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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