The Long Arm

A man who has spent decades abroad returns to his Bavarian hometown and drifts into a familiar coffeehouse, where he recognizes a former schoolmate, Banaotovich. Their conversation reconstructs shared school memories: a gifted pupil's academic rivalry with a cantankerous professor, a silver cigarette case presented as a token, and the professor's sudden death that assured the pupil's diploma. Over wine, the older man makes a harrowing confession and implies responsibility for that death, compelling the narrator to face unsettled recollections and moral ambiguity about past actions and their long shadow.