He didn’t know this path. But he knew the way a new place smells when you set foot in it for the first time.
An extract from the manuscript. As yet unpublished.
The carriage came to a halt at the city walls. Jakob got out without waiting for the coachman. The city lay before him like a sealed letter – he knew there was something inside, but he did not yet know what.
He didn’t know this route. But he knew the way a new place smells when you set foot in it for the first time: of smoke, of fish, of wood, and of the breath of many people who had lived here long before he arrived.
The gate was open. Of course it was open.
Jakob picked up his bag, made sure the letter was still there – the letter from his father, who had sent him here, to Conrad Albrecht, bookbinder, in Krämerstraße – and stepped inside.
Rostock, he thought. So this is Rostock.
He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. Something bigger, perhaps. Something that felt like a new beginning.
But beginnings usually look like ordinary days. He only realised that much later.
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