The narrator introduces himself as Erik Brandt and says that he lives in a house in a wooded area near Seattle, which he both loves and hates, as the woods remind him of the trauma of war. He then says that, while most people call him by other names, he prefers to go by X, a letter with immense personal meaning. He has aged from the days when he was in the war, which has helped hide his wounds: scars on his mouth from when a bullet went through his cheek, a limp from shrapnel through his knee, and a prosthetic arm.

X explains that he became a history teacher after the war, and his students would always ask about his prosthetic, but when they heard that he lost it in World War II, they inevitably assumed he was an American fighting the Nazis. X alone knows the truth—he was a German soldier.

X relives the powerful memory of riding the train to the Eastern Front. The train the young soldiers—most early teenagers—ride on was once elaborate and beautiful, but time and rough use during the war made it ugly and decrepit. All the soldiers wear