I pushed open the glass door of the café and stepped back out into the depths of February. Warmth, light and the bustle of people were sealed behind me by a soft, obedient click. A short breath of warm air still clung to my coat, like a polite hand reluctant to let go. Then the cold welcomed me. It didn’t strike. It waited. Patiently, persistently, with a determination that seemed almost tender in its precision. It found my most sensitive spots first: the skin on my wrists, the shallow hollow at the base of my neck. Then it moved into my sleeves and along my spine. There it settled patiently.
A few moments ago, I sat opposite him at one of the small, functional tables with clean edges. They looked modern and restrained. Designed to keep bodies politely apart. The cups stood between us. Two men, arranged geometrically. Almost two years had passed since I last saw him. Something familiar moved between us, something that didn’t care about greetings. We spoke quickly. Time was short. The place didn’t allow for slowness. And we didn’t need it either. The surfaces were too smooth, the light too precise, the air too neutral to hold anything that floated between our words. We talked about where we were at that time. But not in a way that should be repeated. The endeavor, as we called it with a thin smile, was behind us. But was it over? At that time, each played his part in silence, in service to what was yet to become. We were both here. Same place, same time. That alone was a flaw. If everything had gone according to plan, there wouldn’t have been this coffee. If the invisible wheels had turned as intended, there would be no reason for us to sit opposite each other like two travelers who had boarded the wrong train. I told him my version. I heard his. The sentences met, bowed to one another. Then they passed each other without touching. We both heard the empty spaces, the inconsistencies. We knew that corridors and levels were missing between our stories. Something wasn’t working in the distant city where history breathed differently. We left everything as it was: a remnant, a smell that did not belong to the room we were in. Then we said goodbye.
Now, in front of the café, this smell reminded me of a different density of the air, of a different way in which the world once pressed itself close to me.
But these echoes belonged to a different picture of the times. Now Dresden awaited. And I took a deep breath. My breath tasted faintly of metal and damp stone. The streets were pale. The surroundings were smoothed into gentle contours. Behind me, the café hummed with its clean, modern persistence. Steel, light, muffled conversations, the obedient hiss of a machine finishing another cup. It was already beginning to feel unreal, as if I had only imagined it. I paused under the narrow canopy and let my eyes adjust to the colorlessness of these later hours of the day. The sky was neither completely white nor completely grey. It was milky, translucent. The facades opposite were softly focused, their lines restrained. Dresden was breathing out. The cobblestones beneath my feet gleamed as if each one held a secret pulse within it. The dampness had darkened them into subtle mirrors. They reflected the blurred facades, the dull fog and the occasional passing figures. And then, thoughtfully, they returned them softer and gentler to their originals. As I set off, my footsteps sounded subdued. Everything was wrapped in cotton wool so as not to disturb the listening surfaces. I found myself in the collected silence of the old town.
The air was cold, conscious, clarifying. It brushed my cheeks, rested briefly on my face. Each breath entered me like a slow but decisive announcement, opening hidden spaces in my lungs and chest. The fog softened the outlines of the city. Towers lost them, transforming into suggestions. The sky, thinly curved over the colorless buildings, wrote dark calligraphy with the bare branches of the trees. Line by line, something emerged that I could not translate. But the gesture felt close, as if the city were becoming aware of itself. I walked beneath pale façades whose decorations had been worn away by centuries. Faces weathered into abstractions glistened faintly in the floating dampness. The streets converged and then opened up again into the familiar open space of the Neumarkt. The square lay still, its expanse made almost intimate by the fog. In its center, the Frauenkirche rose into the whiteness with her large, pale body. She dominated the square. The surrounding buildings leaned slightly inwards and listened to her. The dome seemed almost organic, like a deep breath held just long enough to become briefly visible. It looked like muted gold beneath the pallor of the day. A few people moved quickly around the edge of the square. I caught a glimpse of their silhouettes. Their footsteps were completely swallowed up by the grey haze. A bicycle rode past somewhere out of my sight. Its sound was as brief as a thought. I crossed the square and strolled through narrower streets. The old town enveloped me again in its gentle embrace. The shop windows were dark, the displays hidden behind a cold layer. Something sweet was baking somewhere. The scent reached me faintly but unmistakably. Yeast, sugar, and the browned edge of warmth. It slipped into the mineral cold like a brief touch. I followed this warmth for a few steps. Then I let it go again. Figures, muffled by the fog, interiors, invisible but present, appeared and vanished again. Air, enclosed within walls. Corridors that held warmth. Cracks in the walls breathed out secrets: moss and shadows, trapped in walls that had seen generations pass by. My shoes echoed more clearly for a few steps, then sank back into the hushed silence of the city. The architecture, artistic but quiet, bore small drops of moisture like delicate jewels. The buildings lay there, low in contrast and almost empty. Fountains were silent. Their stones covered with winter.
The city loosened its grip and began to flatten out towards the river. I followed the slope and let gravity pull me forward. Beneath the clear bite of the cold, another layer hummed—cold stone, slow water, and distant leaves torn away by the wind. I felt an ancient rhythm, older than any street in this city, a movement that never learned to be still. I breathed deeper. Not out of necessity, but out of curiosity. The space opened up even before the view cleared. The smell changed. The humidity became denser and heavier, permeated by a faint smell of iron – old gates breathing rust, hinges remembering hands. The Elbe made itself known without asking to be seen. When the area finally opened up and the river lay exposed, it felt less like an arrival and more like a quiet realisation. There was no barrier to cross, just a gentle giving in. The mist hovered just above the surface. It was a thin, glowing breath. The river was alive. And it slept. It drifted along and reshaped itself without ever completely disappearing. The current revealed itself only in fragments. Where the faint light gathered, it folded the washed-out day into its moving skin. Weak, silvery glittering waves appeared and dissolved again. In other places, the water remained dark and opaque. The Elbe, in its restraint, allowed only glimpses of what lay beneath. As my eyes rested on the surface of the water, I felt my own pace slow down and my attention sinking deeper into my body. Small stone barriers on the shore, darkened by time, had absorbed moisture, memories and touches. Their edges had been worn down by the weather. They seemed less like boundaries and more like pauses. The air there was cool and heavy. The water murmured slowly against the stones. A distant echo of movement. Everything felt like it was floating, held in a long moment, just before something big happens. I didn’t feel the urge to cross the river. Instead, I stayed within the extensive body of the old town, whose streets and walls stretched out behind me like a familiar backdrop. I let the Elbe flow parallel to my steps. It was close enough to be felt and far enough away to remain untouched. We moved together, side by side. Each kept its own depth, its own direction. For a while, we were connected by the same leisurely rhythm.
Some time passed. The path along the shore was almost empty. In the distance, figures moved, already fading back into the mist. The background noise was sparse: the subtle, steady murmur of the water, the faint clinking of something metallic in the distance, the quiet rustling of my coat as I walked. Any splendour was reduced to a quiet suggestion. Nothing imposed itself. Everything seemed content to be only half recognised. Trees lined part of the shore. Their branches stood out against the milky-white sky. The same dark calligraphy repeated itself in endless variations. The roots hidden, but within sensitive reach. I could feel them holding on to the ground. The smell of damp bark and winter leaves rose faintly. It surrounded me like a soft, earthy whisper. Earth, winter, the slow sweetness of decay. It rose up to meet me and settled somewhere deep inside me. A couple walked past me, merged into a single silhouette. Their heads were bowed towards each other. Their voices were inaudible. Then they disappeared again and all I could hear was the wind.
After a while, I left the river behind me. The old town surrounded me again. The streets became narrower. The fog grew thicker in places. The city receded. Large buildings, their mass darkened, their presence grounding. The stones beneath my feet spread out. No one passed by anymore. The already weak daylight grew tired. Wearily, it detached itself from the facades. Colors faded into silence, contours blurred even more. A pale, grey haze settled over everything that had just been recognisable by its outlines. Lamps gradually came to life in the windows. Small, quiet squares of warmth, enclosed embers that drew a last, faint glow from the walls. The day had decided to slip away. Between my steps, the twilight deepened. The silence grew thicker. Everything withdrew and disappeared into the mighty darkness.
I stopped. The frost had muffled the city, as if someone had laid a cloth over Dresden. My hands went numb. I put them in my pockets. The city seemed strange and familiar at the same time. Dresden was silent, but it was not an empty silence. It was full of hints.
The way back to the hotel seemed shorter. Warmer. The memories of the café faded. We knew our thoughts revolved around the same uncertainty. But everything lost its details. Things faded into the background.
The end of the evening was approaching. Otherwise, no end awaited me. Just another continuation. Silent and open at the same time, like a road that loses its direction in the snow.