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day, and the nice man is not in a good mood.
    “You’ve got to understand this,” says Bernd Jost-Degen ten minutes later and sticks his hands into the front pockets of his designer jeans. He stands with his back to the window, so that Kris can only make his face out as a silhouette. A digital hand twitches between a Chagall and a Miró above a digital clock projected on the wall. The boss’s officemust always be in semi-darkness, or else you wouldn’t be able to see the clock. Bernd is three years older than Kris and doesn’t like people calling him “boss,” or pretends not to.
    “There’s a lot of rationalization going on,” Bernd continues. “Look at me, I’m up to my neck in shit, as well. The structures aren’t the same any more, the world has moved on, you know? Back in the old days, people did good work for good pay. Now they have to do fantastic levels of work for bad pay. And they’re supposed to be grateful, too.”
    He laughs the laugh of someone who isn’t one of those people. Kris feels like an idiot and doesn’t know why he wanted to speak to his boss again. At his feet are two paper bags that the cleaning woman handed to him after she had cleared his desk.
    “It’s a market economy, Kris, it’s overpopulation. There are too many of us, and our souls belong to capitalism. Look at me. I’m dangling on strings. I’m a puppet. The guys at the top are saying, Bernd, we want twice as much profit. And what do I do? I give you cheaper mineral water and order the cheapest kind of coffee and make cuts wherever I can, so that the people up there don’t get rid of me.”
    “What on earth are you talking about?” asks Kris. “You fired me, you’ve made me one of your cuts.”
    Bernd rests one hand on the other and leans forward.
    “Come on, Kris, look, my hands are tied, kill me if you want, but my hands are tied. It’s last in, first out. Of course you can go straight on to another job. And if you like, I’ll write you a reference, I’m happy to do that. Of course. Try the
Tagesspiegel
, they’re a bit slow off the mark. Or what about
taz
, they’re … What’s up? Why are you looking at me like that?”
    Kris has laid his head on one side. His thoughts are focused. It’s a bit like meditation. Each time Kris breathes in he gets bigger, and each time he breathes out his boss shrinks a bit more.
    “You’re not going to get violent on me, are you?” Bernd says nervously, and steps behind his desk. His hands disappear into his trouser pockets, his torso leans back as if he were standing on the edge of an abyss. Kris doesn’t move, he just observes, and if he were to step closer to his boss right now, he’d be able to smell his fear.
    “I’m really sorry, man. If you want—”
    Kris walks out on him mid-sentence and crosses the editorial office with the paper bags under his arms. He’s disappointed. BerndJost-Degen has never learned to formulate an apology properly. Never say you’re sorry and hide your hands in your trouser pockets as you do so. We all want to see the weapons we’re being injured with. And if you’re going to lie as he just did, then at least take a step toward the other guy and let him feel you’re telling the truth. Fake closeness, because closeness can mask lies. There’s nothing more pitiful than someone who can’t apologize for his mistakes.
    No one looks up when Kris walks past. He wishes the whole gang of them would choke on their own ignorance there and then. He’s worked closely with them for a year, and now not a single one of them looks up.
    Kris sets the bags down on the floor of the elevator and looks at himself in the mirror on the wall. He waits for his reflection to look away. The reflection grins back.
    Better than nothing
, Kris thinks and presses the button for the ground floor.
    The two bags contain all his research and interviews from the last few months, which no one’s really interested in. Current for a day, then just some junk