Page 52 of Views
All the policemen recoil in fear from the hand grenade. All except one. Yasira can see him throwing himself onto the grenade with his shield in front of him before Michael pulls her down with him. Instinctively, she closes her eyes. The device explodes with a terrible bang.
When Yasira opens her eyes again, it takes her a moment to regain her bearings. Everything is ringing in her ears. She scrambles to her feet. Michael next to her has difficulty getting up, and Yasira helps him to his feet. He doesn’t seem to have been hurt. Everyone around them is in shock. Wounded police officers are lying on the ground. Some demonstrators in the front row have also been injured. The police officer who threw himself on the grenade with his shield paid dearly for his courage. He is lying on the pavement, seriously injured and moaning. At least he is still alive. Since the shrapnel from a grenade is more deadly than the explosion, his movie-worthy stunt was actually the most effective way to protect everyone in the vicinity. Yasira can only admire the man’s presence of mind. He even turned the shield so that its curvature was above the grenade.
Then the front-line rioters realize that the police’s ring of protection has been breached where the grenade exploded. They run toward the gap. If they manage to drive a wedge into the line, the path to parliament is clear. Yasira and Michael draw their weapons, but shots are already being fired from elsewhere. Both take cover behind the columns of the entrance portal. Who’s shooting? Is the crowd armed? By now, Yasira can imagine everything. But the shots are from the police. The first rioter who broke through the barrier goes down. If Yasira is not mistaken, it is the man who threw the grenade.
Alarmed by the shots, his followers push back. The water cannons fire into the crowd. Panic breaks out on the Platz der Republik. Another squadron arrives via Paul-Löbe-Allee. The demonstrators are driven toward the Tiergarten. Paramedics rush to the police officers injured by the grenade. The day’s hero is no longer moving. Yasira is stunned. How could things escalate so quickly? But the answer is quite simple. Things did not escalate quickly. On the contrary: for decades, everyone has been witnessing how society has become increasingly fractured, and no one was doing anything to mend the fissures. It is hardly surprising that it has finally collapsed.
It is not until the late evening that the police finally get the situation back under control. Michael and Yasira find their car where they left it.
“I’ll drive you home,” says Michael.
As if it were just another evening. Yasira only nods. They hardly speak in the car, instead, they listen to the news. The grim summary: 247 arrests, an unknown number of injured demonstrators, one rioter shot dead, seventeen police officers injured. And one dead. The man who saved everyone from the worst effects of the hand grenade did not survive his act of heroism.
Only in her apartment does Yasira remember to check her phone. She has countless messages. Among them is one from Zara, who copied a picture of the attack on the Reichstag from the news. The caption reads: “Are you THERE?!?!!”
“I was there,” Yasira writes back. “But I’m fine.”
“OMG!”
Then she calls Zara and tries to calm her down. But she herself is still full of adrenaline. She also talks to her parents until Yasira’s sister calls and she can report to her, too, that she’s fine. At least physically.
The next morning, the news is still dominated by the previous day’s uproar. During breakfast, Yasira scrolls through the articles on her phone. A lot is written about the police officer who threw himself on the grenade. Andreas Müller, his name, is celebrated as a hero. Rightly so, of course. The problem is that he doesn’t have much of it. Even the Chancellor wants Müller to be awarded the Federal Cross of Merit posthumously. Something that is technically not possible. But only technically. Yet Yasira fears that in just two months’ time, hardly anyone will remember him. In two years’ time, he could be the one million euro question onWho Wants to Be a Millionaire? And as much as Yasira is personally grateful to her colleague Andreas Müller, as he probably saved her life too, she is annoyed that the reporting is once again personalizing to this extent instead of addressing the structural problems that made yesterday evening possible in the first place.
For years, the state has stood idly by while part of the population has become increasingly radicalized. For years, it has been known that fake news on the internet detaches people from reality, but legislators have not dared to regulate the big tech companies like the mass media that they have long become. A Federal Cross of Merit for a murdered police officer will not solve this problem either. Yasira leaves her cereal only half-eaten and heads out of her apartment.
While still in the stairwell, she receives a call from an unknown number.
“I... I saw the news,” a voice says. “It’s too messed up. It’s just too messed up. Can we meet? Alone? In half an hour? At Café Bilderbuch? In Akazienstraße.”
“Who’s this?” Yasira asks.
“This is... um... Goethe. You know.”
Yasira doesn’t know. “Who?”
Is this a prank call? But the voice sounds familiar to her.
“You gave me your card.”
Then it hits Yasira like scales falling from her eyes. Goethe. Schiller. Tom Schiller, like the poet, not the actor. So he doesn’t want to say his name on the phone. A paranoid?
“Ah yes, of course, Mr. Goethe,” she says, “In half an hour. I’ll be there.”
MOVE FAST
At half past nine sharp, Yasira enters the Café Bilderbuch.
Unable to spot Tom Schiller in the front of the place, she passes the counter, climbs a small staircase, and enters a larger room lined with bookshelves. There, in the far corner, sits the CTO of AlmostReal. The café isn’t even half full, and yet he’s wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. Schiller looks like the stereotype of a man who doesn’t want to be recognized. He spots Yasira and secretly waves to her, as if she hadn’t recognized him at first glance.
Yasira sits down with him.
“Mr. Schi...” she begins.
“No names please,” Schiller interrupts and looks around nervously at the other guests. “The fact that we’re chatting here could cost me my job,” he adds whispering.
Yasira nods.
“That’s why I have to ask you to promise me confidentiality.”
