I was introduced to my fellow residents in a spacious lounge with ebony panelling and a crystal chandelier hung low onto the ceiling. Twelve men were seated in four couches arranged in a square. Mr. Recker said, ’please welcome our new guest". One by one they approached me and shook my hand. This was my first day at Haupthof. There would be many more.

Three years have passed. What? Fifteen minutes? I thought we had an agreement, you wouldn’t interrupt. Be quiet. Silenzio! Or whatever it’s called in Czech. What are you trying to tell me? Listen, just listen, ok? It’s our story. We’re almost through. Calm down. Let me tell you how I came to find you here in this tiny sex room of yours.

Like I said, Haupthof was three years of voluntary confinement in a golden prison. Life was a routine of extraordinary numbness. I slept, ate and defecated. On sunny days, I walked in the garden, on rainy ones, I stayed in the lounge or read poetry in the library. As time went by, my memories were decomposing. I felt like I was leaking from all over. I had almost forgotten you. All I remembered was a collision in the vastness of my past. A self-contained nexus, unfinished business...

Dr. Kustel was seeing each of us regularly in those purported therapy sessions. During our first encounter, he had said, "You’re in good company here. All our patients have committed the same sin. They know the toll it takes on a man’s life. They are going to help you stand upright and overcome the obvious obstacles. Many people kill their wives, but, as we see it, only the foolish ones surrender their fate to justice. Only the coward delegates punishment to others. Only the fainthearted needs the authority of a court to see his deed concretized. A sentence to assert the gravity of his crime. Bars to epitomize the ineluctability of his damnation.

Petty murderers.

I do not believe blindly in society, nor do I believe blindly in justice. We at Haupthof do not subscribe to any kind of ideologies, doctrines or ethics. You are here among twelve individuals with no interest in consensus. Twelve men who share nothing in common except the biographical curiosity of having killed their next of kin. Plus, admittedly, the fact that they were resourceful enough to finance their early retreat from society.