Sorry

“As an apology?”

“As an apology.”

They’re a few yards away from the supermarket entrance. Wolf knows what Frank Löffler is thinking now. He’s wondering if he should take it to court. If he asked, Wolf would advise him against it. They aren’t in America. The company would say it was a mistake and apologize. There would be a headline in the Berliner Zeitung and Bild would just wearily wave it away. Everyone’s allowed to make mistakes. And anyway, who’s to say that Frank Löffler wasn’t one of those people?

“My mother mustn’t find out anything about this,” he begs Wolf, suddenly leans against the wall of the house and gasps for air, like someone who’s just emerged from the water.

“Not a word to my mother, you hear?”

Wolf has no idea why his mother mustn’t know about it. Perhaps he wants to punish her. He promises.

Löffler clutches his chest, takes a deep breath, and looks at Wolf properly for the first time.

“Who are you?”

“A protecting angel,” Wolf replies, and regrets it. As soon as he said it he saw kitschy pictures of guardian angels in his mind’s eye.

“No, really, who are you?” Löffler won’t let it go. “You’re not from the company, that much is certain.”

Wolf tells him about the agency and gives him a card.

“We do good,” he explains.

Frank Löffler stares at the card.

“You apologize for other people?”

His voice sounds slightly shrill when he says it. If he’s going to go all moralistic on me, I’ll have to smack him, Wolf thinks, taking the card back.

“Isn’t that unethical?” Frank Löffler asks.

“Depends on your point of view. The church does it one way, television another. We have ours.”

Löffler suddenly bursts out laughing. It’s okay. He isn’t laughing at Wolf or the agency. He’s laughing at life. Wolf knows that laugh. Drunks have it, and hysterical toddlers, enjoying themselves so much that they can’t calm down. Frank Löffler is a mess. He leaves Wolf where he is, without saying another word. He walks past the supermarket and crosses to the other side of the street. One thing is certain, Lidl won’t be seeing him again. Even though Wolf didn’t think him capable of it, for someone like Frank Löffler that’s a very good exit.

Five minutes later Wolf tells the head of the company that Frank Löffler has refused the offer and is threatening to take him to court.

“But …”

The company head falls silent. He senses that Wolf has more to say. Kris taught his brother how to stay quiet. Tell the customer what you have to tell him, then give him silence. Heighten the tension. Keep the client in suspense.

“We talked for a long time,” Wolf goes on. “Mr. Löffler would agree to a higher settlement. He would like to have the payment in installments, I’m sure you still have the bank details.”

Yes, he has them. Wolf tells the boss the amount. The boss clears his throat. Wolf smiles. He wishes all commissions were like this. It feels bloody great to be an angel.

He has just an hour before his next appointment, and goes to an Indian restaurant by the Schlesisches Tor. There are a few grains of rice on his chair, he brushes them off and sits down. He isn’t hungry, he needs people around him. Restaurants are perfect for that.

The midday tide has ebbed, only five tables are occupied, there are candles burning in the windows, the flames quiver in the warmth that rises from the heaters. Wolf orders soup, tea, and a glass of water. He turns his phone off for the next hour and rests his hands on the tabletop.

Calm.

Once it was a flock of birds that swirled in the air and made Wolf think of her eyes. Once it was the way a woman knocked her spoon against the edge of her cup. The world is full of triggers. Little tripping hazards for the memory. In his quiet moments Wolf seeks them out carefully.

The tea comes, the waiter puts a plate of poppadoms down on the table and says something about the weather. Wolf thanks him for the tea and waits until the waiter has gone. He smells, he tastes. The flavor of cardamom and the sweetness of honey make him sigh.

Erin.

Wolf knows that memories fade and undergo a transformation over the years, until in the end no one can tell whether they are memory or imagination. And because Wolf knows all that, he clings to every memory, no matter how insignificant, that leads him to Erin.

His second appointment is on Wiener Strasse opposite the Görlitzer Park. There’s no doorbell plate by the entrance to the building. The door is ajar and looks as if it’s been kicked open at least ten times a day. Next to the front door a gate leads to the rear courtyard. The gate is open too.

Wolf walks past bicycles, rubbish bins, and a sleeping cat lying on the stones. He glances at his watch. His appointment is at four; he still has a few minutes and taps a cigarette from the pack.

“Want one?” he asks the cat.

The cat’s belly rises and falls as if it feels completely safe. Wolf wishes he had the cat’s confidence. He looks up. A square of sky floats overhead. No clouds. In the distance the rustle of traffic, a slamming door, someone coughing. Right now Wolf doesn’t want to be anywhere else. It’s only in Berlin that cigarettes taste so good to him.

At the back of the building the air is stuffy. It smells of fried onions and boiled meat. The smell reminds Wolf of the jellied meat that his aunt always made. Her hands smelled like the house. Jellied meat was her speciality. Wolf tries to remember his aunt’s name. A woman in a headscarf comes toward him.

“Hi,” he says.

The woman lowers her eyes and presses herself against the wall so that he can pass. Her footsteps are barely audible on the steps. Wolf climbs further up the stairs. On the fourth floor he gasps for air, his armpits are steaming. He urgently needs a shower and he would really like to light the next cigarette.

A nameplate is missing; but as it’s the only door on this floor, Wolf has no choice. He rings. He waits. He knocks. The door swings inward.

Not good, not good at all.

There’s a light on in the hall. There’s a sound of music. Loads of bad films start exactly like this.

“Hello? Mrs. Haneff?”

Wolf pushes the apartment door a little further open.

“Hello? I’m from the agency. We e-mailed each other yesterday.”

No reaction.

If that was Mrs. Haneff coming down the stairs toward me, then …

Wolf thinks about simply leaving again.

Maybe Frauke got the dates mixed up.

“Hello?”

The hall floor is dirty. There are scratches along the wallpaper, on one wall there’s a water stain in the shape of a Christmas tree. Wolf doesn’t want to have come to Kreuzberg in vain.

“I’m coming in, okay?” he says and goes in.