The distant lover

Machine-translated from the German article

Der fremde Freund (The Foreign Friend) is a novella by Christoph Hein, published in East Germany in 1982; in West Germany it appeared in 1983 under the title Drachenblut (Dragon's Blood) because of title protection. Claudia, the protagonist of the novella, is a doctor in her late thirties who keeps her distance from her surroundings, behaves with little emotion, and maintains only a few social contacts. She lives in Berlin and, in her free time, passionately photographs landscapes (and no people).