Paul, a middle-aged man, is attacked by strangers. He awakens in the hospital. Initially unable to speak or walk, he begins to navigate his way back to the person he once was through memories. Forty years ago, an eleven-year-old boy appeared in Paul’s classroom one day. Josef Winkler, the same age yet different. An unusual, quiet child, as if surrounded by a different atmosphere. Even the teachers leave him alone. Paul feels both drawn to and repelled by Josef. They clash at the railway embankment. And although Paul is much smaller, he wins the fight. This victory would shape his life. Released from the hospital, he sets out to find Josef Winkler. However, he only encounters the three members of the shared apartment where he had lived briefly as a twenty-year-old. Paul’s conviction begins to crack: “It could have been this way. But it wasn’t.” In dreamlike images, Pierre Chiquet recounts the time of youth unrest, squatting, and the legendary garden city on a derelict site by the Rhine. An island of youthful dreams and a search for identity. A mysterious, surprising novel.