Kala turns on the lights in her flat, locks the door behind her as she takes off her coat and shoes. She walks into the kitchen where she hunts in the refrigerator for last night's leftover döner . If she hadn't wasted time trying to get rid of Lukas Fischer, she would have made herself something to eat. But now she is merely exhausted, relieved to be back in the sanctuary of her apartment and contemplating bed in another hour.
She eats the döner unenthusiastically, not quite finishing the last two bites of her half-eaten leftovers before throwing it away. She makes herself hot tea that she pours into a large mug and brings with her into the bedroom. Her computer is always running, so she moves the cursor to bring the screen to life, and sets her mug down to enter her password.
She searches for Felix Berner and Wolfgang Bogdanow.
Felix is definitely the easier one to find. He maintains a business profile on Xing, his photo professionally done in black and white. She is impressed to learn he is her age and already the chief financial officer of a company called Konanspiele. But when she looks up the company, there is little information: just a generic description of a "dynamic organization" focused on entertainment. She finds an exterior shot of a brick building with an office address and telephone number. There is no company website.
A few more searches and Kala finds Felix's personal account on a social media site that he marked as private and a Twitter account with the last activity from two years earlier. There are several pictures of Felix on the web: the professional Xing shot and another similar photo; candids of him tagged by other people, smiling widely at the camera. It's an infectious smile, open and uninhibited. Kala finds herself smiling back.
Wolfgang Bogdanow is a ghost.
Kala purses her lips, tries a few other search engines. Like Felix, he has a Xing account, but even that information is bare. Kala only learns that he is a "successful entrepreneur" and that he currently owns Dämonen, a nightclub located in a neighborhood Kala is unfamiliar with. Her eyebrows tick up in interest when she discovers he owns the nightclub through his company, Konanspiele. There is no picture of him on his profile.
Kala looks up the club and finds little information, other than that it has been open for 3 years, plays techno, and is only open four days a are a few pictures of a dark interior, club-goers mostly in black; there are no pictures of the club's owner.
Kala sits back, tea in hand.
At least neither seem to have a criminal history.
She smiles a little at her attempt at levity. She is concerned that so little information is available on a man who styles himself as a "successful entrepreneur". Wouldn't such a person be more self-promoting? Shouldn't there be something more? She is suspicious of his lack of information, already leery about getting involved with strangers.
She frowns, wishes there is someone she can ask for an opinion. If she was back home in Mumbai, she'd ask her sister Daya, who is so much more savvy about social networking than she is. In Hannover, Kala would have asked Bettina, whom she had roomed with until her transfer. But in Berlin, Kala lives alone, and unlike her colleagues in Hannover, her team in Berlin is older, going home to families rather than staying to socialize. Kala thinks specifically of Devi, who came from Mumbai a dozen years ago but now lives in Kreuzberg with her husband and small children. Kala wishes she knew her well enough to ask.
The screen goes into "sleep" mode, popping up a screensaver of her family, taken last year at the airport.
Her parents had been worried about her taking a job overseas but had ultimately given in to her enthusiasm. Kala had craved an adventure: a chance to experience life outside of the familiar before she marries and has children and lives in a sensible house down the street from her husband's family.
Kala frowns.
She begged her parents to let her accept the research position with the German pharmaceutical company. She wore them down, convinced them it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, even though she didn't know a soul outside of Mumbai and didn't speak a word of German.
And this past year lived up to all of her expectations and more. She missed her family but made new friends; she broadened her view of the world and experienced a culture and people foreign to her in every way.
And until she was transferred to Berlin, she had not once questioned the wisdom of her decision.
Kala gives a huff of frustration. She's not sure what she did to attract Lukas' attention. She used to question whether she was too friendly that first week or two after her transfer, grateful to make a friend: whether she somehow led him to think she was interested in him in that way. The first time he asked her for a date, she had been completely surprised and a little flattered, but she had turned him down unequivocally.
Kala sits back, thoughtful, tea cradled in her hands. She knows she did nothing from the start, that she did even less after the first time he asked. Yet the rejection only seemed to make Lukas more determined, pressing her with even greater attention.
Kala stares moodily into her cup. Some people, including Daya, might find his persistence charming. But there is something about Lukas Fischer that worries Kala; as if his pleasant demeanor masks something more disturbing. She thought she saw a flash of it this evening, when he was talking to Felix.
She purses her lips, admits that in all fairness she cannot attribute Lukas's behavior to his true nature: There is bad blood between Felix and Lukas. It makes sense that Lukas reacted angrily when he saw her with Felix.
Kala thinks about the events of this evening as objectively as she can: from the moment she left work to the time she left the restaurant, and she grows increasingly mortified. She is embarrassed to recall how petty her actions seem in hindsight. It seemed so urgent at the time, to get away from Lukas, when she should not have run away from him in the first place. It was childish of her. She can reject him a third time, if needed.
Kala finishes her tea, annoyed at herself.
She graduated from university with high honors in biochemistry. She was born and raised in the largest city in India. She moved halfway around the world on her own and learned a completely different language in less than a year. She can certainly handle the unwanted attentions of a coworker.
She doesn't need the assistance of two strangers and an elaborate ruse. She'll message Felix that his help won't be necessary.
Decision made.
Kala puts her mug away, gets ready for bed even though it's barely 9 in the evening.
She falls asleep almost immediately.
…
She doesn't message Felix during her morning commute to work. Kala is self-conscious as she tucks the napkin back inside her purse. She feels as if people watch her, although logically she knows none of the handful of people standing around her on the U-Bahn, and then the bus, even notice.
She stops for coffee on the way to work, arrives at the building with plenty of time to go to her station and retrieve data and notes before the team meeting. She reaches the conference room with Devi, who sits next to her.
The meeting is mostly uneventful. Kala tries to stifle a yawn as the project leader goes over assignments and targets for the next week. But halfway through, he announces the creation of a team to research some new data in immunobiology. Kala's eyes grow large with interest. She asks several questions about the data and the purpose of the team, and when the project leader asks for volunteers, she does not hesitate to do so.
After the meeting, he tells her the new team will meet sometime in the first week of next month. So far, there are four others working on the team.
Lukas Fischer is one of them.
...
Wolfgang pauses long enough to shake his head.
"No," he says, finishing his beer. He sets the bottle down, motions his bartender to give him another.
Felix stares at him in amazement. "What?!" Felix motions for another beer as well, his body practically vibrating with indignation. "Are you shitting me? Did you not hear what I told you?"
Wolfgang turns his new bottle between his fingers. From the moment he entered the club, Felix had talked almost non-stop about the amazing coincidence that happened earlier today.
"I heard you," says Wolfgang wearily. "You told Fischer I'm the boyfriend of some woman he's stalking. And you think I should go with her to a party at his place."
"Yeah!" Felix continues, as if he can't believe Wolfgang left out the most important part. "He's fucking afraid of you! You should have seen his face when I told him she's yours. I thought he was gonna piss on himself." Felix shakes his head, stares hard at his best friend. "And he wants her. Don't you want to rub that in? Don't you just want to watch that smug piss-face of his lose it when he sees you with her?"
Wolfgang takes a long pull from his bottle, watches the club slowly start to fill without really paying attention. He would be lying if he said he didn't care if Fischer is afraid of him. He still cares. Even after all these years. And a part of him - a very angry part of him - wants very much to continue exacting petty vengeance against Lukas Fischer forever.
Fischer had been the best friend of Wolfgang's cousin Steiner. He came from money: smart, good-looking, no one could understand how he came to be friends with someone as brutish as Steiner. What people always missed was that while Steiner was openly cruel, Fischer was quietly vicious.
It was tempting, the need to keep making the man pay for the sins of the boy.
"I'm done with Lukas Fischer." Wolfgang's eyes are steely in the dim light of the club. "He stays away from me. We're good. I don't give a shit about him. He can fuck whoever he wants."
Felix's face shifts. He takes a sip of his bottle, quiet for a moment. "Wolfie," he finally says, dropping his earlier enthusiasm, "I don't think that girl is playing. I don't think she wants him to fuck her. That's why you need to go."
Wolfgang frowns. Up until that moment, it had seemed to him that Felix only saw an opportunity to harass an old nemesis; that the woman was simply a means to an end.
"Look," Felix continues. "She was desperate to get rid of him. She wasn't just messing around." He shakes his head at the skeptical expression Wolfgang gives him. "And Fischer looked at her…" Felix stares at Wolfgang, his words trailing. "You know what I mean."
He does.
Wolfgang lets out a huff. "Fuck."
"Yeah."
They are silent for a moment, deaf to the music the dj plays, to the chatter of club-goers, to drinks being poured.
"So." Felix tips his bottle towards Wolfgang. "You'll do it?"
Wolfgang gives him an exasperated stare. "Who's gonna watch the club while I'm gone?" he asks.
Felix grins at him. "Who else?" he demands, waving the end of his bottle at Wolfgang.
Wolfgang takes one more drink, sighs deeply as he tips his bottle to meet Felix's in a weak toast. "Fuck Lukas Fischer," he murmurs.
Felix smiles widely at him. "Crush your enemies, brother," he says.
…
Kala thinks she is sweating through her palms.
She clenches and unclenches her hands, wipes them against her coat as she paces outside of the restaurant.
She wasn't going to come back. Despite the shock of this morning, Kala was determined to deal with Lukas on her own.
But at lunch, Devi asked about the new team and if their project leader said anything more about the study. "It sounds interesting," Devi added, opening the lid of her soup bowl. "Has anyone else volunteered?"
Kala named the other researchers. She asked Devi hopefully if she was interested.
Devi was not. "I'm sorry Kala" she said, shaking her head. "I know he's your friend, but I dislike Lukas. He's arrogant. Always has been." Devi spooned her soup, eyed Kala cautiously. "Don't be too impressed by him just because his grandfather built this company," she said. "I've worked on a project with him before, and I'll never do it again. He likes to do things his way." Devi had scowled, annoyed.
Kala was shaken. She didn't know about Lukas's family. How would they react to a complaint about him from a new employee? A foreign employee with a work visa?
Which is why she never called Felix, and why she is here, at the restaurant.
Kala stops pacing, takes a breath, and finally goes inside.
The restaurant is much busier than last night, every table full, but her gaze finds the corner where she met Felix yesterday.
He faces the door in the seat she had occupied; another man sits where Felix had been, his back to Kala. A chair is wedged between the two men.
Felix sees her and waves, his grin easing her tension a little. Kala makes her way to the table, stopping on the spot Lukas had yesterday. She almost lets out an uneasy laugh at the coincidence.
"Hey," she says nervously, hand extended to Felix. His brows raise but he shakes her hand, gets up at the same time as the other man to greet her.
"Hey," answers Felix, a laugh in his voice. "Glad you're here. Meet your boyfriend, Wolfgang."
Kala dutifully turns to the second man, hand held out.
He's very good looking.
She's not sure what she expected, but very good looking never occurred to her. Kala frowns slightly, somehow put-off that she finds him attractive. "Hallo." Her voice is steady although she can't completely hide her anxiousness. "I'm Kala."
He shakes her hand, looks at her with cool, impassive blue eyes that are lighter than Felix's. His hair is also a lighter blond, shorter cut; he is not quite clean-shaven, but the few days' growth of stubble adds to his looks.
"Hallo," he says. "Wolfgang."
They sit down. A server comes by but the table is too crowded to eat comfortably, so Kala merely asks for water. Felix and Wolfgang already have 4 bottles of beer between the two of them that the server takes away. Felix asks for another round.
"So you work with Fischer?" Wolfgang rests his elbows on the table, turns slightly to better face her.
"Yes." Kala fidgets at the straps of the purse on her lap. "This is very strange, but thank you for doing this."
"Are you kidding?" Felix stares pointedly at Wolfgang. "I told you he'd do it. Fischer's an ass."
Wolfgang doesn't respond. Kala looks from one to the other. "Are you sure?" she asks Wolfgang. There is a grim flash in his eyes, a slight tic of his jaw. He gives a faint smile, reassuring. He nods. "Yeah."
She tries to gauge whether he's merely being polite, but the look he gives her is steady and inscrutable.
"So. How should we say you met?" Felix leans forward, addresses both of them expectantly.
Kala looks over at Felix, who seems very pleased with himself. She looks back at Wolfgang.
"Your club?" she offers, then admits: "I looked you up. I saw you own a club."
Felix practically blanches; Wolfgang looks slightly amused. "Not the club," he murmurs.
"Not the club," repeats Felix. "How about the zoo?"
"Yes. The zoo. Perfect."
Kala looks at them both. "Ok," she agrees, making a mental note to visit Dämonen in the near future.
Wolfgang and Felix relax a little.
"Ok," continues Felix, facilitating the exchange of information. "Six months ago? And you need a believable story."
"I only moved here 3 months ago," Kala says. "I was transferred from Hannover."
"Ok, ok," nods Felix. "You know what we do: what about you? You work at the chemical company?"
"Researcher. I work on medicines for autoimmune disorders."
Felix looks at Wolfgang with a grin, a challenge in his expression. "Kinda out of your league."
Wolfgang smirks. "You're the one that put me there," he says. But he turns his attention to Kala, eyebrow raised. "Clearly I wouldn't have known that when I hit on you by the tigers," he jokes.
"The elephants," she says, smiling. "I've always loved the elephants."
He smiles back. "How could I forget?" he asks.
A/N: Thank you to my lovely beta Halcyon_red! Next up: the party. Thank you for reading:)