The bedroom is sunny and bright. Babak and Julietta are lying on the wide bed, their backs to each other, not touching. The gray cat’s asleep at their feet. All three look as though they’ve been sleeping there every night for a long time now. Britta stands in the doorway a while, observing the still life, listening to the regular breathing. She feels something, something strong, but she can’t tell whether it’s beautiful or sad.
Actually, she wanted to wake up the two of them, but then she didn’t have the heart to do it. She’s burning to discuss the situation with Babak, but the truth is it can wait. Everything can wait. No more hurry. She has temporarily withdrawn from the popular society game called “Stress,” which requires players to pack a day like a suitcase, striving to fit in as much as they can. Britta has nothing to eat, almost nothing to wear, no music, no Internet, and stupidly enough, she hasn’t even brought anything to read. What she suddenly has, in abundance, is time. For a moment, this realization makes her slightly giddy.
Which could also be attributable to low blood sugar. She absolutely must find some tool she can use to open the cans of food.
She remembers from her first visit that the cellar is relatively dry but doesn’t recall what’s down there. She tucks her head between her shoulders and slinks through the low vaults, entering one room after another, resolving not to think about spiders and not to be disappointed. She discovers a couple of wobbly wooden racks, on which—apart from dust—there is only an assortment of old preserving jars; some broken wooden crates, with which—however she may wish to—she can do nothing; and a shovel whose shaft has been sawed off. The preserving jars are so dirty that at first she doesn’t dare touch them, but then she does anyway, carries them upstairs, and deposits them in the kitchen before continuing her search in the attic. The sight that confronts her up there is no better: a large, dusty surface area; light coming in through the gaps between the roof tiles; and a mound of old textiles, which smell moldy and are out of the question as a sleeping pad.
In the garden, her recollection that Janina’s dream house includes neither a garage nor a toolshed nor a chicken coop proves correct. But Britta has no intention of letting herself be discouraged. She goes around the house to the area where an overgrown hedgerow conceals the neighbors’ property from view. She pushes the long shoots aside, ignoring the tickling and the scratches on her skin, until she finds a place where she can force her way through the undergrowth. Crouching down, she remains hidden in the hedge. The neighboring lot features a country house, a sort of dacha, with green shutters and a shed whose door is propped shut with a diagonally placed wooden beam. The grass has been mowed in patches, and a child’s swing hangs from one of the trees. But the dacha’s shutters are tightly shut, and the garden breathes the peaceful atmosphere of disuse. This is a weekend property. Britta lets several minutes elapse in which absolutely nothing happens. There are no human voices to be heard; nothing moves except the birds in the branches. Eventually, she creeps out of the hedge, runs crouching to the shed, and silently rejoices when a swift hand movement suffices to dislodge the beam. The bottom of the door is stuck fast in the ground, so Britta has to lift it and drag it forcibly across the thick sod until a crack wide enough to slip through appears. When her eyes adjust to the dim light inside the shed, she almost weeps for joy.
Approximately an hour later, Britta sinks down onto her new bench, a construction of fruit crates that she’s put together in the kitchen. Her entire body is sticky with sweat and dirt, her fingers black, her disheveled hair festooned with little twigs and leaves. But she no longer minds that; she’s exhausted and proud of what she has accomplished. She crawled through the hedgerow at least ten times, being careful to take a new way every time so as not to tread down the grass too conspicuously. Next to the toilet in the bathroom, there now stands a bucket of water from the stream, and on the other side, a small stack of paper towels lies ready in a flat little box. In the kitchen, there are a couple of wine bottles, rinsed in the stream and filled with water, and beside them some cleaned-up preserving jars for drinking vessels. In the living room, she’s put two sawhorses, on which an unhinged door can be laid to serve as a table, though she’ll need Babak’s help for that job.
Britta is especially proud of a little stock of tools, including a hammer, a pair of pliers, screws, and nails, along with a screwdriver, with which she intends to tackle the canned goods. In addition, she’s found a somewhat tattered broom with its accompanying dustpan, plus a few pots and pans, which in the absence of a stove will be good only for storing their modest possessions. For decorative purposes, she’s even brought along an old rug, beaten clean in the garden and rolled out in the kitchen. The fruit-crate bench has been paired with a fruit-crate chest of drawers, which holds her meager wardrobe, and on top of which is a washbasin filled with fresh water. Toothbrush and toothpaste stand in a preserving jar; next to it lies the neatly folded face towel. She has fashioned a comparatively comfortable bed from a set of pillows and cushions normally used on garden furniture.
Sitting on the bench under the window, Britta stretches out her legs and is about to doze off when she hears a muffled thud, followed by boisterous laughter. Either one of them has fallen out of bed, or they’re tussling with each other for fun. A second later, footsteps come pounding down the stairs, Julietta calls out, “Hoo-hoo!” and Babak “Britta?” and then they’re both standing in the kitchen as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and perhaps it really is.
“Wow,” says Babak, looking around. “You’ve settled in very nicely.”
“Looks great,” Julietta adds, and Britta lets herself be infected by her housemates’ good mood, although how they’ve come by it is a mystery to her.
Britta guides the two through the house on a little tour, explaining what she’s managed to bring in and construct. While Babak nods with moderate interest and indulges in a few discreet yawns, Julietta proves to be enthusiastic; she praises the tools, the furniture, and even the water bucket next to the john.
One’s half-asleep, the other’s feeling adventurous. Britta envies Babak and Julietta when she recognizes that they don’t have to worry about parents, friends, life companions, or children. Their location, whatever it may be, is not very important to either one of them. A few days in exile, no contact with the outside world, uncertainty as to whether or not someone’s closing in on them, the notion that they ought to flee farther away, maybe even to another country—all that may cause them some difficulties, but certainly no existential problems. Living like this must feel like a video game.
Britta and Babak lift the living room door off its hinges and lay it across the sawhorses. Then they sit on their fruit crates around their new table, their heads not much higher than the table’s edge, and even though they have to laugh at this scene, there’s still something solemn about it. The table makes them a group, maybe a family: people who eat, bicker, and discuss things together.
“Now for a great big breakfast,” says Babak.
“Is the coffee ready yet?” asks Julietta.
“I wish,” says Britta.
“I’ll go and take a look at what we have.” Julietta stands up to go to the kitchen, but Britta holds her back.
“The kitchen is my territory. Nobody enters that room but me.”
Julietta, conciliatory, raises both hands. “No problem. Then I think the best idea would be for me to get on my bike and see if I can find a village baker somewhere around here. Or a gas station.”
“Nobody leaves the house. If you need exercise, run up and down the stairs.”
“Britta,” says Babak. “She doesn’t mean any harm.”
Britta disappears into the kitchen and comes back with a bottle of water, three preserving jars, and a little bowl of dry pasta. These things, together with the improvised table they’re served on, look like a caricature of hospitality.
“You can’t be serious,” Julietta says.
“Apparently, you still haven’t grasped the situation.”
“Then let’s discuss it,” Babak interjects. “How great is the threat?”
Britta reaches into her bag, which has been constantly attached to her body since yesterday evening, takes out the photo, and throws it on the table. The corners of the photograph are bent already, the formerly glossy surface is dull and cracked. All three look at it in silence.
“If the Empty Hearts want to take us out, why haven’t they done it long before now?”
“Because they wanted something from us. We were supposed to let Lassie run and process masses of data until a number of useful names remained. We did that. As soon as Babak’s code is broken, we’re at best a burden to them, maybe even a danger.”
“How did they know about the picture with the dots?”
Babak and Britta look at each other and shrug.
“Maybe they had a suspicion. At any rate, some of them were in the program.”
“The one whose pants were too big was Philipp,” says Babak.
“You recognized him in the video?”
“You didn’t?” He sticks a dry noodle in his mouth; the crackling sound between his teeth sounds ridiculously loud. “Five or six years ago. Very nice guy. Determined to die for the women’s movement.”
In Britta’s mind’s eye, the vague contours of a man appear, a young man who nodded affirmatively as he spoke, as if he had a constant need to confirm that whatever he was saying made sense.
“The one with anxiety disorder,” she slowly says.
“One of the few who withdrew at Step Five,” Babak adds.
“Once he got Ativan, he suddenly started doing extremely well.”
“He thanked us back then, remember? With tears in his eyes.”
“And now these rats are teaming up against us.” Britta slaps the table hard, overturning a water glass. Julietta runs into the bathroom and comes back carrying the little box with the paper towels.
“Are you nuts?” Britta snatches the box away from her. “This stuff is precious. Or do you want to wipe your butt with your hand?”
“ ‘Teaming up against us’ isn’t quite right,” says Babak. “They’re following a plan. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with us—except that they’re using our resources.”
“But what sort of plan?” Britta asks.
“A robbery,” Julietta suggests.
“Not a bad thought.” Britta gazes at her appraisingly. The gray cat silently enters the room and runs without hesitation over to Julietta. It sinks down on its haunches, takes aim, and in one fluid movement springs onto Julietta’s lap. The girl’s experienced hands begin to stroke the animal, which lolls and stretches under the fondling.
“Such a mega-thing,” says Julietta eagerly. “Mega-fighters, mega-planning, mega-dough.”
“Can you please stop saying ‘mega’?”
“The gold reserves in the European Central Bank,” Babak suggests.
“Or a few savings banks,” says Julietta. “They’re sitting on a whole lot of money.”
“All of that’s conceivable,” says Britta. “So let’s say they’re planning a massive attack and a big haul. And they’re taking the people they need to pull off such a strike from our program.”
“Not from the program,” Babak corrects her, “but from the preselection. They have the data on one thousand and forty-three candidates, most of them with an average suicidality value of six points. Normally, that wouldn’t even be high enough for them to get an invitation from The Bridge. A hundred and twenty got a score of around nine points. Of those, forty, more or less, would have made the short list, and even in those cases we don’t know what kind of progress they would have made in the program.”
“The Empty Hearts don’t give a shit whether the people are actually suicidal. They’re just looking for men who want to join them. Who want a little testosterone hogwash, accessorized with an English name, a tattoo, and God knows what kinds of rituals. They’re not interested in taking great care, they’re interested in firepower.”
“Maybe it would be better if we talked about what’s going to happen next for us,” says Julietta.
In the ensuing silence, the cat’s loud purring is clearly audible, like the motor of a perpetual contentment machine. Stroking the cat with one hand, Julietta lights a cigarette with the other. Britta’s surprised to see how smoking rounds out Julietta, how cat and cigarette make her a complete person. Smoking probably means to her what a bed, sufficient food, and a working shower mean to other people.
“Why don’t you go to the police?”
When Babak laughs, Julietta turns to him. “You have the break-in, the surveillance camera video, the photo of the dead man. That’s enough for the cops to bust these Hearts dudes.”
Babak continues to laugh softly to himself, but Britta makes him stop with a wave of her hand. “We can’t go to the police,” she explains. “We’re not the good guys.”
“In that case, how about a counterattack?” Julietta’s slowly getting going. “Your algorithm can identify the head of the group.”
“Lassie’s not God Almighty,” says Babak. “Besides, she’s not here.”
“Don’t be so lame, Babs! If they’re really recruiting a hundred and twenty people, that’ll make a mighty big cyber-noise. It can’t be so hard to pull out the right lines and put them together.”
“And then?” Babak asks.
“What? ‘And then?’ ” Julietta shakes her uncombed mane. “And then we build an explosive vest or something of the sort, I go marching in, and…BAM!”
BAM!—problem solved. Britta finds herself thinking about Vera so intensely that her eyes grow moist. She wipes her face with the balls of her thumbs.
“The Bridge never carries out attacks on its own,” Babak says. “We’re just intermediaries. Service providers, not terrorists.”
Of course, Babak is right, but there’s something tempting in the idea. It would be self-defense, says a little voice in the back of Britta’s head.
“You would do that for us?” she asks.
“What?”
“Go to war for us. Instead of animal protection.”
Julietta says nothing. In her enthusiasm, she has let herself get carried away for a moment. Britta watches the girl as she’s initially assailed by doubt and then gives herself over completely to reflection. Something is stirring in Britta too. Deep inside her, a hatch opens, and behind it lies hidden a vast, dark space she hasn’t entered for a very long time. She imagines a sign next to the hatch: “Principles Storeroom—Restricted Access—Authorized Personnel Only!” She has always persuaded herself that this room was entirely empty, and therefore there was no reason to inspect its inventory from time to time. While Julietta struggles with her dilemma—not an invented one, a real one, the kind you confront only when you have a clear idea of life—Britta feels an urge to take a quick look inside her own inner storage space. It suddenly occurs to her that the source of her constant nausea may be found there. But then Julietta looks up, and the hatch slams shut.
“I’m sorry,” the girl says regretfully. “I’m afraid I can’t do it after all.”