throughout the city, stolpersteine — literally stumbling stones, polished brass plates roughly four inches square — bear the names and significant dates of those taken to ravensbrück, theresienstadt, and so on as reminders. two discretely mark the entrance to our airbnb, saying here, and also, not here. in the small cemetery near the volkspark, a fox relieves itself on a headstone at dusk. the joke in my family goes like this: pressed for her opinion on the actions of the third reich in the years before and during the second world war, my german grandmother’s german mother hedged, they didn’t do what was right. [ungut.] i myself can’t comprehend how anyone could stand to live so far from the crush — curse, crutch — of the sea. my own mother cannot mention the american river without also bringing up the drownings: too much anything can kill as sure as not enough. so which of these then are you? the mother? the grandmother? fox? river? stones? throughout the city, names, reminders. in the cemetery, a fox a joke: the actions of my german grandmother. i can’t comprehend so far. my own american river can kill enough of these stones.