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Ellie Richter had a string missing from her DNA. Her mother swore it. At a time when the world pulsed with fear, Ellie refused to hide away. She had always been that way, ever since she had been a tiny girl with ginger pigtails and alabaster skin dotted with a generous spray of freckles. It was why, at four years old, she roared at a growling dog twice her size, though she should have been quaking in her boots. It was why, at nine years old, the school bully made the mistake of stealing her lunch only once. His nose smarted for days after their encounter; his ears rang with the story of Ellie’s fists for his whole school career. Ellie’s courage made her a great reporter, if only her editor would give her some freedom. That tenacity had also often landed her in trouble.
At lunchtime, she escaped the Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung’s offices on Friedrichstraße to eat lunch on the lawn outside Berliner Dom. Tourists meandered past in sunglasses and shawls as befitting early spring. The cathedral’s sage green dome reached into a sky filled with wisps of cumulus clouds. Sedate organ music drifted out from open doors into the warm Berlin air. Ellie dug her bare toes into the springy grass and picked at the cheese and grapes she had packed that morning.
This brief hour in the middle of the working day, when she could take refuge in the nooks and crannies of the city, soothed her. Especially when her new job, despite her striving, failed to live up to her ideals. What had happened to the investigative journalism she’d dreamed of in college? Her job at BAZ had the potential to be wonderful. A local paper with a thriving readership that packed enough of a punch to be syndicated nationally. A shame then, that the assignments Marina gave her prompted groans Ellie could barely conceal. They stifled her, like slick oil on a seagull. Ellie didn’t want to be just another lackey; she wanted more.
She cast a glance at her wrist watch, weighing up when she had to be back in the office. If she rode fast, she could stay a little longer. Her phone vibrated in her bag. Ellie sighed and dug it out, tossing pens, her journal and a flask of water onto the lawn in the process.
“Hello?”
At the other end of the line, Tom, her boss’s assistant, huffed. Ellie could hear the bustle of the news desk in the background. “Hi, trouble. I thought I was having a bad day, but yours is about to end in hellfire, judging by Marina’s body language.”
She and Tom had quickly become firm friends, and it paid to have an ally at work.
“Dude, what now? I’m at lunch. Can it wait? I’ll be back in the office in a quarter of an hour.”
“No, I’m afraid not. She’s just read your latest copy and there’s steam coming out of her ears. She wants you in right away, before her editorial meeting at 2 p.m.”
Ellie bristled and checked her watch.
“Okay.”
“Good luck!” Tom disconnected the line.
“Just great.”
In the distance, the organ blared. Ellie gathered up her things, her heartbeat a drum in her ears, before pushing her feet into her Dr. Martens. Then she slung her bag across her body and tossed her remaining lunch in the bin. Her bike waited just beyond a canopy of trees, where she’d secured it to railings. She fumbled with it, and as she did, a man stumbled into a pedestrian, a slam of bodies, one against the other. He apologised in heavily accented German. Her journalist’s brain filed him away like a snapshot: above average height, a mop of artfully dishevelled hair above a chiselled, bearded face, striking grey eyes and protruding ears. The man strode past, as comfortable with his aloneness as she was with hers. Then she mounted her bike and joined the stream of cyclists, pushing her legs hard to make good time.
It was going to be a long day.
Ellie clumped through the office, her hair a sweaty mess at her nape. She flung her jacket on her desk, ignoring the buzz of her phone and the journalists scurrying to meet tonight’s deadline.
“You’re cutting it fine, aren’t you?” hissed Tom.
“I came as fast as I could.” Ellie smoothed down her skirt.
“She’ll have five minutes, tops. Try not to make her angrier.” He nodded towards the inner sanctum of Marina’s den.
Inside, grey paint contrasted with exposed red brick. Past editions of the newspaper dotted the walls, stark headlines preserved behind shiny glass, a testament to Marina’s prowess as an editor. She’d become the first female editor of BAZ at the age of forty-one, and her reign had outlasted any of her male predecessors. Pictures of Marina with the city’s best and brightest decorated her desk: Marina with Katharina Witt, the figure skater; Marina with the late Helmut Kohl and the Mayor; Marina arm in arm with the chairman of the Pergamon Museum, all shiny white teeth and alcohol-glazed eyes. It paid to network in this world.
In the corner of the room, on an oval meeting table for six, sat Marina in a crisp white shirt, rolling her eyes. “You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that much.”
“Sorry I’m late,” said Ellie.
Marina’s thick brunette hair had been blow-dried artfully into smooth waves that fell across her shoulders. In her late forties now, her skin betrayed the signs of heavy smoking. Lines criss-crossed around her pursed mouth. She was always happier with a cigarette between her fingers. Right now, her fingers drummed a beat on the glass. She motioned to the space across from her. “Sit.”
Ellie sank into a seat.
Marina let rip. “I read your latest copy—let’s see—an hour ago now, and I’m still seething. That wasn’t the angle we discussed. Why do you insist on being difficult? You’d do well to remember you’re not out of your probation period yet.”
Ellie could be pretty certain that Tom and the rest of the newsroom could glean what was happening by the tone of Marina’s voice through the thin walls. Trust her to always raise the prospect of Ellie not passing her probation.
Ellie chewed on her lip. “I wrote an earlier draft, but it seemed a bit, you know, on the nose.”
“On the nose?” Her face contorted.
“Lacking in depth.” Ellie held her breath. One–two–three...
“For the love of God!” Marina pulsed with impatience. She flung up her hands then made a concerted effort to restrain herself. “The board needs the paper to sell, not to educate. If you want to write upmarket copy, maybe this isn’t the place for you. You need to up your game, you hear me? Sales have plateaued, advertisers are running God knows where, and we just can’t afford to keep someone who can’t read the writing on the wall. One chance, Ellie. You can be good. You just need to try.” A pause. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yes,” said Ellie, laying her palms against the table. She had been trying. What Marina meant was she just needed to be agreeable and follow instructions. Why did she find that so hard? One day, she’d be able to tell her where to stick it. She could’ve written the article Marina wanted in her sleep. The words weren’t the problem: Marina keeping her on a leash was. However much she had wanted to admire the older woman, or even see a mentor in her, their instincts couldn’t have been any further apart.
“One chance, Ellie.”
Marina had a tough reputation, and Ellie had been subject to her wrath more than once, but in five and a half months, she’d never been this close to the precipice. She’d have to work hard to earn back Marina’s trust for now. How lucky she’d been to get a job at the most popular newspaper in the city, and one with a national circulation, in the first place. She couldn’t get fired, not when the internet had all but pushed print media out of existence.
“Okay. I understand.”
Marina’s expression opened up. “Good. Right, read these.” She handed Ellie a paper file.
“What are they?”
“Papers about crime levels in Treptower Park.”
Ellie opened her notepad, pen poised. At last, something meaty. “We’re doing a crime story? Isn’t that Benedikt’s remit? I don’t want to step on his toes.”
“This isn’t really his bag.”
“Oh.” She meant this didn’t need the big guns. Frustration bubbled just beneath the surface. Just once, Ellie wanted the chance to shine. “What do you need?”
“I need you to link this crime to the immigrant circus. Seven hundred words by Wednesday.”
Ellie gulped. “The Treptow Circus?” She was no stranger to the circus. It was situated less than a mile from her parents’ apartment. To her, it had always been a story waiting to be told. She just hadn’t been expecting to link it to a story on crime. A Wednesday deadline left her less than a week.
“Most of what you need should be in that dossier. If you can get some personal anecdotes, that would give the right emotional tone.”
Ellie fidgeted. “Anecdotes about the immigrants’ pasts? Little pen pictures of who these new Berliners are?”
Marina’s brow furrowed. “Not quite, Ellie. This is a crime story. I want anecdotes of those who’ve been impacted. Real Berliners disgruntled at what is on their doorstep.”
Ellie visited the circus regularly. She didn’t need to investigate what was on their doorstep. She already knew: a magical world that represented both possibility and tragedy. She could never tell if the performers were happy or sad. She closed her notepad. “People are on their doorstep.”
“No, crime and poverty are,” said Marina. A nerve twitched in her neck.
Ellie chased away the clouds gathering on her face, eager to show willingness, although her resolve to please Marina dissolved with every passing second. How could Marina be so resolutely against the circus? Why the insistence on these specific parameters for the story? Even Marina gave her journalists a little wriggle room.
Unfazed, Marina pushed on. “If we owe loyalty to anyone, it’s the locals. They’re worried about the alien culture. The strange men and the strange smells, the tearful women who don’t look them in the eye.”
“So this is about compassion?” Ellie’s gut churned.
The oddities of the immigrant circus hadn’t alienated her; they had drawn her in. So much so, that Ellie often visited alone, although that might have seemed peculiar to nosy onlookers. She’d take her seat and watch the performers put on masks. They leapt and danced and guided their animals in tricks while the house band transported her to a faraway place, and she slurped a milky pink concoction strewn with nuts called sherbet, common in the lands of the immigrants themselves.
Marina had hit her flow. “Of course this is about compassion. I love this city. Who said this pet project would be a good idea? Aren’t you worried about the infiltration of Islam? I can’t imagine what the spend must be on the circus. We should send a signal to the Government that they were unwise. Think about where else they could funnel that money. What about funding for online technology, electric cars or building up our art and museum collections? How about investing in cancer cures and amping up our military presence at home and abroad in the fight against terrorism? Or bringing the Olympics to Berlin, expanding our astronaut program or artic exploration? We need to help ourselves before we help others. Besides, it’s cruel making animals perform. They have rights.”
Could she hear herself, the way she had prioritised things over human lives? Ellie wanted to blurt out in disgust, but she held back. It wouldn’t do to poke her boss in the eye so soon after her latest fiasco. Instead, she said merely, “The circus has become part of Berlin.” How could any good come of the immigrants feeling unwelcome?
“Only for hippies and liberals.” Marina fixed Ellie with a hard-eyed stare. Her pupils glinted like flint. “Don’t forget the disgruntled and the fearful, the lost and the angry. They drive our readership. We’re a newspaper, not an encyclopaedia. You know how it works.”
Ellie was starting to. Her mood hung about her like a gloomy cloud.
Tom rapped on the door, signalling Marina’s two o’clock. Editorial had lined up outside the glass door. Marina stood, brisk and dismissive. She pulled on a chic jacket with tapered lapels. “I used to be like you once. So eager to make strides that I cast everyone in the role of enemy or competitor. Don’t make me your enemy, Ellie. You’ve got talent. I’d rather you see me as your mentor.”
Ellie didn’t respond.
The editorial team filed in, a noisy rabble of jocularity and rustling paper. Ellie took her leave, wondering all the while when the truth had become an alien concept to an award-winning journalist like Marina. Ellie knew there was more to unravel at the circus than just a story of crime. Their untold histories and uncertain futures pulled her into the dusty tent on the hottest summer days, when the city presented her with an array of pleasures but the booming music and colourful fabrics of the circus beckoned.
Ellie’s thoughts scattered around her mind like the pieces of a jigsaw waiting to be put together. She couldn’t yet decide what was more important: her career, her moral compass, or simply following the truth.
Marina had made one thing abundantly clear: Ellie teetered on thin ice.
