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He’ll be arrested, he’ll be sentenced, he’ll go to jail. End of story
.

Tamara sits on the steps in the dark and thinks.

T
HE DOOR CRASHES SHUT
, you hear the turn of the key, and you’re locked in again. Try and see the funny side; it’s better than a bullet in the head.

That silly tart
.

You’re so exhausted that at first you just sit down on the floor and slowly slump back. For a while you lie on the floor with your eyes closed. You doze off, you land somewhere between before and after. In an intermediate realm in which nothing can happen outside of your control. You awake with a start. It’s all the same. The cellar, the pain, you. Your attempt to sit up is a failure. You roll to the side and reach for the wall. Your hands feel as if they’ve been pumped up. At least the bleeding has stopped. Inch by inch you get up on your feet. A few years ago there was a very bad Bruce Willis movie. You can’t remember the plot, just that one of the characters had fragile bones, bones made of glass. Bruce should see you now. There’s nothing inside you but shards.

It takes you five minutes to free your hands, another ten minutes and you’ve crept out through the cellar window and you’re lying on the cool grass.

You look like the lowest kind of tramp; your tracksuit is torn in two places, your trousers are smeared with vomit, and your hands are covered with blood.

After you have pulled yourself up on the wall of the house, you look to the right, and a hoarse laugh explodes from you. There’s the villa, on the opposite shore. You recognize the tower and the shed. You drove through that front gate with your unit eight days ago, after Gerald had rounded you all up. You were completely naïve that day. It all happened so quickly. Suddenly they were standing there in front of you. Frauke Lewin, Tamara Berger, Wolf Marrer. You expected one of them to point at you at any moment.

Hi, I’m Lars Meybach, how’s it going?

Only Kris was missing that day. As if someone had removed the most important piece of the puzzle that turns all the fragments into a whole. If Kris had been there, your meeting a week later in the corridor of your apartment block would have been a fiasco.

Maybe you were lucky, perhaps fate was only playing with you.

You turn away from the villa and walk diagonally across the garden to
the street. A car drives past, you opt for the same direction and follow it. Your steps are unsteady at first, but after a hundred yards it gets better. You carefully stretch the small of your back and breathe deeply in and out. Your body slowly realizes that life has resumed.

When the suburban train station appears in front of you, you lean your back against a parked car for a moment and rest. It strikes you as pure irony that the old man carted you off to the Wannsee. How did all of this happen to you? You’d planned it differently, you thought you’d be in control. You have absolutely no idea what it means to be in control.

The people on the train keep their distance from you. You really hope no one’s going to want to see your ticket. A homeless man walks down the carriage and ignores you.

For a while you sit there leaning forward staring at the wounds in your palms.
Tetanus
, you think,
I urgently need a tetanus injection
. You have a sense that the train is stopping twice as long as usual at every station. You look up and see that you’re at the Nikolassee. The train goes on. The station disappears, your reflection suddenly appears in the window. Your eyes. How good it feels to be able to look at yourself again. No one would believe how important it is for a person to really see themselves. Absolutely vital. You wink at yourself. You clench your fists. The pain is so clarifying that tears run down your cheeks.

You aren’t a murderer, you’re just a lost human being in search of himself. He can be terribly lost as soon as he has the chance to find himself, he will take advantage of it. And murder. And turn wrong into right. That’s the justice of this world, as you see it.

Fanni and Karl
.

You found out everything about their lives. You weren’t interested in the other names in the address book. It was just about Fanni and Karl. And right in the middle of your investigations, in the middle of your perennial feeling of guilt and remorse, one lunchtime your boss sat down to eat with you and three other colleagues in one of those smart restaurants. You’d just ordered when Gerald told you about a friend of his who had set up an agency. An agency that apologized. For other people. You laughed, and yours was the only laughter that sounded false. You were sure you’d misheard. You remembered the story of a car engine that ran on one part gasoline and nine parts water. Myths. But as with
all myths, the question immediately arose:
What if?
You went on eating and digested the information. Gerald saw your doubts and advised you to look on the internet. That’s how it all started.

It’s a weird feeling, getting out at the Charlottenburg station just before midnight and walking the three hundred yards home as if nothing had happened. Past the people in the cafés and restaurants, past all those mortals casting you suspicious glances and not knowing what it’s like to be almost killed by an old man.

On the second floor you stop by at your open apartment door and hesitate. Everything has changed; everything has stayed as it was. You slowly understand why it’s so hard to let Lars go. You haven’t denied that name a single time tonight. Although the man broke your ribs. What is that? Can’t you or won’t you let him go?
I can’t. I won’t
. What’s wrong with you? You’ve paid your tribute and you’re free. And still you’re asking yourself this question:
Who says I can’t maintain this illusion a little longer?
It’s separation, it’s farewell, it’s over.
Yes, but Lars belongs to me
. And at that point you’re not quite honest with yourself. Of course there is a fascination in living two lives at once.
One more night
, you say to yourself,
and if I feel different in the morning, I’ll end it all
.

And thus Jonas Kronauer pulls his apartment door closed again, and thus Lars Meybach climbs the stairs to the next floor.

You try to open the apartment door, the key jams. You pull it out, try a second time. The key bites, you open the door and reach automatically to the right to turn on the light. The switch reacts with a dry click, the light stays off. You curse, step into the apartment, and close the door behind you. Just as you’re about to head for the fuse box, the first shot hits you in the stomach. The momentum carries you upwards, your feet lose contact with the floor for a moment. The second shot shatters your forearm. You collapse against the apartment door and slide down it. You’re bewildered. The pain hasn’t yet reached you. You lack all comprehension. You sit on the floor and don’t know what’s going on. Then your body registers the entry wounds, and your nerves react. A sigh escapes your mouth, and a wave of pain rolls over you.

H
E LIES THERE
, not moving. She goes through his trousers. Empty. She goes into the hall and rummages through the coats and jackets in the wardrobe. The fourth jacket belongs to him. His first name really is Samuel. In his right pocket is a bunch of keys, the car registration papers are in his wallet.

She takes them all.

One of the keys shows the brand of automobile. It takes Tamara less than two minutes to find his car. She reverses into the Belzens’ driveway. In the trunk there are two boxes of empty mineral-water bottles, an umbrella, and a blanket. She sets the things down beside the car and leaves the trunk open. She’s on autopilot, she circles the house once and is suddenly sure that Samuel has disappeared.

If he’s gone, I’ll look for him. I’ll …

He’s still lying on the carpet. Tamara grabs him under the arms and drags him across the terrace, through the garden to the car. She doesn’t care if anyone sees her. She heaves his body through the hatch. The trunk shuts with a boom. Tamara gets into the car and drives off.

Her first stop is the villa. She gets her papers and a big roll of tape. She stuffs clothes in a bag. In the shed she finds cushions and woollen blankets.

She goes back to the car and opens the trunk.

He’s still unconscious.

I could bury him. I could bury him here and now. The hole is still open, it would be very easy
.

Tamara shakes her head, she doesn’t want to have him anywhere near her.

She ties him up with the tape. First his arms, then his legs. She makes a parcel out of him. Finally she tapes up his mouth and packs the blanket and cushions firmly around him. She shakes him by the shoulder, he doesn’t move an inch.

All wrapped up
.

In the villa Tamara hesitates for a moment. She wants to leave Kris a message and wonders what to write.
Hi, I’ve got an old man in the trunk, and if you’re unlucky, you’ll never see me again
. She finds a pen and looks for paper. Her
eye falls on the note above the sink.
In the darkness of your thoughts …
She doesn’t know who wrote this nonsense or why she’s overlooked it before.

Tamara pulls down the note, crosses through the words, and tries to write, but her handwriting is a scrawl, her hand is shaking.
Pull yourself together!
Finally she scribbles in capital letters:

That’s enough. She leaves the note on the kitchen table and goes outside. When she reaches the car she hears a dull knocking from the trunk. She doesn’t want to look inside. She gets into the car and starts the engine.

K
RIS GIVES A START
when he hears the key in the lock. The man from the emergency service is right, the key jams. Kris hears a curse, then someone shakes the door and the key bites. The door swings open. A hand reaches for the light switch. The light doesn’t come on. Kris has learned from films.

“Shit.”

Kris sees Meybach’s silhouette. The door is closed. Meybach takes two steps into the room and stops. He waits for his eyes to get used to the dark. Kris waits for Meybach to take the next step. Meybach has to get past him if he wants to get to the fuse box.

Why is he hesitating?

And then Meybach takes the next step.

The shots are loud. Two explosions that sound as if they’ve bypassed the silencer. Kris aimed at Meybach’s lower body. He’s surprised how calm he is after firing the shots. His ears ring, but he is calm. Meybach slides down the door. He’s still, then a groan comes from his mouth, sounding a little like a sigh.

Kris aims his flashlight at him and turns it on.

“It’s you,” he says.

Blood. A tracksuit. Running shoes. Meybach looks into the light as if Kris weren’t there, as if the light were a presence of its own in the room, calling him into question. His pupils are pinheads, his mouth is half open.

“It’s me,” whispers Meybach and breathes in and repeats, louder: “It’s me!”

I
T REALLY IS YOU
, even if you wish it wasn’t, it really is you—with four broken ribs, a shattered arm, holes in both hands, and a bullet in your belly. Who would want to be in your place?

You sit facing one another. You with your back against the door, Kris Marrer on a chair. The flashlight is on the floor in front of him, lighting up the ceiling. The light is like the light in a badly lit aquarium. Your vision blurs, you try to see clearly, the light doesn’t exactly help. A puddle of blood is spreading around you, you can’t feel anything from your pelvis down. If your legs got up and walked away right now, you wouldn’t be surprised.

“I hope it hurts,” says Kris Marrer.

“It’s OK,” you say and mean it. The pain has turned into a background pulse. No, the pain isn’t your problem, what’s much worse is that you feel so weak. Sleep, you can think of nothing but sleep.

“I don’t care who you really are,” Kris goes on. “I don’t care if you died three months ago or if it’s all been a big act. And I don’t want to know why you made it so easy for us to find you.”

You cough, blood spills thick and warm from your mouth, you try to lift your good arm to wipe the blood from your chin, you can’t do it. You’re glad you can’t see yourself. Kris Marrer goes on talking.
Concentration
. You feel yourself losing the thread. Concentrate!

“… you’re one of those psychopaths who give themselves up to have the stops put on them. I don’t care about that either. I just want to know one thing: why did you have to drag us into it?”

A jolt runs through you. Oh, look, now we’ve got your attention. This is about the truth. This is about what happened. So give him an answer, calmly tell him the whole truth.

“Because … because of your presumption.”

“What?”

Kris Marrer has to lean forward to hear you better. You didn’t know you were whispering. You clear your throat, more blood, you spit, try to sit more comfortably, give up.

“Because of the … because of the position you put yourselves in.
You … Everyone lives with guilt … tortures himself over the way he … And then … then along come you little jerks …”

You grin, the white teeth, the film of blood on your white teeth, the smile of a wolf. And for a moment your strength comes back to you. Like a fluctuating pulse. Your heart thumps. The power of the just.

“I was … punishing you, get it? I punished you for your presumption. Because I … I know what guilt is. I … I was guilty. I was so guilty …”

You aren’t aware of the tears. They flow down your filthy cheeks. You wish you could stand. Proud, dignified, and not sitting pitifully on the floor like an idiot who’s just been shot in the stomach.

“… I was … I couldn’t do anything, anything at all. I thought I’d found a way, and then … then I heard about you. You … you gave absolution and took other people’s guilt away as if it was as simple as that. I … I knew you couldn’t help me. And I wouldn’t have wanted help. Guilt is personal. Guilt is private. And no one can apologize to a dead person, can they? No one … no one can give a dead person satisfaction … No one. That’s why I taunted you. I made you talk to the dead. How … Christ, how ridiculous must you have seemed to each other. Did you really think I needed an apology for what I did? That was what you thought, wasn’t it? You …”