Thankfully the traffic isn’t too bad, and I continue to stare out of the window, taking in the sights. The river Spree is murky and grey, and not at all appealing, but from what I have read about the area, there are some ‘beaches’ where the water looks cleaner, more alluring. I watch a tourist boat trundling along, leaving trails of white foam in its wake. We stop at traffic lights – the cutesy Ampelmännchen sign switching from green to red as pedestrians start to cross. A girl in shorts carrying a backpack skirts past the car, and for a brief moment my heart stops. I watch her retreating form, see the tattoo of a snake sliding down from her shorts, and I know it’s not her. Carrie didn’t have any tattoos. And she would never get one so vulgar. Besides, she can’t be here. Not here. She only exists now inside my mind. A beautiful memory, that one day will start to fade.

The car carries on, for another block, and then it pulls in to the side.

‘Twenty euro,’ the driver says.

I take the money from my purse. We’re here.

I am going to see Sam. My heart starts fluttering in my chest as I step out of the car. Of course he was going to end up here in Berlin, with his new German mates. But it’s lucky I checked his Facebook in the cab to the airport in Moscow, or I’d have ended up flying somewhere completely pointless and random. As it is, it feels like fate. I can’t wait to see him again.

I take in the grand entrance, the potted palms, the sharply dressed doormen. The entrance is in stark contrast to the grungier buildings that sit alongside, and I wonder if they are trying to be ironic – having this blingy venue in the punky east – or perhaps everything is starting to become one amorphous lump, losing its identity. That’s something I can relate to, as it happens.

‘Where is the party?’ I say, again in my perfect German.

‘Rooftop,’ says doorman one, giving me a lascivious sneer as he opens the huge glass doors.

I smile and glide in, looking like any other girl that is meant to be there.

Looking like I belong.

36