development aid. He was in favour of disaster relief and considered a fair economic policy to be absolutely necessary, but it pertained to such a distant future that it might never become the present. He was against development aid because the people who had to endure it knew best what they did and didn't need.

Over the next two days, he would talk about Chad's politics, economy and culture. He had got to know the country whilst running a cooperative there for an international Christian peace service in the middle of nowhere (by European standards). It was made up of 500 Muslim women from thirteen villages and the small town of Binder, who all did their weaving from home on the simplest of looms, making cotton blankets whose threads were still spun with a spindle. For him, the master hand weaver, there was something sacred about it, something handed down from time immemorial. Something whose sanctity very few, apart from Annette, could comprehend.

He had smoked a small joint for breakfast, no more than half a cigarette. He wanted to make himself comfortable on the train, maybe get some more sleep. Not think too much about what was bothering him. Clear his mind and thoughts. The Intercity pulled into the station. Christoph got into a carriage, a large-capacity carriage, no small compartments. He stepped into the aisle and immediately saw a woman sitting on the right-hand side, four or five rows away. He looked at her, but she didn't notice him. Perhaps she was looking out of the window, or reading a book. Later, he couldn't remember these details. But there was one thing he never forgot. That he looked around. That there were empty seats here and there in front of her, next to her, on the other side of the aisle and behind her, where he could have sat down. That he wanted nothing more than that, because he wanted to sit near this woman. He wanted to look at her and not look away - she captivated him with her beauty and an intangible aura that touched him to the core. But that, in a split second, he decided against it. Because he believed that it could only end in embarrassment. That his fellow passengers would find it odd that a man would just sit there staring at this one woman. Mile after mile after mile.

With a jolt, he bravely walked past her, walking through the entire carriage and into the adjoining one, where he sat down out of her sight. He didn't want to be pushy, he wanted to behave decently.

He wanted to let go, watch the landscape fly by, dream. It didn't happen. The landscape and cities flew by, but with them the last fifteen months that had turned his life upside down. The moment when Annette came back from Berlin. He had sent her there, to her brother, so that she could recover a little, because the first year of her career change to occupational therapy, which she had finally decided to do, had taken it out of her. She, like Christoph, was also a hand weaver. A beautiful profession. But you couldn't make a living from it.

The money they could have used to go on holiday with the children didn't exist. But it was enough for a trip to Berlin, staying at her brother's. When she came back, the first thing she said was: "I'm keeping the apartment and the children." So that was it. His life was shattered and Annette felt liberated. Liberated from a man she had followed into every adventure. First on a bike tour that was supposed to take them to Turkey, but which they broke off in Greece, in the seventh month of Annette's first pregnancy. Then they went to the North Sea coast. Christoph worked in the Dithmarscher Museum weaving mill in Meldorf; it was his first year as an artisan hand weaver. Here, too, they packed up their tents a year later because their little girl had died of sudden infant death syndrome. It was only years later that they learned that the drinking water had been poisoned by intensive farming.

Annette had even followed him to Africa, where there had been work for both of them. Sintram was twenty months old when it all started. A year later, his sister was born in a small infirmary in Cameroon, because there was no infirmary where they lived in Chad. Another twenty months later, Annette flew back to Germany alone. She was picked up by a rescue plane in Garoua, a large city in the north of Cameroon. Her life was at risk and was only just saved. No wonder she didn't want to follow him on another adventure, this time to study, which Christoph had decided to do whatever the cost. History, English and French literature - because he wanted to understand the present better. In the end, having decided on Heidelberg, her home town, she went along after all, at least geographically.

The train was approaching Koblenz. Christoph had to change to a regional train that would take him to Bad Honnef on the other side of the Rhine. When he got up, he saw the woman from the next carriage already standing at the door. He moved to stand next to her and heard her ask the passing conductor where the train to Bad Honnef was leaving from. Christoph asked her if she was also going to the German Foundation for International Development. She looked at him and said yes. He could show her which train to take. It was waiting a little way off on a side track. They sat down opposite each other.

Her name was Cindy and she was from Stuttgart. An employee of the German Development Foundation had struck up a conversation with her in a restaurant there and their children had been playing together. That's how he found out that she was from Mauritius. But that's a good thing, he said, in Bad Honnef we're urgently looking for someone who can prepare a group of development workers for life in this country.

Cindy didn't really want to get involved with Christoph and Christoph didn't want to be pushy. He leaned back and closed his eyes. She looked at him and heard a voice inside her: "That's him." "That one? What's he supposed to be?" she asked. "That's him. That's your next man." "I don't want that Turk," she replied. "No way!"

The fact that she thought he was Turkish was not so wrong, because he had been asked several times in his life whether he was. They reached Bad Honnef and walked to the foundation. Christoph showed her the reception desk, where they would get all the information they needed. The next day, they drove back together and arranged to return in two weeks' time, when the second part of the course would take place. Two weeks later, Christoph didn't go to the next carriage -he sat next to Cindy and could look at her as often as he wanted. She fascinated him just as much as she had a fortnight earlier. At reception, they found they had been allocated the same hotel.

When they met in the park during their lunch break, he summoned up all his courage and asked her if he could come to her room that evening. Inwardly, he was upset. He knew that this would be his only chance. He told himself that it couldn't be that difficult; after all, things like this happened all the time in the literature he was now studying. Take literature as an example, he said to himself - learn from what happens in the novels, then you can do it too! Nevertheless, it took him the greatest effort to formulate this one sentence: "Tonight at the hotel, I'll come to your room, okay?" There was no clear response from Cindy. Christoph wasn't sure if she had understood him. His inviting himself had come to nothing. After all, they had agreed to spend the evening together. Christoph wanted the ground to swallow him up.

When they arrived at the hotel, it was already half past ten. Christoph already knew the hotel and the owner from previous stays. She told him: "Mr. Nick, Ms. Surma is registered, but you are not." As it was already late, she tried to find a solution. "I could put her up with your colleague from the One World House in Bielefeld, I'm sure he'll agree." Christoph saw his chance with Cindy slipping away. "That could be a possibility," he replied. "But I know Ms. Surma better than this colleague." "Well," said the boss. "What are we going to do?" She looked at Cindy. "I can't decide that. Ms. Surma, what do you say?" Cindy hesitated, she seemed unsure. Christoph and the hotel owner looked at her. Time seemed to stretch into infinity. Just before the pause threatened to become embarrassing, Cindy said yes, she would rather stay here.They moved into a room together. Christoph was grateful to the hotel owner that she had no objections. Rhenish joie de vivre and liberality can be as much of a blessing as literature.

This is how their first night of love began. Christoph moved the mattress onto the floor because the bed was making too much noise. They went back the next day. They talked about their lives. They had both been separated for a year. Christoph explained that he was separated, but not free. Because he wanted his family back. When he got off the train in Heidelberg, he promised to get in touch.

This story is part of Christoph Nick's previously unpublished autobiography "Mein Leben im Paradies - Autobiografie eines Unbekannten" (My life in paradise - autobiography of a stranger).