After breakfast I walk toward the harbor and into the fog. I come to a shop that’s plainly open, although a folding gate covers its window. It’s a gun shop.

What if I’d had a gun in the alley? Rubbing my aching shoulder, I venture in. “I’m looking for a small gun,” I tell the proprietor. “In case I have to defend myself.”

He reaches under the glass counter, within which weapons are arranged in a pleasant design, and produces a pistol. “Here is a Mauser model 1934,” he says. “It’s a standard Wehrmacht item; it fires 7.65 millimeter rounds. Hold it.” He offers me the handle—no, I believe it’s called the grip—of the gun.

I take it. It’s cold, a bit greasy, and much heavier than I’d supposed. I know the trigger has something to do with making it shoot. Then someone gets a hole blown in them that’s so big they bleed to death. Or perhaps the bullet tears apart a vital organ. All organs are vital, really, aren’t they?

I lay the gun on the glass and nod to the shopkeeper. And return to the fog.