Thank God.
“Where do you want to go?” Kris asks.
“Simple as that?” she asks back.
“Simple as that. I’ll find you a better position in a different company, in return you accept Hessmann’s apology and leave the fury and hurt behind you; that’s my offer.”
Kris knows it’s never that easy to leave fury and hurt behind. But he thinks Julia Lambert ought to hear that the possibility exists, and that a better job than the last one represents a good kind of revenge.
The phone rings. Julia Lambert lets it ring and presses two buttons so that they can have some peace. The phone falls silent.
“From when?” she asks.
“Hessmann gave me carte blanche where you’re concerned. That is to say, whenever you like. No one wants to live with guilt. Not even Hessmann.”
Julia Lambert laughs for the second time since Kris has been with her. It’s a restrained laugh, but it’s still a laugh that comes from deep down.
Good.
“He’s been able to live with it pretty well for the last six months,” she says. “I doubt he had any sleepless nights.”
The sarcasm is clearly audible. Kris is still not on safe terrain. It’s the way Julia Lambert sits there. Tense, suspicious.
The whole thing could be one big joke.
“Here’s my suggestion,” Kris says and gets to his feet. “I invite you out to dinner now, and while we’re eating, you tell me which companies you’re interested in, what position you think you could do or would like to have, and what an appropriate wage might be.”
Kris stretches out his hands so that she can see he isn’t hiding anything, that he’s on her side. No tricks.
“What do you think?”
Her nostrils flare, her mouth has opened a crack, not a word comes out. Enough sarcasm. She’s excited, she’s understood. Kris can see that Julia Lambert likes his offer. It has happened. She belongs to him.
“You did what?” Wolf asks in the evening when they’re sitting in the villa’s conservatory.
“I had dinner with her.”
“No, no, no, I mean that carte blanche …”
Wolf leans forward and taps his brother twice on the forehead.
“… what kind of an idea is that?”
“I thought it would be appropriate.”
“And what did Hessmann say?”
“What do you think he said?”
“You did what?”
Hessmann’s voice was shrill, then there was a faint crackle on the line and Kris knew that someone was listening in. Ten minutes before, Kris had said goodbye to Julia Lambert and promised to call the next day. Then he had phoned Hessmann from his car.
“How do you think that’s going to work?”
Kris heard the panic in Hessmann’s voice. Panic isn’t good. Panic can lead to short-circuited reactions. Kris was relieved that he wasn’t talking to Hessmann alone. Whoever else was listening at the other end, it meant that Hessmann had to restrain himself. Kris cleared his throat and said how he imagined the solution to the problem:
“You get Miss Lambert a job at one of the two companies she named. You know you can do that. Then you and Miss Lambert will be quits. Peace.”
Again there was that faint crackle on the line; Kris listened into the silence that followed. For a few seconds he was sure that the connection had been broken, then he heard a loud intake of breath and Hessmann said his thank-you, and that it had been a pleasure working with the agency.
“How could you be so sure it would work?” Wolf wants to know. “Guys like Hessmann eat you for breakfast, what were you thinking of?”
Kris is surprised by Wolf’s reaction.
“I had nothing to lose,” he replies. “And I think it’s a good thing for him to bleed a bit.”
Wolf lets that idea run through his head for a moment.
“I have the feeling that all this apologizing is turning into something personal for you.”
“A bit personal can’t hurt,” Kris admits. “Be honest, it isn’t just a question of apologizing. It’s about understanding. What’s the point of apologizing if the other person doesn’t sense that you’re serious about it?”
“You say understanding, Kris, but you mean empathy.”
“No, with empathy you’re private, while we stay detached. We can’t afford empathy, which is why Tamara’s unsuited for the job. You fit in much better. You have a superficiality about you that’s emotionally cool, relatively speaking.”
“Hey, how convenient.”
“You know what I mean.”
Wolf nods. Kris can get away with saying things like that.
“So you’re sticking with understanding?”
“Understanding with a hint of sympathy.”
Wolf rubs his neck.
“It’s still a hard job for me. I’m pursued by ghosts. Before and after each commission. Often for hours.”
Kris thinks about how it is for him. He doesn’t see ghosts, and if he’s perfectly honest, the commission ends there and then. But he doesn’t want to rub it in.
“No one said it would be easy to apologize on other people’s behalf. If it was easy, someone would have thought of it ages ago. I reckon we’ll soon be condemned by the church. We deliver absolution and bring light to dark souls.”
“And we’re more expensive.”
“Yes, we’re more expensive, but that doesn’t mean anyone has to fall on their knees and thank us in the evening. And think about how many people we’ve brought happiness to already. On both sides. Perpetrators and victims. We’re the good guys. Look at our commissions. If we weren’t the good guys, we wouldn’t be booked up for months in advance. Guilt seeps from people’s pores. Wolf, we’re the new forgiveness. Forget religion. We mediate between guilt and remorse. You can bet your ass that we’re the good guys.”
Four days after the Hessmann commission, Julia Lambert gets the job and sends Kris a thank-you card. A week later there’s a check from Hessmann in the mailbox. He’s added a bonus to the fee. Wolf kisses the check over and over again, until Frauke tells him to stop or the bank won’t accept it.
And at this point we leave Wolf and Frauke briefly. We leave Tamara, reading on the sofa, and Kris, in the shower a floor above. It’s time for you to enter this story. Through a back door. Like a ghost rising out of the floor and taking the stage.
Welcome.
YOU
YOU FIRST LEARN ABOUT the agency over lunch. You’re sitting with your boss and three other colleagues in a restaurant on Potsdamer Platz. The restaurant isn’t to your taste. Too loud and too chic. Once a week your boss plans a lunch for you, it’s a quirk he has. He thinks a bit of foodie culture can’t hurt.
You’ve just ordered when your boss mentions the agency. For a few seconds a high-pitched noise rings in your ears and you have the feeling that reality is trembling; it lurches for a moment before coming to a standstill again with a scraping sound. You study the frozen faces