TE20 Migrant Mosaics

Matthias Nawrat

about the matter. Even if what I supposed were true, I couldn’t do anything about it; the war in the fat man’s country was a fact, likewise that I and the two of them lived here. And yet I still felt ashamed, as I walked past the Salon La Bella on our road, not to have asked the two of them anything. • The Architect It was early May when I met the architect. For a few weeks, the ground had been dug out on a plot at the end of our road opposite theGesundbrunnenshoppingmall, and twoyellowcranes loomed high beside it. New residential apartments and studios were to be built there, according to a large white billboard. Cement had been poured into the hole only a day after it appeared, but no next step had yet been undertaken. My wife Veronika and I had talked a few times about redesigning our flat, though we didn’t really intend to do it. At Mały Książe, I had happened to find a business card in a pile alongside various advertising leaflets on the counter. Dorota Kamszer – Architect, it said. Give me a call! My interest piqued by that injunction, I dialled her number that same afternoon. You’ll have to come here, though, the architect said on the telephone once I had explained what we wanted. I don’t leave my neighbourhood.

You only ever stay in Schöneberg? I asked.

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