break into a vending machine in the laundromat on the Kaiserdamm. Screwdriver and jimmy. They gave up after a quarter of an hour, when the screwdriver got stuck in the metal and wouldn’t come out again. They shared a hot chocolate and then cleared off. Sixteen years later Wolf is sitting in a laundromat on an uncomfortable plastic chair, checking his e-mails on his cell phone. Life is plainly treating him well.
Frank Löffler arrives on the dot. He steps outside the supermarket and looks up and down the street as if he doesn’t know what to do next. Wolf can understand why the company fired him. Frank Löffler is a born victim.
They walk around the block and past a playground. The children are screeching and throwing sand at a dog. Löffler tries not to look. He says he’s received threatening letters. One night a stone came through his car windshield. The neighbors saw nothing; they say it’s what you get.
“This is a respectable area,” Löffler explains, as if he understands people’s reaction. It makes things even worse because he’s innocent.
“I’m here because with that conversation your file will have vanished,” Wolf says. “You’re clean, or cleansed, or whatever you want to call it.”
Löffler doesn’t react; he probably didn’t understand. Wolf wants to shake him.
“The world’s your oyster again,” he says instead, as if Löffler had spent the last year in jail.
Löffler’s face flickers for a second, his hands move in his trouser pockets as if they wanted to come out. Wolf waits to be asked what happened. It takes a whole minute, then Löffler clears his throat:
“What happened?”
Four months after his dismissal the same download was discovered on another PC. The perpetrator wasn’t revealed, because he was a clever co-worker who sat down at his colleagues’ desks at lunchtime and scoured the internet as he saw fit. The company didn’t know what to do and installed blockers. No one mentioned Frank Löffler. It was as if he had never existed. For six months the head of the company lived with the fact that he had fired the wrong man and reported him to the police. Then his conscience got the better of him. He dropped the accusation and turned to the agency.
“And they don’t know who it was?” asks Löffler.
“One of your colleagues, that’s all we know.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway.”
Wolf agrees.
“How much?” Frank Löffler wants to know.
“Eighty thousand.”
He stops.
“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