Free Sorry by Zoran Drvenkar

renovate a villa? Either some kind of prehistoric hippies who inherited money from their parents, or crisply tanned film producers who have to invest their profits somewhere. But them?
    They couldn’t have cared less.
    The villa turned out to be a dream, a dilapidated dream admittedly, but they were living out that dream. Tamara still can’t grasp how quickly it all happened. The real estate agent took his cut, the bank waved them through, and the villa was theirs. Frauke’s father arrived with a gang of workmen, and together they knocked down walls, scraped off old wallpaper,improved the floors, and put in new pipes, so that the villa was ready to be occupied by the beginning of January.
    For the first week they walked speechlessly through the rooms. Everywhere there were freshly sanded floors, freshly whitened walls, rooms full of light. The stench of their youth lay behind them. All of a sudden everything was stylish and authentic; all at once they felt grown-up.
    On the first floor are the living room, a library, and the kitchen; on the second floor Frauke and Tamara’s studies and bedrooms. The brothers take the top floor.
    It’s perfect, it works so well that Tamara can imagine this arrangement going on to the end of her life. Out here on the Kleine Wannsee with a view of the water and access to a jetty.
    Their very own paradise.
    “It’s just perfect,” Tamara concludes. “That’s all. Nothing else has happened.”
    Astrid is about to say something, when she hears someone calling behind her.
    “Yoohoo, Tamara!”
    The sisters turn round. Helena Belzen stands waving on the shore. She is seventy-four and wears a pullover that makes her look like the Michelin man. She has wrapped scarves around her hips and her neck, on her head she wears a woollen cap. In her right hand she has a shovel, in her left a bucket.
    “Helena, this is my sister Astrid,” Tamara explains.
    “Pleased to meet you,” says Helena, pointing with her spade to the dinghy. “Isn’t it a bit cold to be rowing about on the lake?”
    “Tell that to my sister,” says Astrid.
    “How are you two?” asks Tamara.
    “Joachim’s taking his radio apart again, and I can’t keep out of the garden,” Helena replies, shaking the bucket. “I could spend the whole day burrowing about in the earth. Are we seeing each other on Sunday?”
    “I’ll bring cake.”
    “Wonderful!”
    Helena waves goodbye and disappears into the undergrowth of her garden.
    “Are you having a kaffeeklatsch with the old girl?” Astrid whispers.
    “She’s invited me four times, it gets embarrassing eventually. And I like the Belzens. Wait till you see her husband. They’re a dream couple.The day we moved in, they moored on our side and brought us a bag of salt and fresh bread.”
    “What do you need parents for?” Astrid says and looks back at the villa. “I still can’t believe it. If you weren’t my little sister, I’d push you in the water right now, is that clear? Shit, why doesn’t stuff like this happen to me? Have you any idea how many guys I’ve picked up in the faint hope that one of them might have enough money to buy me something like this? I hate you, do you know that?”
    “I know.”
    “So what are you grinning about?”
    “Maybe because it’s so cold?”
    “Very funny, Tammi.”
    They grin at each other.
    “Can I at least see the joint from inside, before you banish me back to my pathetic little life?”
    Tamara lowers the oars into the water and sets course for their pad.
KRIS
    I T WAS HALF A day before they managed to track down Julia Lambert.
    The job center plays its cards close to the vest, so Kris tries to find her new workplace indirectly. Frauke helps him with that. It takes them fifteen minutes to log on to the employment agency.
    “How illegal have you just been?” Kris wondered.
    Frauke held her thumb and index finger a millimeter apart.
    Julia Lambert has been with the company for a week. The office with a view of the