![]() ![]() It would look for something in the lateral corridors, trying to attract our attention. It would stand up on its little hind legs, absolutely indifferent to the reward at the end of our experimental route disdaining the perks of Pavlovian conditioning, it would simply take one good look at us and then turn around, or turn to an unhurried exploration of the maze. ![]() When we’d put rats in a maze, there was always one whose behaviour would contradict the theory, who couldn’t have cared less about our clever hypotheses. Maybe that was why we were haunted by those ghosts. I still have dreams about the building where my classes were – its broad hallways that looked like they’d been carved into stone, smoothed down by people’s feet the worn edges of the stairs the handrails polished by people’s hands, traces imprinted in space. ![]() Ultimately it was a place that, despite reconstruction, still belonged to the dead. I never felt comfortable there between the new communist buildings and the wretched squares there was always a wind, and the frosty air was particularly bitter, stinging you in the face. That part of the city had been built up on the ruins of the ghetto, which you could tell if you took a good look – that whole neighbourhood stood about three feet higher than the rest of the town. My department was located in a building that had been the headquarters of an S.S. I studied psychology in a big, gloomy communist city. ![]()
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