14. Berlin
BERLIN
As they taxied to the gate, four hours later than scheduled, Lucy looked out at the drizzle and realized she’d forgotten to pack raincoats. Other than the sneakers on her feet, she’d forgotten shoes. She’d forgotten toothpaste and Tylenol.
She turned on her phone and checked the time.
Having worked for six hours uninterrupted, she was prepared for her meeting, even if she was sick with exhaustion.
She had until six in the evening to set up a quiet place to work so her bosses and the team in LA would have no reason to suspect that she had fled the country at the outset of their company’s most important project. She hoped Greta had good Wi-Fi.
She checked her email and saw she’d gotten a message, not from Greta as she was expecting, but from Greta’s husband, Otto. Lucy skimmed it, frowning in confusion. He was asking about cows and onions and naked bears. The letter made absolutely no sense.
She got to the end, where he listed some rules and instructions:
When you arrive at our apartment, kling the bell of the man living in apartment 3, Herr Lance. He is an American with very bad character, and I cannot recommend him. However, he is having for you the keys to enter.
Please remove the shoes when you are being indoors.
We have an old VW, but driving it is vorbidden. Our car is quite old and it is with Schaltknüppel —what you call “schtick stiff,” and anyway it is always best to use public transportation.
As you are interested in the German language, I must say to you how important it is to use “ Sie ”/the formal address (not “ Du ”/the informal) when speaking to people you do not know.
Otherwise, you are offending by being overly personal, which I warn you is a very bad idea in Germany.
That is to say, you should be calling my wife Frau von Bosse and me Herr Professor Doctor von Bosse until we come to an understanding that we will use our first names.
This is an important feature of our culture.
With friendly Greetings,
Herr Professor Doctor Otto von Bosse (und Frau Greta von Bosse)
PS We do not need the services of your housekeeper, as my wife will do all the cleaning.
Lucy shook her head. What appalling people! Did they actually expect her to address them by their last names? And who turns down a prepaid, once-a-week housekeeper! Fine , she thought. These people can spend their whole summer cleaning cat hair off the couches.
The girls had slept on the flight and were lively, chattering to each other as they walked through the modern terminal.
Lucy had not slept at all and was looking around, bleary-eyed and confused.
The airport was unfamiliar to her, so unfamiliar that for a moment she wondered whether they’d flown to the wrong city.
“We’re in Berlin, right?”
Jack looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“It’s just that I thought I’d remember something about being here,” she said.
They retrieved their bags and went outside to get in the first of a long row of cream-colored Mercedes taxicabs.
It was a gloomy day, with heavy clouds hanging over them like a dropped ceiling.
Lucy took the front seat and showed the driver her phone with Greta’s address on the screen.
“ Savignyplatz ?” the man said. “ Ein sehr schickes Viertel .”
Lucy did not understand a word. Maybe her German wasn’t as good as she’d hoped. She looked back at the kids and reminded them to buckle their seat belts.
Nothing out the cab windows looked familiar either. Lucy knew it had been a long time, but she’d assumed some intersection or landmark that might ring a bell.
“ Ich bin …” she said to the driver, but she couldn’t think of the word. “I don’t remember the Flughafen looking so… neue .”
“Ah,” the driver said. “It’s a new airport, Brandenburg. Perhaps you are remembering Tegel?”
Lucy wondered what else in Berlin had changed since she’d been here.
But as soon as the driver exited the highway, she began to recognize things in this bustling, sprawling, Manhattan-scale metropolis, a city where historic buildings from the 1800s sat directly next to modern ones and the Spree wove its way through parks and past museums. She felt her heart quicken to be back.
“There’s a Five Guys,” Jack said, pointing to the left.
“And a Starbucks,” said Alice.
Lucy understood the allure of the familiar. “Wait, I remember this street,” she said, itching to get out of the cab and explore. “Kufooster-damn?” she said to the driver. “Is that right?”
He laughed. “Kur-fürsten-damm,” he said slowly.
Lucy repeated it back. “And the zoo is near here, right?” she said.
“ Ja, genau ,” the driver said as he turned at a big train station into a quaint neighborhood.
The street was lined with beautiful old apartment buildings, with shops and restaurants at ground level.
It was drizzling, but Lucy could imagine having lunch at a sidewalk café in the sunshine or picnicking in the park they drove by.
She felt so happy to be away from the stress in Dallas, she wanted to roll down the car window and shout.
No one knew them here. They were free from judgment and hostility, from slashed tires and evil eyes.
The driver turned again, this time onto a narrow cobblestone road, and pulled over beside a row of parked bicycles.
Lucy paid the driver, while Jack piled the suitcases onto the wet sidewalk.
She looked up at the stone facade of the building that would be theirs for the summer; it had balconies with flower boxes, reliefs of angels carved into pillars, tall windows, many flung open wide. It was charming beyond belief.
They rolled their bags up to a worn wooden door and crowded under the stoop to stay dry.
She checked the email from Herr Doctor Von La-Dee-Dah and rang the buzzer with the name “Lance” next to it.
She saw Greta’s buzzer above it and pressed it as well for good measure.
There was no answer at either. She waited for what seemed like a polite amount of time and buzzed again, pressing harder and longer this time. She jiggled the door handle.
“Lance,” said Zoe, standing on tiptoe to see the buzzers, “like Lancelot?”
“A man of bad character,” Lucy mumbled.
“He’s bad?” Alice said.
“I’m sure he’s perfectly nice,” said Lucy, checking her phone. “But where is he?”
“We’re late,” Jack said. “We were supposed to be here hours ago.”
They pressed their faces up to the glass window beside the door.
The foyer was the most European-looking thing Lucy had ever seen.
It had a twelve-foot-high plaster ceiling with decorative medallions, each with a wrought iron light fixture suspended over the checkerboard marble floor.
There was marble on the walls as well, halfway up to the ceiling.
On the far side was a curved staircase with a dark wood handrail, an ornate iron baluster, and stained glass windows on the first landing.
There was a door that went out the back to a courtyard, possibly a place the girls could play… if only they could get in.
“Why are we sharing a house with other people?” Alice said.
“It’s not a house,” said Lucy. “It’s an apartment building.”
Zoe left the stoop and sat on her suitcase, straddling it like a horse, getting damp from the drizzle. Jack was scrolling on his phone.
Lucy’s hope of getting a nap and shower before work was dwindling; she needed to be clearheaded and settled, and that wasn’t going to happen standing on a rainy sidewalk in the middle of the city. “Well,” Lucy said, “let’s get some food and come back in an hour.”
“What about our stuff?” Alice said.
Lucy looked at the pile of suitcases. So much baggage. “We’re going to have to bring it along,” she said, wiping a strand of hair off her forehead. “Does anyone have paper? I’ll leave the guy a note.”
Zoe opened her backpack and gave Lucy a piece of yellow construction paper and a pink marker that smelled like bubble gum.
Standing under the stoop, Lucy wrote Adam a message, asking him to call. She scribbled her phone number under her name and slipped the folded paper halfway through his mail slot.
They put their backpacks on and rolled their suitcases down the bumpy sidewalk and around the corner onto Schlüterstra?e.
The first restaurant they found was an Italian place called Mondo Pazzo where they were greeted with Buongiorno instead of Guten Tag , which Lucy found disorienting.
It wasn’t what Lucy had in mind—she’d imagined schnitzel and sp?tzle—but it would do.
The waiter walked them past the wet outdoor seating area and into the dining room, ushering them to a table in the back with a red and white checkered cloth.
He helped Jack pile the suitcases along the wall beside them, and they all ordered plates of spaghetti.
The food came—comforting and delicious—and still the neighbor didn’t call.
Lucy stalled after the plates were cleared, ordering tiramisu and gelato, but the girls began to get restless.
Lucy thought she might fall asleep right there at the table and ordered an espresso.
What were they even doing here? She cursed Greta in her head.
Another half hour went by, and Lucy gave up. She waved to the waiter to get the check, having made up her mind to find a hotel for the night. She was googling “hotels near me” when her phone pinged. For a split second she imagined it was Mason: Stay where you are, babe! I’m coming to get you!
But it was a text from an unknown number:
Adam here. Back @ apartment now w keys. Have 2 go soon. Where r u?
The man texted like a barbarian. She took a deep breath and texted back: We will be there in 3 minutes!!! PLEASE do NOT leave!!
She did not regret the caps or the exclamation points.