Description: Chapter 1 Knut and Janina come over at five. The weather''s splendid. For several days now, the sun has shown the kind of strength you would hardly have thought it capable of after a typical Braunschweig winter and the drizzly first weeks of spring. The light lies like pale yellow chiffon on the smooth surfaces of the furniture, sparkles in the glasses on the table, penetrates into the remotest dust-free corners. Three times a week, Britta has Henry, a young man from Laos, make the house spick-and-span. Unfortunately, the picture windows always exhibit a couple of smudges that Henry has missed. With the children, daily routines have changed somewhat. Before, the adults would have met at dusk for the first aperitifs, not in broad daylight for dinner. But that''s normal, it''s the same for all of them, the whole army of parents with only children. Britta used to work until midnight, sleep until noon, and ingest the first solid food of the day in the early afternoon, when Babak, no morning person himself, would come to the office with something--usually a sandwich--for her to eat. The arrival of baby Vera seven years ago put an end to all that. Only sometimes Britta still feels a slight dizziness and something akin to alarm, symptoms of existential jet lag. "This mess keeps falling apart," Richard calls from the kitchen, addressing no one in particular. Out in the hallway, Britta accepts the bottle of red wine that Knut has brought, a nice gesture, even though they have a whole cellar full of Luis Felipe Edwards Cabernet Sauvignon, a 2020 Chilean she and Richard like and have grown used to. She''ll regift Knut''s Rioja, a bottle with a ribbon around its neck, when the opportunity arises. "Sticky fingers." Richard laughs as he raises his gummy hands in the air and greets his guests with his elbows. "I''m following the recipe exactly, but the stuff still looks like biowaste." Before him lie shreds of seaweed and clumps of gooey rice, the results of his wrapping experiments. Richard has got it into his head to make his own sushi this evening, and Britta never interferes in such plans. The kitchen is Richard''s domain. She''ll keep the guests entertained and make sure the children eat something, it really doesn''t matter what, by seven o''clock or so. "Man, it looks great. We''ll get some flat spoons and eat it directly off your granite countertop," says Knut. It''s actually polished concrete, but Britta keeps her mouth shut. Knut''s kind of a wimp and probably not even particularly intelligent, but Britta likes him anyway, because he''s good-humored and because his daughter, Cora, gets along so well with Vera. Seven years ago, Janina and Britta met at baby swim class, each with a screaming bundle on her arm; after that first day, they spent many a long, sluggish afternoon together. At first, they''d indulge in reciprocal venting about their troubles; later, they''d enjoy an hour or two of relative peace by the side of a play area while the two little girls kept themselves busy. This play-date friendship has even withstood their decision to send Cora and Vera to different schools. While Knut and Janina''s daughter goes to a children''s music school where piano lessons are compulsory and smartphones prohibited, Vera is receiving a normal, Silicon Valley-influenced education, and is certainly no worse off for it. Cora''s practicing "Faster, Faster, Little Snail" on the xylophone; Vera has just written her first program, which causes a fish to swim back and forth across her computer screen and snap at a baited hook when it''s dropped into the water. The two girls have already disappeared into Vera''s room, while the adults are still occupied with standing around, which is apparently a phase that must be endured at every such gathering. You lean in a doorway or support yourself with both hands on the back of a chair and laugh in one another''s faces until everyone is finally relaxed enough to sit down. Britta''s house has a spacious living-and-dining area with big, glazed windows; nevertheless, everybody always squeezes into the kitchen and insists on sitting at the much-too-small breakfast table. She''s given up wanting to do anything about this. Britta pricks up one ear and aims it at Vera''s room across the hall until she hears the usual Mega-Melanie sounds. The girls are wholly in love with Vera''s Mega-Mall, a multilevel plastic monstrosity that has Wi-Fi, several electronic screens, and a programmable sound track. When Cora comes for a visit, she always brings some of her Glotzis, cuddly little aliens with three big eyes, currently all the rage. They constitute the driving force of a complex Martian attack on the Mega-Mall, which must be repulsed by Mega-Melanie, Mega-Martin, and their Mega-Friends. Most of the time, after various complications, the members of Mega-SWAT start shooting wildly in all directions, killing not only the Glotzis but also all the customers in the Mega-Mall. Then the adults hear dramatic music and synchronized whoops of "Collateral damage!" While the Edwards is breathing in the decanter, Britta opens the refrigerator and takes a moment or two to enjoy the sight of perfectly presented food. A stick of butter in a glass butter dish. Little vegetarian sausages, two eggplants, three tomatoes, a pitcher of milk. She takes out two different bottles of beer and hands each of the men his favorite. She opens a bottle of prosecco for Janina and herself. "How was the showing?" "Fabulous." Janina clinks glasses but doesn''t drink from hers, puts it down, and straightens her upswept hairdo. With her flowered dress and romantic coiffure, she presents a stark contrast to Britta, who wears her light hair straight and chin-length and prefers plain pants in gray or pale blue and tops that appear inexpensive except to a practiced eye. All the same, looking at Janina gives Britta pleasure. When Janina had her daughter, she was in her early twenties--having children while you''re still young is back in style these days--and it often seems to Britta as though her younger friend comes not only from another decade, but also from a different planet. Janina is comfortable adapting to circumstances, whether it''s a matter of her wardrobe or her hairstyle, her tiny apartment, her family, or her girlish dreams. For the past few weeks, she and Knut have been looking for a house in the country, a project that strikes Britta as rather absurd. She herself has known for fifteen years that big cities are pass, but also that provincial life cannot remedy metropolitan mania, since no evil can be cured by its opposite. Towns of medium size and medium importance, towns that obey the laws of pragmatism down to the smallest detail--those are the urban centers most appropriate to the twenty-first century. They have everything, but not too much of anything, enough of a few things, and in the midst of all that, affordable housing, wide streets, and architecture that leaves you alone. Years before, while the people she knew were still busy renovating old farmhouses in Brandenburg and growing organic tomatoes, Britta used the first income from The Bridge to buy a house in a peaceful neighborhood in Braunschweig. A concrete cube with a lot of glass, practical, roomy, easy to clean, just like Braunschweig itself--straight lines, smooth surfaces, doubt-free. So completely thought through that each piece of furniture has only one possible location. There''s a cellar, a child''s room, a guest room, a sufficient number of bathrooms and storage spaces, a low-maintenance garden, and built-in household electronics that regulate room temperature, make coffee at scheduled times, and sound a warning when the refrigerator door stays open too long. Britta loves her house. If you have no desire to indulge in any self-deception about the times you live in, then polished concrete is exactly what you can still love. "To be totally honest, I think we''ve found it." Janina raises her prosecco glass and clinks with the others again, and this time she drinks too. Her enthusiasm fascinates Britta. Janina loves peeling paint on old wooden doors, wheelbarrows planted with colorful flowers, and a big sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace. An anachronism that cries out to heaven. Complete ignorance of the fact that things have changed. "The old people who own it just moved out. It was awful for them, leaving their house. All their lives, it was their home." "So why do they want to sell it?" "Not want to, have to. Out there, once you''re old, you''re not very well protected anymore." "Old folks? Protected?" says Richard. By now, three more or less complete maki rolls are lying before him, slightly curved, like dog shit. "What''s this about, palliative real estate?" Britta laughs. She loves him for his quick wit, and she loves laughing at Janina''s house-buying plans. "Admit it," Britta says. "It''s a perfectly run-down old dump, probably with wood stoves and straw mattresses, and when you want hot water, you put a kettle on the boil. Impossible to clean, because dust is constantly drifting down from the ceiling. And fat spiders in every corner." "Sounds about right," says Knut, laughing good-naturedly. "O-kaayyy." Richard stretches out the word in a tone that''s supposed to mean, "No accounting for taste." "The house is fabulous," Janina reiterates. "You have to come out with us sometime and see it. Cora''s all enchanted. Imagine, she could keep a horse out there." "Does Manufactum have horses in its catalog?" asks Richard. "Seriously, it''s just what we want

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