Chapter 8: The Lobby

The hotel on Unter den Linden had a lobby like a cathedral, all marble and gold and quiet piano.

I walked into it on Monday at noon in my bakery clothes, with flour still on my jeans.

The doorman tried to stop me.

I walked around him.

Luca was where I knew he'd be, at a table in the lobby bar with a newspaper he wasn't reading and an espresso he wasn't drinking.

A man sat across from him with a camera bag on the chair beside him.

Thin, grey jacket, the kind of face you forget while you're looking at it.

He saw me coming and started to get up.

"Sit down," I said.

He sat down.

Luca folded the newspaper.

"Klara."

"Is this him?"

Luca didn't answer.

I picked up the camera bag and unzipped it on the table.

The man reached for it.

"Touch my hand," I said, "and I'll scream so loud they'll hear it at the Brandenburg Gate."

Everyone in the lobby bar was watching now.

Two businessmen with laptops.

An old couple with tea and a little dog.

A bartender polishing the same glass for a full minute.

I took out the camera and turned it on and held it out to Luca.

"Delete them."

"Klara, sit down."

"Delete them, or I'll take this to the front desk and tell them a man has been photographing me and a child at a lake."

That landed.

The bartender put the glass down.

Luca took the camera.

He scrolled through it.

His jaw got tighter with every picture.

Me on the U-Bahn platform. Me at the bakery window at five in the morning. Me on my aunt's balcony in a T-shirt. Me laughing on the dock.

Konrad's daughter in her wool hat.

He looked at that one for a long time.

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