Page 5 of Views
Zara is already sitting at the kitchen table, having breakfast. To be more precise, what she calls breakfast—a crispbread with nothing on it—lies untouched on the plate in front of her and she is also staring at her phone. As so often. But any reprimand would feel hypocritical, so Yasira says nothing.
The kitchen is quite large and in many ways replaces the missing living room. On the wall behind Zara hangs the photo calendar with glimpses into the happy family life of Yasira’s sister Dalia. It shows July. But it’s already October. Yasira turns the pages.
“Have you seen it yet?” asks Zara, without looking up from her cell phone. “This video, I mean.”
Yasira nods. “Last night. But why do you know about it? You shouldn’t be watching something like that.”
“Mom, everyone saw it! You can’t be on the internet without coming across the video or comments about it.”
Yasira sighs.
“It’s so...” Zara begins, but then doesn’t know how to continue. “It’s just... fuck.”
When did it actually start that young people all curse in English? Probably with Netflix. And Zara has put on makeup like a... No. Yasira interrupts her thought. That’s what her mother would have thought. Not her.
Instead, she just says: “Yes. Fuck.”
She knows what the video means for her daughter. A new wave of stupid looks and racist remarks on the train, at school, wherever she goes. Even though Zara has absolutely nothing to do with this damn video. She’s just not as white as a sheet. Sometimes Yasira wonders whether Patrick contributed any genes to his daughter at all. Maybe he was already stingy back then. It also doesn’t help much that Yasira has named her daughter Zara. A name that she hoped would be German enough for her fellow citizens and Arabic enough for her parents.
“It will pass,” says Yasira.
“As if,” is all Zara says. Two words that reliably drive her mother up the wall. But not today.
“Yes,” Yasira confirms. “As if.”
She stares out of the window. It’s raining. Yearningly, she gazes at the car keys lying in a little dish on the kitchen table. But of course she will be taking the city train from Hohenzollerndamm to the BKA headquarters in Treptow again today. She has been doing this for years now. It’s a leftover from the time when Zara was involved with Fridays for Future. Eventually, Yasira got fed up with hearing daily lectures about the CO2emissions of her Volkswagen Golf and got herself a public transit pass. There’s only so many news reports and pictures of dried-up rivers and dead polar bears a person can take before giving in. At least that was the case with Yasira. Other people seem to be more resistant. Meanwhile, Yasira wishes her daughter’s dedicated phase in life was back. It had definitely been better than this new resignation. Zara’s hopelessness grieves her. Shouldn’t a sixteen-year-old still believe that they can change the world? And at least Zara succeeded with Yasira, didn’t she? A bit of rain never killed anyone. So she takes an umbrella instead of her car keys.
“Mom,” says Zara, when Yasira is already at the door.
“Yes, my child?”
“Take care of yourself.”
Strange. She never says that. But Yasira understands. It feels right. Something is coming apart at the seams. You can feel it in the air.
“You too, sweetheart,” she therefore replies. “You too.”
THE FEDERAL CRIMINAL POLICE OFFICE
The capital city branch of the BKA has its home near Treptower Park. The state protection and security group reside in an old barracks complex. As with many buildings in Berlin, its past provides an insight into the history of the 20th century. Before World War I, the building complex was built for the First Telegraph Battalion of the Prussian Army. In her early days, Yasira googled what a telegraph battalion was. It tuns out that they were actually troops, responsible for building or disrupting telegraph systems during the war. A profession that has completely vanished from the world. During the Weimar period, the site was under the command of the Berlin police president. A hundred years ago, colleagues were already walking through these dreary corridors. Then came the Nazis and with them the Wehrmacht. Later the Red Army. And the Soviet memorial construction administration. Its proximity to the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park is therefore no coincidence. The person in charge probably wanted to have a short route from the office to the construction site. Subsequently the People’s Police moved in, later GDR border troops, and after the reunification the Bundeswehr. Then for a while, asylum seekers were housed here and, since the turn of the millennium, the Federal Criminal Police Office. At least a part of the BKA. The part she no longer wanted anything to do with. The part where Patrick still worked. The bodyguards.
Yasira’s department, however, a kind of cross-sectional unit for all kinds of investigations that for various reasons are carried out in Berlin and not at the headquarters in Wiesbaden, is located nearby, in the so-called Treptowers. An office tower, that once housed an insurance company. The building where Yasira works is not what you would call life-affirming. Or pretty. More like bulky. Massive. On gray days like today, even depressing. Only the view from the windows overlooking the Spree is worth its weight in gold.
In the office, the video is topic number one. From a different, criminalistic perspective. Her colleague Jenny Winkler reports over a coffee in the small kitchen of the office that there are no useful leads so far. Neither on Lena nor on the perpetrators. But the conversation quickly drifts to other things. It’s always fascinating how you can go from total horror to absolute banality.
Jenny is Yasira’s favorite colleague. Almost a friend. Today she once again has dark circles under her eyes. Mainly due to the three children, including a two-year-old, running circles around her.
“How do you always manage to be at work on time at eight despite everything?” Yasira asks.
“Been up for three hours,” is Jenny’s short answer. “Being here is like vacation for me.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm,” Jenny makes. She sips her coffee. “Back when your daughter was little, did they already have those potties that make music when you pee in them?”
“Sure. Ours always played ‘Lambada.’ Why?”
“When the battery is about to die, it no longer sounds like Lambada, or in our caseFür Elise...”
