The story shifts settings to reveal the character Max Vandenburg. Where is he, and why? How is his condition described?

Max is a Jew, and he is in hiding in the city of Stuttgart. He is waiting for a friend to bring him a train ticket and new identity papers before leaving for Molching.

With a clean-shaven face and lopsided yet neatly combed hair, he had walked out of that building a new man. In fact, he walked out German. Hang on a second, he was German. Or more to the point, he had been. In his stomach was the electric combination of nourishment and nausea.