[Excerpted from my current project, A Jew is Back in Germany] Renovations are going on now in my apartment building. That’s not against the rules. And although I live on the third floor, every day there are heavyset, cigarette-smoking men walking past my window. It started with baby steps. I woke up one morning and opened the door leading out to the hallway. At the end of the corridor, I saw a man, dressed in a fluorescent orange suit, scurry and disappear around the corner.