[...] Conference in the painting studio, she writes on a different day, and she remembers the conference in question, but also how Vadim lifted up her blouse afterwards in the empty studio and kissed her breasts, because she has still not permitted him to kiss her on the mouth. On that evening Hans didn’t ring her. Does he see everything? Is he like God? No, Hans isn’t God, in his own diary, it says: evening painful discussion with long-gone ex, who won’t accept the fact. Whatever is near starts to slither, and even more distant things slip away, an entire front is slipping, as the January day approaches. Katharina walks by the Oder, sees the snowflakes fall into the black water and instantly melt, swears to herself that her confusion must have an end, but it has no end; in Berlin she goes with Hans to see Godard’s Prénom Carmen, in Frankfurt she sees Don Carlos with Vadim, on the Alex she stands with Hans in front of the locked doors of the Gothic church, they hear Mozart being sung within, the Requiem, their Requiem, but they’re too late to get in, and don’t have tickets anyway. For ten minutes they stand by the leaden door listening. With Vadim she draws designs for a poster, with Hans she goes strolling in the snow across the cemetery in Pankow to Ernst Busch’s grave. Once, she and Hans run into each other by chance on a street corner in Prenzlauer Berg: two strangers. Everything is slithering down, but so massive and so slow is the movement that it can’t be detected at a distance. Hans, it’s possible that Vadim may have fallen in love with me. What about you? What about me? It would be good if it were possible to speak with Hans not just about many things, but about everything, but that would be asking too much. [...]