Oskar Vogel was being followed. He knew it.
There was nothing particularly memorable about the woman who was sitting at a table outside the Chinese restaurant, across from the grim beige building where Oskar worked. He only noticed her because the Bethmannstraße streetcar passed between them at that moment, and when it was gone, there she was staring right at him. She was in her forties, smoking, wearing a white blouse and jeans. Her sandy hair was tied in a ponytail. She looked at him, saw him looking back, and immediately went back to the copy of Die Aktuelle she was reading. That was that.
He forgot all about her until an hour later. After leaving the office, Oskar did what he usually did on his walk home. He stopped in the Römerplatz for a hefeweizen. He typically went to the same place near the red-and-white steeple of the Nikolaikirche, on the fringe of the cobblestoned square. He nursed his beer, played games on his phone, and watched the tourists snapping photos of what they thought were medieval German buildings, most of which had actually been built after the war.
Then came the collision. A little Japanese boy who’d been separated from his parents saw his mother near the steps of the church. He went running to her, bumping against the legs of a police officer and starting a chain reaction of people tumbling to the ground. The accident drew Oskar’s attention, but what he spotted more than anything was that same woman in the blouse and jeans, who was one of the people caught up in the collision. And as she got up, she was looking right at him again.
Strange.
Not long after that, Oskar finished his beer and headed for home, but he was curious whether the woman would show up behind him. He made his way casually through the narrow alleys leading out of the square and reached the Mainkai by the river. He didn’t look back or give any indication that he thought someone was on his trail. He continued along the water past the canal boats, until he reached the Alte Brücke, which took him to the south side where his apartment was located. This time, however, he crossed two-thirds of the bridge and then spun around with a tap on his head, as if he’d stupidly forgotten something. He started back across the bridge, and he spotted her immediately.
The woman, flustered and not expecting him to turn around, took a picture of the river like a tourist, which she clearly was not. Then she walked quickly in the opposite direction, back toward the city. Oskar followed her, but she made a pretense of tying her shoe and obviously saw him getting closer behind her. At that point, she flagged the first taxi that passed her, then climbed inside and disappeared.
Who was she?
But Oskar knew. The institute was spying on him. He’d worked there for three years, but suddenly they didn’t trust him to keep their secrets. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. He’d been sleeping with Louisa, and now Louisa was dead.
He retraced his steps across the bridge and went home. His apartment was on the top floor of a four-story building, and although the flat wasn’t large, the windows faced the river, giving him an amazing view across the city. Inside, he went to the small kitchen and opened another bottle of beer. He sat down heavily on his leather sofa, put his feet up on the coffee table, and reached for the TV remote.
That was when he realized something else. His apartment felt off. Wrong. Not the way he’d left it. It started out as just a feeling—was there a different smell in the place?—but then he began to look around the flat in detail. Next to the television was a set of bookshelves, which included two shelves lined with various coding books and a few titles dedicated to graphic art and anime. He remembered that he’d been looking at the first book in the Naruto manga series the previous day.
Had he replaced it on the bookshelf? He didn’t think so. He thought he’d left it on top of the other books, because he’d been interrupted by the ding of the microwave while he was reading it. Then he’d never gone back to it. But there it was, neatly back on the bookshelf. In fact, all the books were neat, their spines aligned, none jutting out farther than the others. Oskar was fussy about some things, but not about that.
He got off the sofa and went into his bedroom. His furnishings were sparse. He really wasn’t home that much. His bed was made, which was normal, but as he stared at it, the bed almost seemed to be made too well. The folds were crisper than he usually made them. And when he glanced at the carpeted floor, he spotted a dent where the caster had been moved. The bed had been shifted.
Had he done it himself when he changed the sheets? But that was days ago.
His dresser, too, didn’t seem right. He had two drawers of underwear, and he was the kind of man who overstuffed one drawer to the point where he could barely close it, while leaving the other drawer half-empty. But not now. Now the top drawer opened and closed easily, because his shorts were balanced between them.
There was only one conclusion to draw. Someone had been here while he’d been at work. They’d searched his apartment.
He remembered what Louisa had told him once. Be careful what you say at home. Your place is probably bugged. He’d laughed, because she had to be joking, but her face had been dead serious. She’d never wanted them to get together at their apartments; they always met elsewhere in the city, and when they wanted to sleep together, they did so in hotels or on weekend getaways.
Because the institute was watching.
Oskar went to the windows that overlooked the river. Down on the quai, he saw a man leaning against the railing. Was the man looking up at him? When he spotted Oskar, the man turned away and walked westward along the water. But there was no doubt in Oskar’s mind. The man had taken the woman’s place. He was a spy.
This was too much.
Oskar took the stairs back to the ground floor of the building. When he got to the front entrance, he glanced toward the river and noted that the man hadn’t returned to his post yet. Oskar quickly turned in the opposite direction and crossed the street past an Afghani restaurant. He spotted a VGF streetcar arriving with a clang of bells on Dreieichstraße, and he waited until it was ready to leave, then dashed across the street and jumped aboard. Glancing through the tram’s window, he didn’t see anyone running from the river to catch it or barking orders into a phone.
Nobody had seen him.
He settled back into the seat. Truly, he had no idea where he was going, but he’d felt suffocated in his apartment. The tram rattled southward, and he simply watched the city go by. It was still light outside. He was hungry, because he hadn’t eaten, but none of the restaurants the train passed appealed to him. Then, a few minutes later, as the train stopped near Hedderichstraße, he knew where he had to go. He got up at the last second before the doors closed and hurried out to the sidewalk. Across the street, on the other side of a small park, was a German restaurant on the corner.
This was where he and Louisa had first met. Well, that wasn’t technically true; they’d worked together for months before that. But their real meeting, outside the office, had been here, by accident. He’d gone to the restaurant by chance, and so had she, and they’d been seated at adjacent tables. Even though socializing together violated the institute’s rules, they’d chatted, then sat together, and they’d both known there was a spark between them that couldn’t be ignored.
That was how their affair had begun.
And, strangely, that was where it had ended, too. They’d met here again on the day before Louisa left. For old times, she’d said when she suggested it. Then she’d headed off on her latest mysterious trip. The trip from which she’d never returned. The trip that he knew nothing about, only that it had killed her.
Oskar went into the restaurant, feeling an incredible wave of sadness. It wasn’t a big place, with blond wood on the walls and tables, and chambered windows looking out on the street in two directions. Tiffany-style lamps hung over the tables like yellow roses. Standing near the entrance, he saw the two tables where he and Louisa had been seated when they’d first begun to talk to each other. The memory was so vivid that he wasn’t even sure he could stay here. He turned to leave, but before he could do so, one of the waitresses spotted him at the door and came over and took him by the arm. He knew that waitress; Louisa had known her, too. She’d said they were friends.
“You,” the waitress said with an odd intensity. “Oskar. Come, sit, it’s good that you’re here.”
He was puzzled by her reaction, but he let her lead him to a table by the bar.
“You want a drink?” the girl asked. She had short black hair and a plump face. He remembered her smiling a lot the last time they’d been here, but this time, she had a darkness in her eyes.
“Beer, sure.”
“I’ll get it for you. And a menu.”
She disappeared for a couple of minutes. Oskar sat by himself, overwhelmed by Louisa’s presence, feeling the loss of her. He saw the other diners eating their dinners, and although the food looked good, he found his appetite had vanished. The waitress returned with a tall beer and handed him the menu. He was about to decline it when she opened the menu for him, and he saw that she’d clipped a small note inside.
Oskar read the note. Die Toilette. Fünf minuten.
She wanted to meet him. Why?
But the request was odd enough—this whole day, this whole week was odd enough—that he needed to hear what she had to say. As instructed, he waited five minutes, sipping his beer and studying the menu, and then he got up and pushed through the doors that led to the toilets. The first door was open, and when he went inside, the waitress was waiting for him. She pushed a cell phone into his hand.
“She said you’d come again sooner or later, but she didn’t know when. Here. I’ve queued the video for you, so watch it. Then leave the phone on the counter, and I’ll get it when you go back to your table.”
Oskar shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
But the waitress bustled through the door and was gone. Oskar locked the door behind her; he didn’t want to be disturbed. Then he held up the phone and saw that the photos app was open, frozen in place at the beginning of a video. His heart stopped; he couldn’t breathe. The face he saw on the video was Louisa.
How?
He pushed the play button, desperate to hear her voice, but as it began to play, he stopped it again. He saw the background and realized that Louisa had filmed it here. She’d been right here in this toilet. What was she wearing? A pretty yellow dress. That was what she’d been wearing when they were last here.
She’d made this video while they were at the restaurant!
Why? Why not just tell him what she wanted to say? Why leave it with the waitress and hope Oskar would come back someday? It was crazy!
He played the video. God, her voice! Her face! It killed him to hear and see her again, because he was still crazy in love with her.
“Oskar,” Louisa began, practically whispering quickly to the camera. “Oskar, my love, if you are watching this, then it means I never came back. I’m dead. The institute killed me. They are killers, Oskar!”
He paused the video again and shut his eyes. A searing pain stabbed him behind his forehead. The institute! What was she talking about? He knew how Louisa had died. There was a woman, a journalist in Washington who’d betrayed her. His boss had told him what had happened. She is part of a fascist organization that wishes to stop us at all costs. We believe she is responsible for the death of one of our colleagues.
Oskar had taken revenge against that woman! Destroyed her as she deserved to be destroyed!
He wanted to turn off the video, but he had no choice but to hear more.
“It’s my fault as much as anyone’s,” Louisa went on. “I’m part of the lies. I’ve helped spread those lies. But no more. I can’t stand by and let it happen, never again. I’m going to America. To Washington. I’m going to meet a man who can help me expose the truth. But the institute may know. We’re all being followed! Bugged! They’re everywhere. I’m sorry, Oskar. I wanted us to have that future you talked about, but it’s too late. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, my love.”
In the video, tears rolled down Louisa’s face. He remembered now! She’d gone to the toilet, and when she’d returned, she looked upset. He’d asked her if anything was wrong, and she’d pretended that she was fine. But she wasn’t.
Lies!
He watched the video, wondering if she was done. She reached out with a hand as if to stop the camera, but then she spoke again.
“The fire,” she said. “That was what changed everything for me. Children died! Children, Oskar! They swore to me no one would be hurt! Don’t you see? They must be stopped. I have to stop them. Please be careful. You’re watching this, so please, God, you have to be careful. If the Pyramid knows about me, then they may know about us, too. They will be watching you. You’re in danger, my love.”