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Frauke’s mother first ran away on her forty-third birthday. The police caught up with her just before Nuremberg. Tanja Lewin had locked herself in a gas station bathroom, and was endlessly calling out her own name. Questioned later, Frauke’s mother didn’t know exactly what had happened. She remembered feeling a sudden urge to get out of Berlin. Then she had a blackout and woke up in the gas station bathroom—her throat was sore from shouting, and two men lifted her into an ambulance.

Frauke’s mother entered psychiatric treatment for two months. The next blackout came a few days after her release. This time Frauke’s mother stayed in Berlin, and was arrested in the bedding department of a furniture store. All she remembered was waiting for the bus on Nollendorfplatz. A man told her the bus was going to be late. A moment later the bus stop had disappeared, and Tanja was naked in the bedding department, clutching a pillow, asking what all the people were doing in her bedroom.

It was in the furniture store that the devil first appeared to Tanja Lewin. He came in the form of a policeman and told everyone to move on. He gathered up Frauke’s mother’s clothes from the floor, and handed them to her under the covers. He was nice. He only spoke when she was dressed. He said,
I’ll always be with you now. I will come to you with different faces, but you will always recognize me
.

Tanja Lewin would never forget those words.

The doctors studied the Lewin case at length. They questioned Frauke’s mother and gave her medication; they spoke to Frauke’s father and advised him to have his wife put in a clinic. The medication worked to some extent, but round-the-clock care was recommended.

A week later Gerd Lewin signed the papers and put his wife in an exclusive private clinic in Potsdam. The same day Frauke’s father stopped sleeping. He lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling as if waiting for the everyday to return to his life. Incredibly, he went on working, brought money into the house, and did what he had to do to protect the lives of his wife and daughter. Only his eyes gave him away—dark, burned-out hollows that scared Frauke. For over six months Gerd Lewin survived this state, and then one evening he stood by Frauke’s bed.

“Tanja,” he said, “my Tanja.”

Frauke didn’t know whether he thought she was her mother or was only asking after her. She brought him back to his bedroom, covered him with a blanket, and was about to go when he reached for her hand.

“Stay.”

“I’m not Mama,” said Frauke.

“I know,” said her father. “I do know.”

He pulled Frauke onto the bed so that she was lying on her mother’s side.

“Sleep,” he said, and fell asleep immediately.

It was his first sleep in seven months and sixteen days. The next morning he woke up next to Frauke, looked around in surprise, and started crying. He howled until the snot poured unhindered from his nose and mouth.

That was how the rituals between father and daughter began. Gerd Lewin couldn’t get to sleep alone, so for the next few years they shared a bed.

Since Frauke has had her own flat, her father’s insomnia has returned. That’s why he comes to her place from time to time. Because of the calm she gives him, because of the pathetic illusion that his wife is with him again and he can sleep. Love can be cruel. It won’t let you go, it wants to be noticed day and night. Gerd Lewin could write a book about it.

Frauke pushes a pillow under her father’s head and gets up. She is so exhausted that she can no longer think clearly. Nonetheless she sits
down for a moment at her Mac, converts the advertisement into a PDF file, and e-mails it to Kris. Now everything’s right. Her work is done. Sleep.

When Frauke wakes up ten hours later, her father has vanished from the sofa, and Kris has left a message on the answering machine:

That’s brilliant! See you later! We’ve got to celebrate!

Frauke plays the message through four times, leaning against the wall, one foot over the other and a hand pressed to her mouth so that the laughter doesn’t explode from her. She is happy. She is really happy.

A week later the advertisement appears in
Die Zeit
and
Der Tagesspiegel
. It is set in the style of a high-class obituary, the death of a head of state or something. Eye-catching. The text is literally as Tamara wrote it during the night. It embodies Kris’s idea perfectly.

Under the advertisement there is no homepage or e-mail address. They unanimously decided against it. Frauke only put in Kris’s landline number. It’s a gag. She wanted to see who would call, whether anyone would call, and what he would have to say.

The first day nothing happens.

The second day nothing happens.

The third day they get four calls.

By the weekend it’s nineteen.

Without understanding how it’s possible, they’re in business.

T
HE CLICK OF THE NOZZLE
wakes me. I’m standing next to the car, leaning over, arms on the roof. I must have gone to sleep. My calves are trembling, it’s a wonder that I haven’t fallen over.

I walk into the gas station shop and get coffee from a machine. It’s eleven in the morning, it’s the second day, and I feel like a pinball that’s being bounced noisily from one cushion to another, never coming to rest. An hour ago I drove past Munich and set my course for Nuremberg. I’m thinking from one city to the next. I don’t know where I’ll go after Nuremberg. Only Berlin is out of the question. As soon as I see the next exit, I’ll switch on the indicator and look for a destination. Life can be reduced to the most elementary things. Filling up, drinking, sleeping, eating, peeing, and driving. Driving, time and again.

“Will there be anything else?”

The cashier has an eyelash on her cheek. I tell her. She laughs and wipes the eyelash away. She could’ve made a wish, but she doesn’t look like someone who believes in wishes. She hands me my change. I look outside. A man wearing blue dungarees and holding a bucket stops by my car. He sets the bucket down and starts cleaning my windshield.

“Wait, your coffee!”

I’m already on my way outside and turn round. The cashier holds up my paper cup. I take the coffee and thank her. When I leave the gas station shop the man has finished the windshield and is on his way to the back window.

“No!” I shout.

“It’s free,” the man says, setting the bucket down on the ground. “Even so …”

I put the coffee on the car roof, rummage for change in my trouser pocket, and press two euros into his hand.

“No offense,” I say and wait until he goes. Then I get into the car and drive off. Fifty yards away from the gas station I stop in the car park. My
hands are trembling. I look in the rearview mirror. The window behind me is brown, I left the coffee on the car roof. I burst out laughing. I just sit in the car for a few minutes and try to calm myself down. My hands are trembling, and although I’ve just been to the bathroom I feel pressure on my bladder.

“It’ll all be fine,” I repeat, resting my hand on the tailgate and enjoying the silence beneath it.

“T
AMARA
, I don’t think that’s funny.”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I hate surprises. It’s far too cold for surprises.”

“Take the blanket.”

“You think the blanket will help? What’s it even made of? That’s not wool. That’s barbed wire!”

The day is gray and overcast. Tamara has picked her sister up from the jetty at the Ronnebypromenade. It was only when she appeared behind her that Astrid noticed her and clutched her heart in alarm.

“I thought you were going to pick me up?”

“I
am
picking you up.”

“Tammi, it’s winter, and that’s a bloody rowboat!”

Tamara pointed to the seat opposite. A blanket and seat cushion lie there waiting.

“Come on,” Tamara said, tapping the cushion. “Get in, before your makeup runs.”

“My makeup won’t run, it’s far too cold, in case you haven’t noticed,” Astrid replied, and got into the boat. She sat down opposite Tamara and pulled the blanket around her shoulders. Since then they’ve been on the water, and Astrid’s mood isn’t improving.

“I hate open water,” she says.

“It’s the Wannsee, not the open sea.”

“Still.”

They drift under the Wannsee Bridge. There’s a hint of rain in the air. It’s the mildest winter for ages. Tamara likes the feeling in her hands when the oars part the water. She looks very contented.

“What are you looking so pleased about?”

“I’m happy to see you.”

“That could have happened ages ago, if you’d bothered to give me a
call. I’m your big sister, can’t you imagine how worried I’ve been about you?”

“I was going to call you …”

“You
didn’t
, though. You disappear for six months and no one knows where you are, and then all this …”

She points across the Wannsee as if the lake belongs to Tamara. Tamara goes on rowing and grins. Astrid doesn’t find that at all funny and kicks Tamara’s leg.

“Ouch!”

“Did that hurt?”

“Of course it hurt.”

“Good. So what was up?”

“I was busy.”

“Busybusybusy.”

“You could say that.”

Astrid lights a cigarette and looks at Tamara through narrowed eyes. They drift past the tram depot and approach the brightly lit hospital.

“Do I have to worm it out of you?”

“I was working.”

“Aha.”

“I’ve made some money, Astrid. A lot of money.”

Astrid’s mouth opens.

“You haven’t robbed a bank or something, have you?”

“Nothing like that,” Tamara says, holding the oars in the water to stop the boat, then points to the shore.

“Look, over there.”

The house is overgrown with ivy, and looks unassailable. The garden seems like a botanic experiment, but that’s just the first impression. If you look more closely you can see the paths and the plan behind them. The garden is thought-out down to the last details, even the terrace is part of it. There is a wooden table and two chairs covered with a plastic sheet.

“That’s where the Belzens live,” Tamara goes on. “They’re both about seventy and very nice. Once a week they walk along the promenade, take the ferry, and have a coffee on the Pfaueninsel. That’s what I’m going to do when I’m that age.”

Astrid tilts her head.

“Tamara, what’s going on?”

Tamara points to the opposite shore.

“And that’s where we live.”

The opposite shore is a good fifty yards away. Through the dense trees an old villa can be seen. It’s two stories high, and there’s a tower on the left-hand side. There are lights on in three windows.

If fireworks went off now, Tamara would find that very suitable. The view always reminds her of the beginning of winter, and what it was like going down to the shore late at night and looking back at the villa. As if it were all just a dream and the villa could disappear at any moment. Tamara has the deep and certain feeling of having arrived.

“You’re joking, aren’t you?”

“Shall we go ashore?”

Astrid puts a hand on Tamara’s arm to stop her rowing any further. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not joking.”

Astrid looks across at the villa, then back at her sister.

“Who have you landed for yourself?”

“Nobody.”

“Nobody with loads of money? Just stop right now.”

“No, really,” says Tamara and can tell by her voice that even she herself hasn’t really quite understood. Six months have passed since they founded the agency, and she still finds it hard to believe that they’ve come this far.

“Kris had an idea,” she begins, and tells her sister what has happened.

At first they were contacted only by companies with internal problems. Next came companies that wanted to apologize to other companies. There were also private requests, but they were quickly excluded. The agency has no interest in patching marriages together or apologizing on behalf of people who had accidentally run over a cat. At first they were limited to Berlin, but over the weeks that followed requests from the south and west of Germany started piling up, Kris said.

“Either we go beyond Berlin or someone else will do it.”

Thus Wolf became a representative of forgiveness and traveled all around Germany. He likes the change and the anonymity that goes with it—night after night another hotel room, day after day another town.

The brothers are responsible for the apologizing. Tamara tried and failed. She makes everything personal, and if she’s honest she doesn’t think much of apologizing for somebody she finds unsympathetic. Kris said:

“You don’t take sides; you do your job, that’s the only way it works.”

And because it only works like that, Tamara let it go. Apologies were out of the question for Frauke as well. She opted for office work, putting timetables together, coordinating commissions, writing bills, things like that. That’s her world, while Tamara sits by the phone and is responsible for the requests. Because anyone who doesn’t get along with Tamara can go hang as far as the agency’s concerned.

“Why haven’t you told me any of this?” Astrid wants to know.

“We didn’t want anyone else muscling in on us. We wanted to be able to go our own way. We had no idea how it would go.”

The machinery was set in motion without any help from them. Apart from the advertisement in two big newspapers there was no other promotion. Frauke said it would be tacky. The companies heard about them and reacted. Guilt-stricken company directors phoned up; managers explaining their problems in the third person, and secretaries who, pushed forward by their bosses, wanted to find out how the thing actually worked.