October 2005, and it’s freezing cold in Prenzlauer Berg as Mauro, travel bag slung over his shoulder, leaves the train station a few hours later and walks to a building on Lottumstrasse, where a friend of his has an apartment, rented for next to nothing, that will still be too big for the two of them. The staircase echoes, and when he reaches the landing, he finds the door open. Mauro enters, calls out—there’s no one. He sits cross-legged on the floor next to a coal stove sculpted like the base of a fountain. He looks around: the large room is arranged with a few pieces of restored furniture. He rubs his hands, realizes he’s hungry. He’s here for three months.

All Mauro remembers of this Berlin period is the mix of cold, white, empty days and dark, hot, overpopulated nights—a balance that suits him. All the same, for the first few weeks, the daytime impresses him with its empty hours and its fibrous texture, like glass wool. Solitary hours in the apartment while Joachim—his roommate—works in a hip bar on Rosenthaler Strasse; floating hours where even the slightest movement makes the apartment creak, prompting him to turn up the music to its highest setting so he can’t hear anything else. He chills out in this sonic cloud until the time comes for him to slip into another one—at the bar, where he goes to meet the others. There, he focuses on the gestures, expressions, faces, of those around him since he doesn’t speak a word of German, and he writhes until dawn among the crazed bodies.

One morning, though, he stirs himself, shakes himself like a young colt. A small loaf of black bread, a café americano, and he’s out the door. He goes out on reconnaissance, peacoat buttoned up tight, collar raised, less than ten euros in his pocket, and his gait now is that of a tracker on a hunt, as resolute as his path is random. The next day he goes out again, and he does the same the day after that. The streets in Berlin are organized clockwise: Pankow, Friedrichshain, Schöneberg, Dahlem, Charlottenburg, Tiergarten … Even so, he wears out his sneakers, his heels are covered with blisters, and when, from my window, I see him pass in the evening, on his way back down Lottumstrasse, I notice that he is limping slightly and remember a decoction of sage and green tea in which you can soak your feet to relieve the pain in the arches.