Coralena - Michael Mail

A young woman, Sophia, awakes in her new apartment. She is glad to be there, glad to have broken free of the quiet suffocation of her parental home, glad to have finally struck out on her own. And good fortune had brought her to this curious building, tucked away in the only part of the city to have survived the ravages of the last war - the Coralena - with its marked grey sandstone, ornate windows, and the decorous carving of a young woman's face above the door. Sophia is feeling pleased with herself, pleased too with the Coralena's beguiling complement of fussy old men and fussier women, intrigued by her grande dame of a landlady and her enigmatic, attractively rebellious son Dieter. She is leaving her past, with all its troubles and traumas, behind. Life seems full of possibility. At work, her boss has given her new responsibilities; here Dieter appears as interested in her as she is in him; untouched since the war the flat, like her life, seems ripe for renewal. She awakes, full of these promises, and looking across the room sees written on the morning condensation of the inside window one word - RAGE.