A Gulag novel featuring German and Austrian protagonists. A look back at Vienna in the 1920s. A novel that leads to the heart of the 20th century. Just recently, Rafael Schermann was a colorful figure in the Viennese café scene, well acquainted with the likes of Adolf Loos, Oskar Kokoschka, Magnus Hirschfeld, and Else Lasker-Schüler, as well as Herwarth Walden, Ehrenstein, Döblin, Bruckner, Eisenstein, and Stanislavski. Even the sharp-tongued Karl Kraus hoped for Schermann's graphological talent to provide crucial assistance in his romantic pursuits with Sidonie Nádherný. And now, this flamboyant man finds himself completely destitute and gravely ill as a prisoner at the end of the world, one hundred and fifty kilometers east of Kotlas along the railway to Vorkuta, in the Artek camp. Immediately, someone who can derive predictions from handwriting draws extraordinary attention to himself.