No one around him understood exactly what Herman was doing, but everyone knew the process. They kept an eye on him. They were watching. They ate up his body and movements with their eyes. In the morning (no one saw him leave, but they saw him return), he would haul freshly cut tree trunks on an armored truck. They were cleaned of branches, without leaves, barely damp. Then he would load them in the yard, tossing them like jasmine flowers. Next, and this was the process people loved the most, he peeled the bark off the trunks.

How did he do that? With his hands, with his own hands. Without tools, without electric saws, just like a cook peeling onions. One move, another, and the bark was gone. After that, he broke the wooden skin into pieces and threw it into the press. The citrus peels he received every week were put in the same place. The smell of the squeezed liquid spread throughout the neighborhood. The smell of damp wood, tar, freshness, musk. A little more time — finally his evening walk. People would come out of their homes to catch him carrying his bottled cargo to a distant market.