“If I killed someone? Is that what you mean? I was part of it. I still didn’t know that nothing would change. No one knew. We thought: if there was a West and an East, then there could also be something else, better than both. Now that neither world exists any more, I understand what you’re saying. Perhaps I already understood it when I lived in East Germany. It was finished. Exhausted by the ideological excesses, the empty rituals, the efforts that had come to nothing.”

“Why so sad?”

“Do you guys know the feeling? That, when it comes to it, not only will you die, the whole world will end with you? You might think that once you’re dead, it doesn’t make a difference if the world goes on or ends. But it does.”

Gundlach had no interest in the death of the individual and the end of the world. “How do you live here illegally?”

“It’s not hard if you have money in the bank in Germany, if you pay with a credit card and get cash advances from it, and don’t need the state. Bringing the painting here wasn’t quite so easy. Who travels with luggage like that?”

Schwind had been listening to Gundlach and Irene with visible impatience. “The end of the world, the end of East Germany – all well and good. Can someone finally tell me how I get my painting back? My painting – I painted it, I fixed it when he damaged it,” Schwind pointed at Gundlach, “paid for it…”

“Paid for it?” Gundlach was outraged. “You had had enough of Irene and brought her to me – you call that paying? I know why you want the painting – you never painted like that again. Ever since then you’ve been recycling the history of art.”

“I am—”

“You are a burned-out painter who weeps for beginnings. Go cry elsewhere. You have no claim to make here, neither moral nor legal. You have no right to the painting, which you sold, and no right to Irene, whom you betrayed. Pack your bags, and let him,” he tipped his head in my direction, “take you back.”

“What an arrogant ass you are! All because of your money, that couldn’t buy you the woman or even the painting? You accumulated it as thoughtlessly as you’d collect beer coasters. You are a coaster collector, and the world without alternatives you talked about is the world of beer coasters. Don’t you get it? Money can’t buy you the things that matter!”

“Ha!” Gundlach laughed derisively. “The court painter of global capitalism reveals himself as a critic of capitalism. Why do you sell your pictures for millions? Why don’t you just donate them to art galleries?”

Irene wanted to say something, but couldn’t get a word in, so I tried to break up the argument. “Can the two of you—”