Thomas lied carefully. "I was a student. Engineering. Up until a few months ago. It was hopeless, though; I was failing everything."
"So what do you do now?"
He looked doleful. "My father owns a merchant bank. I went into engineering to try to get away from the family business, but --"
She wasn't sympathetic at all. "But you screwed up, and now he's stuck with you?"
"And vice versa."
"Is he very rich?"
"Yes."
"And you hate him?"
"Of course."
She smiled sweetly. "Why don't I kidnap him for you? You give me all the inside information, and we'll split the ransom money, fifty-fifty."
"You kidnap bankers for a living, do you?"
"Not exclusively."
"I think you work in a record store."
"You're wrong."
"Or a second-hand clothes shop."
"You're getting colder."
"Who are you meeting in Berlin?"
"Just some friends."
When her train was announced, he asked her for her number. She wrote it on the sleeve of his shirt.
For the next few months whenever he was traveling north, be phoned her. Three times, she made excuses. He almost gave up, but he kept recalling the mocking expression on her face, and he knew he wanted to see her again.
Early in November, she finally said, "Drop round, if you like. I'm not doing anything."
He'd planned to take her to a nightclub, but she had a child with her, a baby just a few months old. "He's not mine. I'm looking after him for a friend." They watched TV, then had sex on the sofa. Climbing off him, Anna said, "You're really quite sweet." She kissed him on the cheek, then vanished into the bedroom, locking him out. Thomas fell asleep watching an old John Wayne movie. Two teenage girls with smeared mascara pounded on the door around two in the morning and Anna sold them a plastic sachet of white powder.
Thomas, still on the couch, asked her if the powder was heroin, or cocaine.
"Heroin."
"Do you use that shit?"
"No." She regarded him with mild amusement; she didn't care if he believed her or not.
He woke again at half past five. Anna had gone. The baby was still in his crib, screaming. Thomas changed him and fed him; Anna had shown him where everything was. He wanted a shower, but there was no hot water. He shaved, and left in time for his meeting, telling himself Anna would be back soon. All morning, and all through lunch, he could smell the sour odor of the child's skin on his hands, and he wondered if the smiling property developers could smell it too.
He phoned from the hotel, paying for the night he hadn't spent there, knowing that his father would scrutinize his expenses. Anna was home; he'd woken her. Someone nearby grunted with displeasure. Thomas didn't mention the child.
The next time, he came on a Saturday afternoon, with no need to be anywhere else in a hurry. They met at the Alsterpavillon, drank their coffee looking down on the buffoons in rowboats on the Binnenalster, then went shopping on Jungfernstieg. Thomas paid for the clothes Anna chose, authentic gothic designer trash that looked far worse than the cheapest imitation; it seemed she didn't really want to dress like him, after all. They walked arm-in-arm from shop to shop, and in the entrance to the most expensive boutique, they stopped and kissed for several minutes, blocking the way of customers trying to get past, then went in and spent a lot of money.
Later, in a nightclub with a bad live band who dressed like the Beatles and did Sex Pistols covers, they ran into Martin, a tall wiry blond youth who Anna introduced as a friend. Martin was all vicious back-slapping amiability, trying so hard to be intimidating that he was almost comical. They all staggered back to Anna's flat together, and sat on the floor listening to records. When Anna went to the toilet, Martin drew a knife and told Thomas he intended to kill him. He was very drunk. Thomas stood up, kicked him once in the face, breaking his nose, then took away the knife and dragged him moaning out into the hall. Thomas turned him on his side so he wouldn't choke on the blood, then locked the door.
Anna came out of the bathroom. Thomas told her what had happened. She went out and checked on Martin, and put a pillow under his head.
While Anna was undressing him, Thomas said, "On TV once, I saw an English soldier who'd just come back from Northern Ireland. And he said, 'It was hell there, but at least it was real. At least I've lived now.'" Thomas laughed sadly. "The poor fool had it all upside down. Slaughtering people is real -- and living an ordinary life is some kind of dream, some kind of delusion? Poor fucked-up kid."
He searched Anna for needle marks, but he couldn't find a single one.
Back in his office in Frankfurt, alone in his apartment, at the dinner table in his parents' home, Thomas thought about Anna, in images and scents. The memories never distracted him; he could carry on a conversation, or keep reading a mortgage schedule, while she played in his head like wallpaper music.
His father cornered him at Easter. "You should think about getting married. It makes no difference to me, but there are social advantages you're going to need sooner or later. And think how happy it would make your mother."
Thomas said, "I'm twenty-four years old."
"I was engaged when I was twenty-four."
"Maybe I'm gay. Or perhaps I have an incurable venereal disease."
"I don't see why either should be an obstacle."
Thomas saw Anna every second weekend. He bought her whatever she asked for. Sometimes she had the child with her. The boy was called Erik.
Thomas asked her, "Who's the mother? Have I met her?"
She said, "You don't want to."
He worried about her sometimes -- afraid she'd get herself arrested, or beaten up by junkies or rivals -- but she seemed to be able to take care of herself. He could have hired private detectives to uncover the mysteries of her life, and bodyguards to watch over her, but he knew he had no right. He could have bought her an apartment, set her up with investments -- but she never suggested anything of the kind, and he suspected she'd be deeply insulted if he made the offer. His gifts were lavish, but he knew she could have lived without them. They were using each other. She was, he told himself, as independent as he was.
He wouldn't have said he loved her. He didn't ache when they were apart; he just felt pleasantly numb, and looked forward to the next time he'd see her. He was jealous, but not obsessive, and she kept her other lovers out of the way; he rarely had to acknowledge their existence. He never saw Martin again.
Anna traveled with him to New York. They fell asleep in the middle of a Broadway show, saw the Pixies play at the Mudd Club, climbed the stairs to the top of Manhattan Chase.
Thomas turned twenty-five. His father promoted him. His mother said, "Look at all your gray hairs."
In the spring, Erik disappeared. Anna said casually, "His mother's gone, she's moved away."
Thomas was hurt; he'd liked having the boy around. He said, "You know, I used to think he might be yours."
She was baffled. "Why? I told you he wasn't. Why would I have lied?"
Thomas had trouble sleeping. He kept trying to picture the future. When his father died, would he still be seeing Anna, once a fortnight in Hamburg, while she dealt heroin and fucked pimps and junkies? The thought made him sick. Not because he didn't want everything to stay the same, but because he knew that it couldn't.
The Saturday in June was, almost, the second anniversary of the day they'd met. They went to a flea market in the afternoon, and he bought her cheap jewelery. She said, "Anything nicer would be asking for trouble."
They ate junk food, went dancing. They ended up back at Anna's flat at half past two. They danced around the tiny living room, propping each other up, more tired than drunk.