Summary

In the prologue, a character called “the Visitor” (5) arrives in Berlin. She last visited the city 31 years prior. She was encouraged to visit by a friend called “A.” (6) who is, like the Visitor, Cuban-American. She feels lost and alone, she has no relationship with her “vicious” (6) mother, she has been divorced twice, and her adult daughter lives in Barcelona. She begins walking through Berlin, visiting the zoo, parks, museums, and other sites, and talking to the locals.

The first chapter in Part I is called “Moths” (11), and in it a man named Helmut Bauer tells his story of surviving World War II to the Visitor. Helmut's father had been a zookeeper before being drafted. Helmut recalls evenings at home with his mother in the dark (lest they attract attention from British bombers overhead), eating horse meat (on a good...