We’ve got to let you go too now. You were our very special guest, stolen from another story, thrown into this chaos. Without you everything would have gone quite differently, without us no one would know how much you’ve changed. We’ve seen you grow and now it’s time to say goodbye. The beginning is like the ending. You’re sitting in the car, you’re on the road again. Your mother sleeps throughout the whole journey as if she knew what lay ahead, and that she needed strength for it. She didn’t believe you for a second when you said you wanted to take her for a quick drive into the countryside. And here you are now.

You drive, she sleeps, the landscape passes by.

Three hours later you stop on a side street off the Schlesisches Tor U-Bahn station and have lunch in an Indian restaurant. You talk about everything except what’s happening right now.

The apartment block is old, and the façade is under restoration. Your mother follows you up the stairs. Just once, she holds you tightly by the arm. You wait. She isn’t out of breath, she’s thinking.

“We can go on now,” she says.

You go on.

There’s no nameplate on the door, the wood around the lock is scratched and the letter box dented.

“It’s all exactly as I imagined,” says your mother.

“Okay?” you ask.

She nods.

You ring.

You wait.

The sound of footsteps.

The door opens.

You turn away and go downstairs.

“Richard,” you hear your mother say.

“Oh, Kristin,” you hear your father say, not surprised or disappointed; he says it like someone who’s been carrying around a chest full of thoughts on his shoulders and now at last he can set the chest down.

You leave them alone.

Outside the building you blink into the sunlight as if you’d only just woken up. You’re in Friedrichshain, the whole of Berlin is at your feet, and you don’t know what to do with yourself. Last time you were here, you ran into Stink. It feels like a decade ago, it’s like yesterday, it’s exactly four days ago. Nessi has left deep traces in your memory.

As if she’d been there forever and I’d never noticed her.

The previous evening you tried to get through to the girls twice, but the phone was switched off. Who knows, maybe they’ve thrown it away, that would be better anyway. You also hope they were clever enough to get rid of the car.

You walk toward Alexanderplatz, buy yourself an ice cream, and take a look at the shop windows. You mingle among the people and wait for your mother’s phone call. What will your parents decide? Will they continue their lives together or not? You don’t really want to think about it, you’ve done what you could.

Two hours become three and then your phone rings. It isn’t your mother. On the display you see your old phone number. You cautiously take the call.

“Neil?”

“Yes.”

“It’s me, Nessi.”

You stop, people push past you, you just stand there.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you.”

“I … I just wanted to say we’re on the way back.”

“Good. That’s good. Are you okay?”

“We … I just wanted to ask if you … Can you … Will you be there?”

You say nothing, you know what she means, sometimes a few words can mean so much. Will you be there? And for a moment you’re sure that when she touched her hand to say goodbye that morning, she read your thoughts: Stay here and I’ll look after you and the child, if you save my soul in return. Your soul still wants to be saved. Now you just need to be there.

“I will be there,” you say.

“Thank you. That’s …”

She breaks off, you hear rustling, then Stink’s on the line and she says, “Holy fuck, she’s crying again now. I hope you said something nice?”

“It was nice.”

“Lucky for you, otherwise you’d have to deal with me.”

“I’d never do that.”

“Glad we’ve sorted that one out.”

You laugh, you’re standing in the middle of Berlin on the footpath and you burst out laughing. The people look at you crossly and push you aside like a leper. It feels as if your life has only just begun, and anyone who isn’t laughing doesn’t know what it means. You put your phone away and look into the sky, stretch your back, and feel four inches taller. Being a leper has never felt so good.