Читать книгу Taken by Berlin - Nicolas Scheerbarth - Страница 4

Chapter II – 2139

Flame glow over Berlin. His clothes are soaking wet, in the heat of the night... the bandage on his arm, the T-shirt, the trousers. He no longer has a jacket, not since Würzburg...

***

"Hey, Silajev, are you awake?" a rough scratching voice spoke to him. His coffin opened into the darkness. Before that... he had begged for unconsciousness, endless... in the drone and grinding of the machine and its wheels, in which every sound sank into the noise, into an exclusiveness without sound. Eventually... his watch no longer worked... a miracle that they had left it on him... or no miracle at all, because his kidnappers were Nazis, and they ... he almost smiled at the thought in his coffin... were mostly stupid... eventually, it had actually become night. He looked up from his box past two heads at some glittering stars. That night was so bright, so absurdly light and calm, was life, rebirth.

"He's got his eyes open," said a second voice. A woman.

"He's not moving at all" – another woman.

"Is he gone?"

"Bullshit. He's gasping like an air exchanger. He's so delighted at your nice

face..."

"I'll give you a face."

"Now give him a hand out of there. He must be scared to death. Boy, oh boy, you're really scared shitless!"

He truly had his pants full. Ever since the robbery. The baby was birthed by four eerie mothers. He groaned when one of them lifted him by his right arm. She wasn't rough. She just grasped normally, but he was hurt. Later he understood that this wound, torn open on a sharp edge of his car, had saved his mind... a quiet, seeping pain as the only counterweight to the hell of this ride. Anyone who had ever thought of describing hell as a big cave with bright fires and open boilers was an optimistic dreamer. Carefully they lifted him out of the box. Not surprising. After all, they had hardly kidnapped him to kill him right now.

Despite this reassuring thought... something was wrong with these women in coarse grey pants and black boots, with their naked upper bodies! But the thought wasn't more than a slight hint. For the time being Joschi was losing consciousness with relief...

***

"Where are we?"

"Falkensee" – Toms one-syllable answer.

"Are you sure?"

"Gee, don't be an asshole, Silajev. If I know anything, it's where I'm going!"

"So... I didn't mean it that way. I meant our safety. Is it dangerous over here?"

Bright fire lit the sky before them. Like flames. He pointed forward, through the mosquito-plastered windshield of the van.

"Well, for such a super-politician from Strasbourg, you stutter quite a lot. What would be dangerous for us here?"

"Well, whatever’s making those fires..."

"Fire?"

"Right there. Something's burning."

An unknown country for him. Fantasies. A place at the end of the rainbow. With the reflection of a sea of flames in the sky...

"Silajev, you joker. These are floodlights!"

***

When he regained consciousness for the second time, he was in heaven. A cool, brick room, the walls plastered raw, above his feet a crucifix... dry, clean, almost rested, he lay comfortably on a narrow bed. His angel squatted sideways on an ancient, abraded armchair. The angel looked like a young woman. She had her legs in black trousers and boots hung over her armrests. Her naked, lean torso was adorned with a pair of strong breasts. The face was young, but weathered early, over it wildly stubbly black hair. She read.

Even before he stirred, he remembered the hunch: Nazis didn't read. Nazis did not let women lift their prisoners from a camouflage device, frolicking happily. And Nazi bitches also looked different too... doll-like or brutal, but never like harsh angels, hard and friendly at the same time. He looked over. The angel looked up... with warm, dark eyes in the young and old, heart-shaped face.

"Are you awake?"

He nodded slightly. He couldn't say anything. You just didn't talk to angels. The crucifix, the monastery cell... what was going on here? Gradually his mind, trained in the offices and conference rooms of Strasbourg, began to work again. He saw where he was, but he couldn't make sense of it. Nazis had kidnapped him... a large and well-organized troupe. That was more than anyone else in the region could muster... as far as his people knew, the government of the degenerate backyard that still proudly called itself the European Union. Those weren't just a bunch of dressed-up guys. They had real Woodspeople with them... who did not bow to anybody, but from time to time worked together with the Nazis.

But here was this room, a monastery cell. What did the church... that miserable remainder of an organization that still believed in Judgment Day, even though it had long since occurred a thousand times... stand to gain from an action like his kidnapping... above all with the Nazis as henchmen? That didn't fit... that much they thought they knew in Strasbourg. And these women! Neither the church nor the Nazis had such women. Rumors were heard of combat nuns in the new sects that had emerged shortly after the Great Catastrophe. In South America. The idea was absurd that such a force had seeped into Europe and was now making common cause with the Nazis here. No, there was something wrong! On the other hand,... what was more absurd than his fate, the kidnapping of a European Council member?

"Are you hungry?" And when he didn't react... "Or thirsty?"

"Yes," in hoarse tone.

"Great."

She stood up, took a tin bottle and a cup from the table next to her. Then she leaned over him, straightened him up and supported him so that he could drink. At first, he had wanted to admire her full, round breasts, which swung around so close in front of him. But then he realized he was almost too weak to drink. He drank without any thought of the sight. After all, a woman with a naked upper body was nothing special. He drank and sank back to his pillow.

"Still tired?"

"No, it's alright." – painful.

"It's not a problem. If you don't feel fit, I'll leave you alone."

"What else?"

"Or I'll let them know. That you're awake."

"Know? Let who know?"

At first, he wanted to speak informal to her, use the German "du", but then convention prevailed. In any case, she didn't sound condescending, not like the casual provocation of a kidnapper who was reluctant to humiliate her victim with impunity. That gnarled door over there was probably locked. Yet, he didn't feel like he was with enemies. With strangers perhaps... very strange strangers even... but not with enemies.

"My people. Susie."

"Who's that? Who are you?"

"Ah, you're getting lively!" – suddenly very sharp. "But let it go. It's no use. Nothing's gonna happen to you, but the message... you're gonna have to wait. I can't deliver the message."

"Why?"

"Just because. Susie wants to deliver it herself."

"Who's Susie?"

"Enough questions! Save us the trouble. Are you hungry now?"

"No. Thank you. Give me another cup, please. And then let them know. Whoever."

She gave him something to drink and told them. Then they amazed him for the first time.

***

Astonished, he looked at Tom next to him.

"Or did you think we'd light our city with torches?" – Tom.

"No, but... floodlight... I didn't expect that."

"You want to snow me."

"No, I don't! I didn't... nobody knows there's so much electricity in Berlin."

"Silajev, don't make a woman a fool! Well, we don't let you snoop around too much, but you have your spies. Not to mention the Chinese satellites."

"Those... ha!" Joschi sputters to his androgynous driver: "Do you think the Chinese let us see their satellite pictures? That would be too nice... the Triads, showing us their photos of Europe! No, no, that's a long way off. Last year the Brazilians had to send three containers full of rare minerals to Shanghai for a few months of old photos."

"See, that's one of the reasons you're sitting here. But you also have your spies all over the Zone. We've grabbed them by their pants so many times that we're beginning to believe that if we send them all away, we become underpopulated."

"Those moles... intelligence people... I still don't know who you really are, but you seem like people who know their opponent. Know him in detail. Intelligence people are out of fashion. They still exist, that's right. Someone's always there who needs them to sleep better. But in general, they seem as impressive as the Salvation Army. No one reads these pompous little reports."

"And you don't even know there's electricity in Berlin?"

"Obviously not. At least not that it’s enough for floodlights. But where does this amount of electricity come from?"

"Ah, a little wannabe spy, huh?"

"No, I'm just curious. Tell me or leave it alone."

"Have you ever heard the word 'fusion'?"

He grows stiff. Ramps, bridges, entanglements of brightly lit concrete rise up in front of them... huge like the ruins of a sunken empire, dreaming of former greatness... the Spandauer Tor at the 2nd Ring. The sky is orange as it was then. Light, no flames, not the torches of the first SA, the burning Reichstag, the city in the hail of bombs, not the fires of Kreuzberg, Marzahn, Little Ankara during the ghetto wars, not the blazing pine forests of the Mark from the time of the Great Catastrophe. Flames of shame, flames of a fire that... as they believe in Strasbourg, Damascus or Brasilia... only the Chinese can ignite.

"I can't believe it! A European Council member... and doesn't know that Berlin has had functioning fusion reactors for almost sixty years!"

"I know." Joschi has wet eyes. "It's... a kind of weakness. We can't think right anymore. The Zone is the Zone, and that's the end... that's our attitude. Nobody gets the idea anymore to check, what the hell, even to think about what's existing elsewhere... in areas with which we no longer want to have anything to do. Africa, India, Russia... they are nothing. I'm beginning to sense why you took me. Our younger ones can't even see the problem anymore: Europe is big, they say. And we're still fine! Then they stare at China without lifting a finger. And they're as happy as children when a piece of bread falls under the table of the Triads."

"Gee, Silajev, you're getting really melancholic."

"If we're gonna be friends, call me Joschi, please."

"Oh, Silajev... don't take it wrong, but not that way! I'm not going to become your brother and sister here on Berlin's Heerstraße, just behind Spandauer Tor. No, no. Let's leave it with Silajev. Or do you think my name is Tom for real?"

"I haven't known what to think in five or six days."

"Then relax a little. We're almost there, and I guess you'll have a lot to think about in the near future."

***

"We're not Nazis," Susie assured him.

Susie was almost two heads shorter than him... a cheerful, energetic woman in her mid-thirties, with shoulder-length blonde curls, an ironic smile around the corners of her mouth and a straight brow, which raised and lowered dramatically... dressed like everyone else in the pseudo-uniform of course, dark grey cloth trousers and firm, highly laced combat boots. Joschi was unclear whether as a sign of her rank or for practical reasons, she also wore a sleeveless vest that seemed to contain a well-equipped materials store. The vest was open, and Susie was well equipped underneath too. But Joshi was in no condition to be distracted by that.

"What else?" he replied, hoarse and uncertain.

He didn't believe it himself anymore. But he wanted to know something about these women... four of them stood in the small monastery cell around him... and his slightly provocative unbelief seemed to him to be the best tactic at the moment. It was also the only way he could think of in his condition.

"We're not Nazis. Believe it or not. Besides," – the brow rose – "you know that too."

That hit. The political professional now awakened in him and warned him to treat these women like ordinary citizens of the Union. They were strangers... far stranger than he would have thought from the outside. But pretense was part of his craft. He tried to appear more irritated and unsuspecting than he was. Perhaps they were impatient to tell him more than if they thought he was a clever little fellow.

"I don't know anything!" he burst out. "I was kidnapped by a horde of Nazis. I was abused and locked up. My companions were brutally and mercilessly butchered. Are you going to deny it? Did you only use the Nazis to help? Or are you working with them anyway?"

"None of it! Do we look as if we had to make such a mess to get someone like you?"

"Well, Madam Susie, I may not see what's going on here. But I've been kidnapped, that's for sure! And now you are standing here in front of me, and I am certainly not here voluntarily, that's for sure too. What you call a mess, I call a brutal, cowardly murder... and without these murders no one, Nazi or else, would have come near me."

"You think" – the dry answer.

"Susie, please!" interrupted a rough voice.

Joschi had already heard this voice when he opened his coffin. At first, he thought it was a man... someone they called Tom. But Tom was a... though very masculine looking... wirily slim woman.

"All right," Susie continued. "We kidnapped you, to put it this way, from the Nazis. Stole you. And just as elegantly we would have gotten you out of somewhere else..."

"Although we also killed one of them," his friendly guard interjected disrespectfully.

They seemed to form a solid, well-oiled force, and Susie was their leader. Otherwise, Joschi could not discern anything that could be compared with conventional military manners. They stood casually around his bed and each said what they thought was right.

"A Nazi!" Tom made a throw-away gesture. "A mercenary, a soldier, a beadle. I'm not saying he wasn't human... but a person with the job of holding out his balls. When fighters die, it's not an occupational hazard. It's part of the job! I mean, Kandy, we know that best ourselves... that fighting is a shit job. You have to do it sometimes, but you can't transfigure it... otherwise we are soon on the way back into the hell of the last centuries... when fighting was heroic and sublime because it makes you so wonderfully dead."

"Tom, you're already talking like Bonnet and the other broads from headquarters," Susie said. "But we should take care of our guest now before we sit down to knit stockings."

Kandy and the fourth woman in the room... she was older than the others, perhaps in her mid-forties, broad and extremely strong, martial with a long, white scar on her right breast... bent with laughter, and Tom, not at all offended, grinned with them about the inside joke. Joschi didn't know how this was funny, but he thought it all the more informative: "The other women from the headquarters"... he still didn't know how Nazis, the church, and this women's headquarters were connected. In his mind, he bought the second abduction from the women, even though he continued to play the disbeliever.

"Guest"? he went after it reproachfully. "Are you saying I can say goodbye now, leave the room through this door and go home unharmed?"

"Joschi Silajev, don't play with us. We know that one doesn't survive for decades in the sacred halls of Strasbourg being so nice and naive. We have no unpleasant plans for you, but we will keep you. For a certain time at least."

"So. Keep me! Have you ever thought about what it means to hold a man of my rank? Even if I assume that you actually have nothing to do with the Nazis... that, for whatever reason, you have liberated me, so to speak... I'm sure the Union police won't see it that way. I guess at least 12 hours have passed since the highway massacre. And even if there were less..."

"Save your breath. We know how your cops work. But they don't know anything."

"Pardon me?"

"In plain language, they're looking for you like crazy... in the middle of an ant war of three wildly running around heaps: the Union-Nazis, the Woodspeople, and the free Nazis. Do you understand? All are firmly convinced that the others have you. None of them has us on its list. And your super-smart cops are right in the middle of the gang war they're waging over your pretty ass. And not just here in the Union territory. You could be anywhere. In the Dead Land, in the Caucasus, in Macedonia... your choice."

"Sneaky, admitted. But at the latest as soon as you make your demands, whoever you actually are, our analysts will know..."

"Oh, you motherless child! You just don't get it!"

Susie was smirking, the others were grinning. He was satisfied with himself. It was immediately clear to him that such an unusual liberation must have other reasons than ordinary blackmail. His method seemed to work. Until Tom interfered.

"Stop it now!" said the woman who looked like a man. "He doesn't have to understand it either! Or he really understands it pretty well. Joschi Silajev, you know enough for now. You'll stay with us and join me on a little trip shortly. There are a few people who want to talk to you... no, no, not questioning or torturing, just talking. On the contrary, you may listen more than you talk. That's all they want from you. And the trouble with your cops or the Nazis... whatever the difference is... leave it to us!"

Tom turned around and went to the door. She knocked on it three times, then it got unlocked from the outside. Tom went out, and the other women followed her, Kandy last. She stopped under the door and turned to him.

"Get some sleep now if you can," she said. "And if you need anything, just knock on the door like she did."

"One moment. Please!" he shouted.

She stopped and looked at him. At that moment a fifth woman appeared next to her... smooth, short, rust-red hair, a soft girl's face, in impressive contrast to her large, strong body. She was dressed like the others, her skin pale, the small, firm breasts sprinkled with freckles. The bulky handle of a heavy, modern firearm protruded from a halter on her belt. Even she didn't seem to have the slightest hesitation in showing him her face. Were all these women suicidal? Or... he got hot at the thought... did she have reason to feel safe from persecution? Who could dare to kidnap a European Councilor if not out of pure stupidity like the Nazis? The only really powerful people in this world were the Triads...

"What is it?"

"Just one question. Where is this trip going?"

"Don't be so curious, Mr. Councilor," Kandy replied.

"You expect me to listen to you. Later. Well, if you put so much importance on it... I'm already listening."

"All right, then. But" – dead serious, yet with a hint of a grin – "don't tell anyone! To Berlin."

***

Berlin.

"Come on, relax, man. We've made it."

Tom lowers her side window. A slightly cooler breeze blows into the stuffy cab of the small van... an 87 VW with biofuel drive, which on the long journey through two warm and humid nights has evaporated the sweat of fear of his history... supplemented by Joschi's own... and probably that of Tom. The drive through the foothills of the Dead Land isn't a walk in the park for anyone. Joschi sticks his head out. Since they are in the Zone, he wears only a light chain at his ankles.

"How much longer?"

"Pardon me?"

"How much longer do we have to go?"

"Now, before midnight, we can get through. Twenty minutes."

"Why 'now'?"

"You're asking some questions! Because in an hour or two, there'll be a lot of traffic. Nothing compared to before, but Berlin is still a big city. There can be traffic jams in the center. Life just happens at night... because of the heat."

Near the Havel the air is even more pleasant. Joschi breathes deeply, his head stretched far out of the window. The traffic is getting denser... small, lightweight one-, two- and four-seater, open racks with hydrogen drive, seats and luggage basket, enough for city traffic. On the right, a fire flickers under trees... picturesque figures, naked or with ragged clothing, move around.

"What's that?"

He's pointing outside.

"The fire? Oh, it's just an old ritual. Where are we... Pichelswerder... Punks, Trekkies, Neonics, just people who like to sit and drink under trees by a fire."

"Homeless?"

Tom inflates his cheeks, lays her hand on his thigh.

"Joschi Silajev! Do us both a favor and forget your Strasbourg memory disk thinking when it comes to Berlin and Berliners. Here, everyone just does what she wants. As long as they're not being an asshole. They just enjoy sitting by the fire together. Do you seriously believe that a city for five million, where about 200,000 still live, would have a housing problem?"

"No. But we don't know anything about this zone. A few sporadic intelligence reports, Strasbourg latrine rumors about an area in the Dead Land I thought was as dead as the rest. How am I supposed to know what kind of people there are here?"

"Exactly. You're aware of the fact that you have no idea. But then you see orange light and you think this place burning. I understand only too well... considering the mentality of your people, maybe it would burn. Or you see people around a fire and think it's scum." Tom talks faster and louder. "But I'm upset... that won't do you any good. Just shut up and watch! That's all anyone expects from you here."

A thousand fumes, noises, images are blowing through the hot night... a group sits idle on old chairs in a circle on the side of the road. Traffic's stalling, Tom has to stop too. The car in front of them has stopped right next to the group, the people in it are talking to those in the circle, drinks are passed back and forth. Joschi remains silent... observes the informal and yet so strange hustle and bustle. There is light everywhere... behind the windows... even side streets are continuously illuminated... from a few tables food is sold on Kaiserdamm, behind it, the semi-truck of an agricultural cooperative from the fringes of the city... people are walking, eating, talking in the middle of the road. Carefully Tom steers the transporter over the busy streets... past people in colorful rags, nets, nothing... some wear only some jewelry, fastened at all imaginable places of the body... or a belt with a few pockets on it.

They progress at walking pace. People run constantly without any hesitation directly in front of the van. Tom curses quietly to herself: "What a bummer! I've seen the sign and ignored it. The third ring. We could have turned. But since I like to drive through Mitte... especially when I've been gone for months before... I absolutely had to get through here. Gee! Silajev, can you imagine what a feeling that is... after almost a year... as a man among Nazis... to come back here? Into a free atmosphere. To people with whom you do not have to pretend?"

"You lived as a man among Nazis?"

"Yes."

"But not because of me? Or is it?"

"You're a smart boy, Joschi Silajev... always out to be a detective! Yeah, it had something to do with you after all. At least saving your bureaucrat's ass. But it wasn't planned that way. I've been doing fieldwork, in general. The plan... it seems the Nazis hatched it themselves. We wanted to approach you differently... and not so soon. But let Bonnet explain that to you! She's the boss of this place."

***

He was exhausted, but sleep was out of the question. How did it feel to be invited on a trip to an alien planet? After his fear had subsided, serious curiosity had seized him. But it wasn't the reaction of the threatened hostage that identified with the perpetrators. Berlin lay in the "Zone", was... probably... its capital, an almost forgotten enclave, separated from Europe during the Great Catastrophe by the arbitrariness of a rebellious nature, bounded in the south and east by the Dead Land, in the north and west by the Baltic Sea and the large Elbe Gulf. What was there? Some 200 years ago it had been a separate state for some time. Now it was swamp or jungle or steppe... the new map of the earth was full of white spots.

Joschi Silajev was a member of the executive committee of the... after the Middle Kingdom... best organized community on this planet. And he had no idea how it looked like immediately beyond the borders of his bailiwick! He remembered that this Zone, the Dead Land and many other areas nominally belonged to the Union. Borders had never been drawn after the Catastrophe. You claimed what you could claim and what was habitable.

Outwardly calm, Joschi lay on his bed. Thinking about the striking lack of information distracted him from the memory of the kidnapping, the massacre, the fear, the torture of the ride in the locked, flat box. But he was honest with himself. He began to look forward to this adventure! And if he was honest about it: These women fascinated him. They were the kind that had always fascinated him. They had energy, humor, love of life, charisma. They had everything that you couldn't find in people today.

He stood at the head of a power, the European Union, which was almost powerless. The power over a graveyard. He had wanted to save, to build, but still today, the Great Catastrophe was stronger... no longer the great dying, the complete overturning of the nature of the whole planet into a hostile... no... inhospitable world... but it had also changed the will to survive. Nature had had it with humans. Depending on the perspective, 10, 20, 30 years of uninterrupted dying. A rapidly spreading uninhabitability. Coming of the last judgement. No more trials, just executions.

The survivors and the few who were still born and grew up, were different. They didn't know about future, hopes, or plans anymore. The remaining mankind lived on call... on a planet that had once briefly shaken beneath them. People didn't need governments anymore. There was nothing left to govern. They had created a representation for themselves out of habit. Government was... and that applied to all remaining governments except perhaps that of the Chinese Empire... a museum act, a historical farce in bad copies of expensive costumes.

He was important in Strasbourg... an inescapable, paralyzing fate, veiled with a semblance of power. He had known for a long time that he was nothing but unhappy there. Here he was a victim, a hostage, powerless... and yet, here was something he'd missed for thirty years. He felt comfortable with these women... yes, liberated. Not only from the hands of the Nazis, but also liberated from the sad business of administering the dying of human civilization. If not, the Triads were behind it... if these women were typical of the society from which they came... he actually could look forward to being curious about Berlin, an oasis in this dying world!

"Oh, I thought you were asleep."

It was Kandy. She had come in quietly not to wake him. He could barely hold back a smile.

"We got something to eat from the monks. You want some?"

"Yes, please. But... monks? Am I hostage to the church now?"

She laughed, "You're worried." She stepped close to him. "You're not a hostage," she quietly continued. "Don't be so scared!"

She leaned forward and stroked his cheek with the back of a narrow, strong hand. Even though he was physically far from any excitement, he could not turn his gaze away from her breasts, which swung full and round towards him. She noticed his look.

"Do you like them?"

His voice was too throaty to answer. His eyes wandered to hers. He smiled.

"You'll see... everything will turn out fine!" She spoke gently to him like a mother comforting her son. Strange how easy it was for a woman in her mid-twenties to slip into this role, even to a man of his age! Perhaps it was also the effect of the two unmissable accessories, which swung close above him.

She grabbed his hand, pulled it up, and laid it lightly on one of her breasts.

"Go ahead! It'll relax you!"

"I..." – croaking. He cleared his throat. "You really are... you... you're pretty, aren't you? But you're making fun of me, aren't you?"

"No!" She stroked his cheek again. "I really don't! You see, we like you... all of us. We were told a lot about you. And we're sorry it didn't work out better for you at first... and for your people!"

"Couldn't you have stopped it?"

"It wasn't that simple! We... I mean Susie and the others... had to come here without being noticed by anyone. It all happened so fast. Of course... we could have tried to warn you. But if you'd believed us, a bunch of crazy chicks who suddenly turn up out of nowhere?"

"At least we would have put a stop to the Nazis."

"That's what you think! But have you ever thought about where the idea came from... to kidnap you... originally, I mean?"

At first, he had a quick answer, but then he began to ponder. Lost in thought, he continued to caress the round, soft breast.

"Well, tell me! Where did the idea come from? Or more precisely, what's your version?"

"Ha! 'Version'! That's not a version. We don't know exactly either. All we know is that someone from your club is behind this. From the Council. And drawing these people's attention to us would be the last thing we need. That's why we did it this way. Now all they know is that something's gone badly wrong."

"Somebody's gonna find out the truth. At least those mysterious unknowns who allegedly were behind the Nazis... although, in some sense, I believe you. The Nazis are well equipped, but far too limited to challenge something as big as the Council. Such an action cannot have grown on this brown muckheap alone."

"You see!" She bent down and kissed him on the forehead. "You're not that stupid. With a little help..."

Her breasts were now pressing on his chest. He felt the nipples through the thin cloth. He had pulled his hand back and stroked her upper arm. It was crazy! This woman might still turn out to be an opponent, and she could be his daughter, almost his granddaughter. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the attention that had long since ceased to be maternal! He was about to embrace her completely and draw her to himself... she seemed to think it was completely okay, no muscle was stretched to defend herself... when a voice resounded behind them.

"Kandy!"

It was the tall woman with the dark red bob. Kandy looked up.

"All right, all right! I just comforted the poor guy a little."

In any other circumstances, Joschi would have been offended. He didn't like to be called 'poor guy'. However, nobody had tried that in the last three decades. Now, however, he only felt sorry for the interruption, even though he was painfully aware that he absolutely would not have been able to "exploit" the situation. The redhead pulled Kandy up by her shoulder.

"Sorry, Silajev! She shouldn't have done that. We don't want to 'seduce' you. Forget it if you can, please."

***

He's at the Mehringhof. A huge, ancient, winding building complex... shady courtyards below, behind the high windows and closed blinds. It smells like clean dust and old things that have become warm. Dry and warm. The smell of heat from the sun. Suddenly he feels secure, inappropriate for a hostage, inappropriate for a powerful man who should be secure in himself, in the aura of his power, his achievements and the recognition of others. But all that has flaked off from him on the journey to hell in the converted petrol tank. Only the naked human, an embryo, was reborn when they freed him, and here the first new skin is growing.

Did he dream of being torn out in such a way, while in Strasbourg he carried out his work endlessly, senselessly... a torment called governing... with agony as a new form of government? In comparison, the lack of responsibility of being a hostage is liberating, intoxicating. He smiles happily in the dusty warmth. Sounds of life from below from the large courtyard, the Mehringhof, echoing dog barking, distorted child voices singing a rhyme. Aren't hostages always ready to identify themselves, as survival reflex, the Stockholm syndrome?

He blinks. Next to him, a few meters away, dust particles dance in flat golden rays that break through the damaged shops. Late afternoon, the zenith of heat, time to get up. Time for discoveries. After all, what is he here for? Memory is breaking new ground. Once before in his life he was pushed into a strange world. Once before, curiosity and a spirit of adventure triumphed in him over the horror of having lost everything familiar.