Trafika Europe 3 - Latvian Sojourn

I turn back the clock, then quickly wind it forward, and then back again. I take one of the bundles: new, smooth bills, all hundreds, a hundred times a hundred in a light- blue wrapper. I fan through the stack, the paper passes quickly under my fingers and the identical edges repeat themselves. No motion at all, suspended animation. The silhouette of a bridge reflected in water smacks into the reflections on the bills above it. There are no pedestrians on the bridge, the map in the lower corner is too general, too empty. Where is Hamburg on that map, where am I on Seewartenstrasse, in a gray concrete citadel-hotel on the shore, wrapped in night and glass? The thought of going down to the lobby gives me the chills, but the dangerous thing is that I don't even know why. I got mixed up in something I had no right to mess with; touching this money, I smell the scent of the leather coffin it was put into, ready for burial. In fact, I was this close to throwing it into the dark waters of the harbor. Тo the rats. Тo the girls in the bluish outfits, leaning on 18th century façades up there on the street called Reeperbahn. A strange slice of the city's history, where the rope makers used to spread out bales of hemp to braid kilometers of rope, reaching as far as the city gates. It would be a naive lie, however, one you wouldn't believe, if I told you that I blame some other noose, and not the noose I’m tightening within myself. How did I end up here? Not accidentally, of course. Even if

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