Tomorrow Berlin by Oscar Coop-Phane

few days later, he set off to live his new life. He was twenty.
    He was so preoccupied by tiny details of style that he forgot to feel afraid. He didn’t know where he was going to sleep; he had a bit of money in his pocket and a bag with a few things.

XV
    Franz abandoned his thoughts of adventure. He took a job in a bar in the evenings in addition to his hack work in the office. He needed space, and money for little Juli, who was on the way.
    Franz could no longer read his books with the yellowing pages. Fate had caught up with him and he had to march to its tune.
    Juli was born. Juli Riepler. It was a joyful moment for them all, for Martha, for Pastor Krüll, and Franz too.
    Life was organised with confidence. They created a warm, pink room for Juli at the pastor’s house. Martha took care of it, along with the nappies and the feeds. Franz worked, he paid hisshare, and as soon as he was free, he picked Juli up in his arms, thanking that friend, Fate, whom he had hated a few months earlier, when he had grabbed him by the shoulder.
     
    In the bar where he worked, Franz was often asked if he knew someone to buy from. He didn’t understand at first. Buy what from? Drugs, of course.
    Months went by; sometimes he took them. Then, he made some good contacts. Juli was getting bigger; he needed more money. Franz became a dealer on the side to earn a bit more. Ecstasy and amphetamines made a good profit. It was a far cry from the nine-to-five.
    Business flourished; Franz got bigger. People liked him because he didn’t cut the product too much.
     
    Those were the salad days, of plenty of money and freedom. He had come a long way from Günther and Co. and the cocktail bar. He was his own boss; he sold to nightclub dealers who came to his apartment every week to stock up. Little Juli, raised on drug money. Every line done in a nightclub toilet, every pill swallowed meant a bit of comfort for Juli, money for her education, a new teddy.
     
    Then, as always in these stories, Franz got caught. Police. House search. Clink.

XVI
    Tobias tried to see things outside so-called normal life. He went to sex bars and druffi nightclubs. He went back to the life he managed best wherever he was, the drug addict. He became friends with his neighbour on the second floor who offered him his couch. He gave up the instruction manuals and the apartment that went with them.
    The eternal return. His life resumed its original cycle. For him, this was normal life.

XVII
    Two years in prison leaves its traces on a man’s face: marks of submission, fear and humiliation. Franz did two years, since he was unable to hold out and grassed up his suppliers, some Poles, who were much bigger fish than him.
    When he got out, he wanted to work. No one would take him on; his face was puffy with the marks of jail. Juli no longer recognised him; hecouldn’t buy her a new teddy any more. He was done.
    He did a few jobs on a rehabilitation programme, scraping posters off walls, checking tickets on the U-Bahn. He gambled the money he made in slot machines. Most of the time he won. He doubled his stakes, tiny amounts.
    He was able to see Juli, Martha and Pastor Krüll again. He tried putting make-up on the lines on his face. What would Katherine, Sir and Madam have thought if they’d seen him in this state? The Institute’s uniform was falling to pieces, it no longer covered his body.
    Franz partied on. At least in that world no one asked him questions about the lines on his face. At parties that went on for days, that existed outside time, his past didn’t matter.
    The druffis welcomed him. They gave him tobacco and put him up. They were his family now.

PART TWO
‘Door Closes Automatically’

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Berlin
    There is something so new about Berlin it’s frightening. The walls of the apartment blocks are not burdened with stones, but poured from concrete, smooth or rough-cast, like the slabs between the windows of apartments. Here, apartment blocks are not