6. Berlin
BERLIN
Greta had been up most of the night, drunkenly repacking her suitcases. At dawn, she had two cups of strong coffee and called Bettina, who answered with a groggy “ Hallo .”
“I can’t believe you,” said Greta. “You dumped me at Hildegard—so unhofflich —although I shouldn’t be the least surprised. And , you ordered two more drinks before you left, expensive martinis, which I drank because I hate waste. And third, you left me with the bill.”
“Who is this?” Bettina said.
“But I’ve got to hand it to you,” Greta said. “You actually did it.”
“What did I do now?” Bettina said. “And why are you calling me at the crack of dawn?”
“I just got a message from an old friend of yours. Lucy Holt. Does that ring a bell?”
“Lucy…”
“Holt,” she said. “You knew her in college.”
“Riiiight, Lucy Hope…”
“Hol- t ,” Greta said, emphasizing the t . “Please tell me you remember her.” She heard the click of a lighter, a swift inhale of breath, a slow exhale.
“Sure, okay,” Bettina said. “What about her?”
“She’s moving into my apartment tomorrow.” Greta could hardly believe she’d made such a big decision so rashly, and after a whole lot of vodka.
“Good. Glad to be of help. Can I go back to sleep now?”
“You have to keep an eye on her, okay?” Greta said, scanning her room for personal items that would need to be packed away before they left, anything that could get broken or, God forbid, stolen.
“It all happened so fast, and I don’t know the first thing about this woman.
Promise me you’ll make sure she’s not trashing my apartment? ”
“Is she coming alone?”
“I think so, but… to be honest I’m still a little drunk. She loves Berlin and always wanted to come back.” Her messages were mostly a string of emojis and exclamation points. “I don’t know a thing about her house except that she has a swimming pool!”
“Everyone in Texas has a swimming pool,” Bettina said before coughing loudly in Greta’s ear.
“And something about her parents living in her backyard? If I get there and there’s a yurt behind the house, I’m leaving. But it’s a temporary solution anyway, just to get us through the summer.”
“Lucy…? I do remember a Lucy something,” said Bettina. “She had a very hot boyfriend. A real Viking. I was jealous.”
“This was almost too easy. She gave me her address and told me where she would hide a key. Do you remember her being… impulsive?”
“I barely remember her at all. Listen, I gotta go. Prince Charming is leaving, and the least I can do is walk him to the door.”
“The guy from the bar? Really, Bettina?” She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to imagine what it would feel like to have a complete stranger unbuttoning her van Laack blouse, touching her skin.
She shuddered, thinking it wasn’t much more intimate than having this Lucy person sleep in her bed and touch all of her things. She had a lot of clearing out to do.
“Don’t be judgmental,” Bettina said.
“Sorry. It’s just been a long time since I had a one-night stand. I honestly can’t even picture it.”
“You’ve never had a one-night stand,” Bettina said, “and it’s been a long time since you had any sex at all. So how about you work on you?”
“Touché,” said Greta. It was sad, but very true.
“Lucy…,” Bettina said. “Actually, I remember liking her, if that helps? She was a lot of fun.”
Greta felt a little flash of jealousy. She didn’t think Bettina would ever use the word “fun” to describe her.
Otto was rushing around the apartment looking for his keys when he jammed his toes on a box that had yet to be moved down to the Keller . He spent a good deal of time hopping up and down, justifying his pain level by reminding Greta of the vast number of nerve endings in the feet.
He limped to the door, collecting his wallet and phone. “I’ll be schnell ,” he said. “I had no idea the Arschloch would demand my Schlüssel .” The frenzy of the morning was making Otto forget his English.
“Why would he want your key?”
“I don’t know. And he says he needs to talk to me about something. I worry he’s going to give my Büro away to someone anders in my Abwesenheit . I don’t want anyone in my space.”
“I feel exactly the same way,” Greta said resentfully.
Otto turned and faced her. “ Danke , Greta,” he said. “Thank you for doing this and for finding the house swapping.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Who knows what I’ve gotten us into,” she said.
After Otto walked out, she brought an empty box into Emmi’s bedroom.
She packed up some clothes her daughter had left behind, pajamas and T-shirts, but decided the books on her shelves—the Pippi Longstocking novels, and all of Harry Potter and Tolkien—could stay.
On top of the bookshelf was an antique Meissen plate holding seashells Emmi had collected over the years at her grandparents’ Baltic summer house.
It was too fragile to pack, so Greta left it there as well.
She emptied the pens, scissors, and notebooks from her desk drawers, realizing that when Emmi had moved to Freiburg, she’d taken almost everything with her.
Greta was left feeling very nostalgic. She sat on Emmi’s bed and called her.
“Hey,” said Emmi, sounding a little breathless.
Greta could hear street noises in the background.
“ Hallo, Schatz ,” Greta said.
“I hear you’re going to Texas,” Emmi said. “That was quite an überraschung .”
“No one was more surprised than me,” said Greta. “ Es tut mir sehr leid .”
“Why are you sorry?” Emmi said. “I thought this was a good thing. Dad sounded excited.”
Greta looked out the window at the treetops, thinking “excited” was not a word she would choose to describe her current frame of mind. She was upset. Angry even. “I was looking forward to spending the summer with you ,” she said.
“Sure, but Dallas sounds great too. Dad’s getting me a ticket to visit you.”
“Is that okay? Will you come?”
“Sure. I’ve never been to Texas.”
“But what about your New York housing this summer?” Greta said. “I feel terrible that we promised you a room—”
“I can find something else,” Emmi said. “Maybe a sublet closer to where I’m working. My hours are going to be brutal.”
Emmi did not sound in the least bit disappointed to spend the summer in New York without her parents.
“Mom, can I call you later? I want to go for a run before Karl and Monika and I are meeting for lunch.”
Emmi and her best friend, Monika, shared an apartment in Freiburg, and Greta knew that Karl, Emmi’s boyfriend, spent every waking and sleeping minute there. She was glad Emmi would have some time away from both of them this summer, a chance to spread her wings and meet new people.
“Tell them I said hello,” Greta said, standing up and straightening the covers on the bed. “Where will they be this summer?”
“Berlin first,” Emmi said. “But then Monika is spending eight weeks in Heiligenhafen.”
“Really?” Greta said. “Without us there?”
“I know,” Emmi said quietly. “Weird, right?”
This was the first year that no one in the family was going to her mother’s leaky summer cottage on the Baltic Sea.
Greta could still picture Monika at eight years old, spending two weeks with them, taking her first swim in the ocean and scouring the sand for shells.
She went with them every summer after that.
“Where will she stay?”
“She rented an apartment near the square and got a job at the bookstore.”
“Ton und Text?” said Greta, feeling a longing for the village and its shops. Not only had she taken Emmi there every summer, but she’d also spent her own childhood vacations in the town. “Are you sorry you’re not going too?”
“Yes, but this isn’t the summer for a beach trip. I still can’t believe my advisor picked me to intern with her; she’s the most impressive woman I’ve ever met.”
That stung a bit, but who was Greta to argue? Emmi’s mentor was a lawyer who fought relentlessly for women’s rights all over the world, especially for the poor. She was, indeed, a hero.
“But I hope we can go for Christmas,” Emmi said.
“Good luck with that,” Greta said. Her mother hated the Baltic in winter. “If anyone can convince your grandmother to open the house in December, it’s you.”
After they said goodbye, Greta finished tidying Emmi’s bedroom, feeling resentful of Otto, who was robbing her of precious time with their daughter.
Greta checked the time and carried the box to the door. In a neatly organized kitchen drawer, filled with rubber bands, batteries, clothespins, and matches, she found the key to their basement storage room right next to the key to the car. She put both in her pocket.
Once she’d stacked the boxes next to their winter tires and bicycles, she walked upstairs to the ground floor and braved the drizzle in the back courtyard.
Parked there, in all its classic glory, was the yellow Volkswagen Beetle, the car she and Otto bought at the end of the summer when they’d first met.
She adored this car for its design, of course, but more for all the memories it had helped create.
They’d had a lot of fun together over the years, but something between them had gotten lost along the way.
As she sat behind the wheel of the parked car, her hands at zehn and zwei , she could feel what that lost thing was, even if she didn’t have a word for it, not in English or in German.
She and Otto had paid cash for the car, secondhand when they’d bought it twenty years ago, splitting the cost between them, a sign of partnership.
The first time they took it for a drive, they’d gone all the way to Potsdam, parked by a lake, and knuddel ed until it was dark out.
Otto couldn’t keep his hands off her that night, but that was a long time ago.
Greta closed her eyes, kissed the steering wheel, and said goodbye.