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“Oh, of course you have the educated middle-class version,” Yasira teases. Jenny’s husband is a doctor at the Charité and a terrible snob.
“Shh,” Jenny just says, “You’re the dull one here who likes to listen to classical music. Anyhow, what the potty produces no longer sounds likeFür Elise, but like some old 56k modem that logs onto the internet. Do you remember that sound?”
“Vaguely.”
“I’m just wondering,” says Jenny, “what Beethoven would think about his composition being used to encourage toddlers to pee nowadays?”
“And I’m wondering if my potty manufacturer ever purchased the licensing rights for ‘Lambada’ from Kaoma,” says Yasira. “What did the request look like: ‘Dear Kaoma management, we are one of the world’s leading manufacturers of singing potties and we would like to license your song “Lambada” for one of our products’?”
Jenny laughs.
“Anyway,” she continues her story, “for reasons I don’t understand, the potty started making music tonight. Completely without use. Dry, so to speak. And this weird version ofFür Elisehas burnt itself into my brain and now I have an earworm.”
“Well, you know what helps against an earworm,” says Yasira as she walks away.
“Oh, no, no!” shouts Jenny. “Don’t do that.”
Yasira turns around again and says: “A lollipop.”
With her half-full coffee cup in her hand, Yasira enters her small office. “Lollipop lollipop,” she mumbles. Ah, damn. The biter will be bitten... “Oh lolli lolli lolli...”
She sits down at her desk and tries to concentrate on her work. It doesn’t help that Michael Becker, her colleague at the desk opposite, is loudly smacking his liverwurst sandwich. Liverwurst... eww! Yasira shudders at the thought alone. Michael is in his mid-fifties and a GDR nostalgist. No, that’s not quite right. He spent the first twenty years of his life in the GDR. That left its mark on him. And you can see that in every nook and cranny and in the liverwurst sandwiches. But to say that he misses the workers’ and farmers’ state doesn’t really apply. On the contrary. Michael seems to have soaked up Western—rather American—culture in the ’90s like a dry sponge doused with Coke. He eats too much junk food, watches too much TV and gets too little exercise. Of course, like many of his colleagues, he is latently racist, but in a somewhat nice way. You can tell there’s no malicious intent behind it. He just doesn’t get it. But when you point out to him in a friendly way that the packet has been labeled “chocolate kiss”?11for years now, he says “Yes, of course. Chocolate kiss. That’s what I meant,” and doesn’t pretend to be asked to wipe his ass with the last portrait of his deceased mother. What’s far more important anyway is this: Michael is loyal. He always stands by her. Even when Yasira messes something up. Which does happen.
“Have you finished the report yet?” he asks.
“I was just about to get to it.”
In their last case, they had to deal with a self-proclaimed Reichsbürger?22who had stockpiled large quantities of weapons and explosives in his small Reich in the foothills of the Thuringian Forest. They came across his trail when he tried to acquire two hundred hand grenades on the black market. A truly unpleasant guy. In the end, they needed the GSG 9 to get the guy out of his stronghold.
“What are your thoughts on the video?” asks Michael.
“What my thoughts are?” asks Yasira. “What a question to ask. I think it’s terrible...”
“Yes, of course,” says Michael, “I mean, why would someone do that?”
“You mean, why have women been raped by men throughout history and all over the world?”
“No. I mean, why would someone upload footage like that to the net? I don’t get it.”
“Honestly?” Yasira replies. “I don’t get ninety-nine percent of the stuff people put online.”
“Yes, but...”
“I know what you mean. What kind of criminal publishes a video evidence of their crime?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, maybe the guys had an argument? The end of the video suggests that. Maybe the guy who filmed the whole thing was angry at the others for some reason and that’s why he uploaded it. But to be honest, I suspect none of the four perpetrators, and I count the one filming, uploaded the recording. The unknown fourth person probably just shared it with someone. That person sent it to other people and so on. At some point in this chain, there was an idiot who thought it was a good idea to publish this video.”
Michael nods thoughtfully. “Brave new world.”
Isn’t that what Yasira thought earlier this morning? It’s probably a sign you’re getting old when thoughts like that start crossing your mind.
She’s only just begun writing her report on the uncooperative Reichsbürger when her phone rings. She wasn’t expecting the call, but when it comes, she’s not surprised. The boss wants to see her in his office. Yasira hangs up and gives Michael a meaningful look. Her colleague, mid-bite into yet another liverwurst sandwich, just shakes his head.
“No, no, no,” he says with his mouth full. “Not us. Tell him we need more time to wrap up the Reichsbürger case.”
Yasira shrugs her shoulders. If the boss had made up his mind, there was nothing to be done and Michael knew that, of course.
