1.

Those men stopped me decades ago, in 1972, in another life, so this story should be long over, shouldn’t it?

But it’s not, no: it plays, just as I’m falling asleep, night after night, month after month, year after year—a little serial in my brain that won’t go away, a loop that keeps spiraling to the same bloody ending.

The story always pauses as I wait to drive my white Volvo out of the MP station parking lot onto Friedrich Ebert Strasse, heading toward Angelika’s apartment. The gearshift in neutral, I rev the engine, listening to the throaty sound of the carburetor while I look for an opening in traffic.

This time, I think, as I look at myself in those long-ago days, this time it will all be different. No one will get hurt.

Once again, the story lures me in.

I drive out of the lot and merge into traffic.

I’m thinking, yes, this time things will work out some other way. This time, I hope, the story will change.

This time, I believe, the story won’t end with a woman lying bloody on the floor in the Weinheim apartment.