Sorry

There were some imitators too, for a while, but they didn’t worry the agency. It’s not just about an idea, it’s about a philosophy. Kris quickly revealed himself as a master of forgiveness. His philosophy is the motor that drives the agency onward.

“Of course people can imitate our idea,” he says, “but our concept will remain a mystery to them.”

And if anyone were to ask what their concept was, all four of them would have to act mysterious, because the truth is that they have no idea of concepts. Kris has taught Wolf everything—the right words, the right gestures, when you have to be silent, when you have to talk. The rest is experience, that’s why it’s no wonder that the imitators had to shut up shop. They simply had no reasonable concept.

“Why didn’t you stay in Berlin?”

“Astrid, this is Berlin.”

“Wannsee isn’t Berlin, Tammi, it’s the East.”

Astrid flicks her cigarette butt into the water, as if to demonstrate to her sister what she thinks of the Wannsee. Tamara doesn’t want to contradict her; Astrid’s never been a star in geography. Instead Tamara says:

“We were getting cramped. The commissions were pouring in, and we were still in Kris’s apartment, coordinating everything from a single room. One evening Wolf had had enough.”

“I hate the fact that we’re still hanging around at Kris’s apartment,” he said. “I mean, commune or not, we’re really too old for this. We should stop behaving like amateurs. With every commission we’re making more than any of us has ever made in six months. Shouldn’t we do something with the money?”

They found a dilapidated villa on the Kleine Wannsee. Tamara couldn’t believe such things still existed. Except in films, of course. Every few minutes you heard the train running quietly in the background, and from the conservatory you could look out on to the shore of the Kleine Wannsee over breakfast. Of course there were a few reservations. Who in their late twenties moves to the edge of Berlin to renovate a villa? Either some kind of prehistoric hippies who inherited money from their parents, or crisply tanned film producers who have to invest their profits somewhere. But them?

They couldn’t have cared less.

The villa turned out to be a dream, a dilapidated dream admittedly, but they were living out that dream. Tamara still can’t grasp how quickly it all happened. The real estate agent took his cut, the bank waved them through, and the villa was theirs. Frauke’s father arrived with a gang of workmen, and together they knocked down walls, scraped off old wallpaper, improved the floors, and put in new pipes, so that the villa was ready to be occupied by the beginning of January.

For the first week they walked speechlessly through the rooms. Everywhere there were freshly sanded floors, freshly whitened walls, rooms full of light. The stench of their youth lay behind them. All of a sudden everything was stylish and authentic; all at once they felt grown-up.

On the first floor are the living room, a library, and the kitchen; on the second floor Frauke and Tamara’s studies and bedrooms. The brothers take the top floor.

It’s perfect, it works so well that Tamara can imagine this arrangement going on to the end of her life. Out here on the Kleine Wannsee with a view of the water and access to a jetty.

Their very own paradise.

“It’s just perfect,” Tamara concludes. “That’s all. Nothing else has happened.”

Astrid is about to say something, when she hears someone calling behind her.

“Yoohoo, Tamara!”

The sisters turn round. Helena Belzen stands waving on the shore. She is seventy-four and wears a pullover that makes her look like the Michelin man. She has wrapped scarves around her hips and her neck, on her head she wears a woollen cap. In her right hand she has a shovel, in her left a bucket.

“Helena, this is my sister Astrid,” Tamara explains.

“Pleased to meet you,” says Helena, pointing with her spade to the dinghy. “Isn’t it a bit cold to be rowing about on the lake?”

“Tell that to my sister,” says Astrid.

“How are you two?” asks Tamara.

“Joachim’s taking his radio apart again, and I can’t keep out of the garden,” Helena replies, shaking the bucket. “I could spend the whole day burrowing about in the earth. Are we seeing each other on Sunday?”

“I’ll bring cake.”

“Wonderful!”

Helena waves goodbye and disappears into the undergrowth of her garden.

“Are you having a kaffeeklatsch with the old girl?” Astrid whispers.

“She’s invited me four times, it gets embarrassing eventually. And I like the Belzens. Wait till you see her husband. They’re a dream couple. The day we moved in, they moored on our side and brought us a bag of salt and fresh bread.”

“What do you need parents for?” Astrid says and looks back at the villa. “I still can’t believe it. If you weren’t my little sister, I’d push you in the water right now, is that clear? Shit, why doesn’t stuff like this happen to me? Have you any idea how many guys I’ve picked up in the faint hope that one of them might have enough money to buy me something like this? I hate you, do you know that?”

“I know.”

“So what are you grinning about?”

“Maybe because it’s so cold?”

“Very funny, Tammi.”

They grin at each other.

“Can I at least see the joint from inside, before you banish me back to my pathetic little life?”

Tamara lowers the oars into the water and sets course for their pad.

KRIS

IT WAS HALF A day before they managed to track down Julia Lambert.

The job center plays its cards close to the vest, so Kris tries to find her new workplace indirectly. Frauke helps him with that. It takes them fifteen minutes to log on to the employment agency.

“How illegal have you just been?” Kris wondered.

Frauke held her thumb and index finger a millimeter apart.

Julia Lambert has been with the company for a week. The office with a view of the parking lot is like a waiting room. Cardboard boxes in the corner, electric cables temporarily installed, a dusty plant by the window. Probably Julia Lambert isn’t entirely sure whether it’s worth making this workplace entirely her own. Her hesitation is like the one of the four prints on the wall that hangs at an angle.

“You must have heard that we’ve split up.”

Kris nods, Hessmann’s secretary told him everything. The boss himself didn’t want to say anything on the subject.

“I was amazed you didn’t lodge a complaint,” says Kris.

Julia laughs briefly.

“How do you take action against someone like Hessmann? He has more lawyers than employees. And who would believe me? What proof do I have? For a while I thought about burning down the office building, but can you imagine where that would have got me?”

In jail, Kris thinks, and agrees, she did the right thing.