On the internet the East German state-owned meat processing plant ranked among the ‘Top Ten Berlin-area Ruins for Photographers’, right behind the Beelitz sanatorium and the decaying US intelligence listening station atop Teufelsberg.
Already run down during East German times, this central livestock and slaughterhouse facility was dubbed ‘Lotsa Misery’ by the people and still lived up to the name today.
Some parts – the slaughterhouses among them – had been torn down while others were renovated, such as the cattle auction hall, and new residential buildings had been erected along with a streetcar stop, pedestrian tunnel, and shopping. Yet vast stretches of the premises lay undeveloped and movie directors loved to use them for end times movies or big-city slum scenes.
These were the very parts of the grounds where Feli concentrated her search.
As Livio’s car lurched through the north entrance and headed into this land of ruins, the ground well muddied from the drizzle, Feli couldn’t help but think about death.
She couldn’t understand why people spent their free time here, voluntarily, hunting through the junk and garbage for morbid photos or broken reminders of a bygone age. Last year one young tourist fell off a chimney taking a selfie and was now a paraplegic. Apparently God was all about teaching strict lessons.
‘What are we searching for now?’
‘For a taxi,’ Feli said. They drove past a sign reading ‘To the Milking Parlour’, which only increased Feli’s unease.
In less than two hours, she was supposed to be leaving the registry office dressed all in white, a ring on her finger.
She couldn’t think of a bigger contrast to right now.
They were passing red-brick factory buildings. The mighty jaw of time had sunk all its teeth into the abandoned buildings, ripping out plaster and brick, scattering roof shingles, shattering windows.
As if those butchers who decades ago killed, hacked up and disembowelled the animals here had resorted to pouncing on inorganic matter for lack of any fresh new meat.
‘If the kidnapper was smart,’ Livio said, ‘he’d have hidden his car somewhere.’
‘Then we’ll never find him,’ Feli replied.
They stopped at a fork in the road, exchanging indecisive glances.
‘Looks like the slaughterhouses are to the right,’ Livio said. The signs were decaying and hardly legible anymore.
‘What’s that say below? Pairy?’
‘Dairy, I think. That’s the way to the milking yards.’ The world ‘milking’ made Feli wince.
‘Remember what Uhlandt’s mother said?’
‘That he’s vegan. He must hate every inch of this place.’
‘But especially the milking facility, right? She said she wasn’t even allowed to eat yogurt at home any more because of that anti-milk kink of his.’
Even though it was to blame for her osteoporosis.
‘Then we’ve decided where to look first,’ Livio said and put it in gear.
One minute and two turn-offs later, he hit the brakes again.
‘Why are we stopping? There’s no car here.’
‘But there was one.’
Livio pointed through the windshield at the courtyard before a barn with a pitched roof. The tracks in the mud clearly came from one or more vehicles that had driven up, backed out, turned around. Most of the tracks had to be fresh since it hadn’t been raining very long.
He turned off the engine, and they climbed out. The two of them walked up to the door in the shed’s corrugated metal wall and were surprised to find it unlocked.
‘What is all this?’ Feli asked after venturing a few steps into the musty, stinking hall and taking a look around.
‘Looks like the former milking parlour. The animals were tied up here for milking. Electrical equipment looks like it was dismantled long ago. Just the stalls are left.’
Feli looked at her watch, and at her white sneakers, already covered with mud.
Doesn’t even matter now.
‘All right. We’re running out of time. Let’s split up. You search the other end of the barn. I’ll look around here up front.’
‘Whatever you want, but, hey…’ Livio gave her his Three Musketeers smile. ‘Watch out for yourself. I don’t want to have to save you again.’
She returned the smile and her self-confidence surprised her. Of course she was scared and felt guilty about Janek, but her work on the hotline had rarely given her challenges like these. And rarely ever a direct result. She was noticing that, despite the danger and tragedy of the situation, it was doing her good to have something real and tangible to tackle. Not just talk.
‘I’m a big girl,’ she said.
She turned around and made her way to the steps.
She thought she’d spotted something like stairs about twenty metres away, possibly leading to a basement level.