Chapter 77: The New Regular
The morning dawned brittle and bright, a sharp blue sky stretched taut over Berlin like painted porcelain. A thin skin of frost feathered the edges of Kastanienplatz, melting reluctantly under the tentative sun. Inside Café Klee, the warmth was a thick, delicious contrast, heavy with the scent of roasted beans and browning butter.
Yvonne was elbow-deep in proving dough, her strong fingers kneading a rhythmic prayer into the soft mass, when the bell above the door gave its soft, two-toned chime. It was still early, not yet nine, and the usual crowd of freelancers with laptops hadn’t descended. She looked up, flour dusting her forearms like pale freckles.
The woman standing just inside the doorway seemed to bring the sharpness of the outside in with her. She was a study in monochrome and ice: cropped hair the white of birch bark, tipped with a shock of cerulean at the ends. Large, round black frames emphasized eyes of a pale, startling blue, made starker by precise lines of kohl and shadow. She wore a long black wool coat, unbuttoned over a chunky grey sweater and dark jeans, and her hands, buried in deep pockets, finally emerged—slender, adorned with several thin silver rings.
Her gaze didn’t skitter nervously around the room; it traveled, slow and appraising, taking in the mismatched chairs, the fairy lights, the vibrant splash of Edith’s painting over the sideboard.It finally landed on Yvonne.
A smile bloomed on her face, wide and unguarded, transforming the careful coolness into something warm and immediately engaging. “You must be Yvonne,” she said, her voice a low, melodious timbre with a fluid accent that wasn’t quite German. “I’ve heard the symphony.”
Yvonne blinked, wiping her hands on her apron. “The symphony?”
“From my floor.” The woman gestured upward with a tilt of her chin. “The prelude of the grinder at six-thirty.The allegro of footsteps below my bed. The… how do you say… cantabile of a dog’s tail thumping against a wall.” She stepped fully inside, letting the door swing shut.“I am your new upstairs neighbor. Laura Morricone.”
“Ah.” Yvonne felt an unfamiliar flush of self-consciousness. “I hope it’s not too disturbing.The old building, the sounds carry…”
“Disturbing?No. It is the proof of life.I find it comforting. Like a heartbeat.” Laura shrugged off her coat, draping it over the back of a chair, and approached the counter. Her eyes, magnified slightly by the glasses, fixed on Yvonne’s with an unnerving directness. “And you have a jungle down here. I approve.”
She was looking past Yvonne at the collection of plants crowding the shelves and windowsills: the thriving monstera with its new, deeply fenestrated leaf, the trailing pothos, the flowering Christmas cactus that refused to acknowledge the season had passed.
“It’s a losing battle with the light in winter,” Yvonne said, falling into the familiar territory of plant care. “But they persevere.”
“As do we all,” Laura replied smoothly.“May I have a flat white? And perhaps one of those.” She pointed to the display case where the morning’s pastries sat gleaming.
As Yvonne prepared the coffee, she was acutely aware of Laura’s presence.The woman didn’t pull out her phone. She simply watched, leaning slightly against the counter, her attention a tangible weight.
“The painting,” Laura said suddenly, nodding toward the new room.“It is extraordinary.It is not… décor. It has a voice.”
Yvonne glanced over at Edith’s work, seeing it anew through this stranger’s eyes.“It was a gift.From my wife’s grandmother.”
“Ah. A lineage. That explains the… ferocity.” Laura accepted the mug, her fingers brushing Yvonne’s.The touch was brief, electric. “Thank you.” She took a sip, her pale eyes closing for a moment in appreciation.“Perfect. You have a gifted hand.”
“It’s just practice,” Yvonne murmured, turning back to her dough which now seemed bland and uninteresting.“Nothing is ‘just’ practice. It is a form of devotion.” Laura took her coffee and pastry and drifted toward the windowsill, perching on the edge of the free space between a jade plant and a spider fern. She became a part of the tableau, a sharp, modern silhouette against the organic greenery.The café began to fill slowly. Joost arrived, his entrance a gust of cold air and dramatic sighing about bicycle gears. He froze when he saw Laura, his eyes widening slightly before he composed himself into an expression of exaggerated professionalism. Vita followed, her cheerful “Guten Morgen!” ringing through the space. She offered Laura a bright, unselfconscious smile, which Laura returned with a measured, amused nod.
Yvonne found herself glancing over at the windowsill between tasks.Laura was now sketching something in a small, leather-bound notebook, her coffee cooling beside her. She looked utterly, unapologetically at home.
Then the bell chimed again, and Victoria entered, a blast of cold air swirling around her ankles. She was in her consulting uniform—a sleek, dark green wool blazer over a black turtleneck, her sharp glasses glinting. Her energy was focused, a little distant, still tethered to some complex problem of load-bearing walls or thermal bridging.
Her gaze found Yvonne first, and the professional veneer softened instantly, a private, warm flicker in her grey eyes. Then her perceptive glance swept the room, cataloguing Joost’s frantic miming toward the windows, Vita’s slightly flustered expression, and finally, Laura.Laura had looked up from her sketchbook. She watched Victoria with the same open curiosity she had shown the plants, a small, appreciative smile playing on her lips.
Victoria approached the counter, her eyes returning to Yvonne.“Morning, love.Large black, please. The client this morning was a monument to poor decision-making.” Her voice was low, for Yvonne alone.
As Yvonne grabbed a cup, Laura spoke from her perch, her voice carrying clearly in a lull in the café’s murmur.“The sostenuto of frustration. I recognize the key.”
Victoria turned fully toward her, one eyebrow arched. “I’m sorry?”
Laura gestured with her pencil.“Your sigh.It had a specific musical quality. A professional dissonance resolved, but with residue.”
A slow, intrigued smile touched Victoria’s lips. It was the expression she reserved for something unexpectedly clever.“An interesting analysis. And you are?”
“Laura Morricone. I live upstairs.” She didn’t stand, but she extended her hand in a graceful, careless motion.“Your wife makes exceptional coffee.”
Victoria shook the offered hand, her gaze assessing. “Victoria.And she does. It’s her primary form of sedition.” She took the cup from Yvonne, their fingers intertwining for a brief, possessive second. “So you’re the new tenant. We wondered who’d taken the old Vogel apartment.”
“It is now the Morricone apartment.I am a composer.Of songs, mostly. And of my own chaos.” Laura’s eyes darted between Victoria and Yvonne, that same appreciative look deepening.“The painting makes sense now.It is the two of you, yes? Captured in a storm?”
Yvonne felt a jolt. No one had so immediately seen them in it.“You can tell?”
“The energy is a duel. A harmony, but a fierce one.Two distinct forces holding the same space.” Laura took a final sip of her coffee. “It is very beautiful.As is the reality.”
The air in the café seemed to thin. Joost had stopped pretending to wipe tables and was openly staring. Vita busied herself with violent, noisy steaming of milk.Victoria’s smile remained, but it had solidified, becoming a polished shield. “Thank you. We’re rather fond of the reality ourselves.” She turned back to Yvonne, her voice softening but carrying an edge of private meaning.“I’ll be home by seven. Try not to adopt any new stray organisms before then.” Her glance swept meaningfully over the plants.
Laura laughed, a rich, genuine sound.“A warning I will heed. I am, perhaps, a stray organism.”
“I doubt that,” Victoria said, her tone light but final. “You seem to know exactly where you are.” With a last squeeze of Yvonne’s hand, she turned and left, the crisp click of her boots fading on the cobbles outside.
The silence she left behind was different.Laden.Laura closed her sketchbook and stood, gathering her coat. She approached the counter to settle her bill. Her pale blue eyes found Yvonne’s, and she leaned in slightly, the scent of cold wool and something like bergamot weaving through the smell of coffee.“It was a pleasure to meet the heart of the symphony, Yvonne. I am sure I will see you both… often.”
She paid, offered another devastating smile that included Joost and Vita, and slipped out the door, leaving a vacancy by the windowsill that seemed larger than before.Joost appeared instantly at Yvonne’s elbow.“Wow.Okay. That was… a lot.”
“She is very confident,” Vita whispered, as if Laura might still hear.
Yvonne looked down at her dough, now over-proofed and puffy. She poked it, and it deflated slightly. Her skin still tingled where Laura’s fingers had brushed hers, and where Victoria’s had held on tight. The café hummed back to its normal rhythm, but the notes felt rearranged, a familiar song played in a new, slightly disconcerting key.Upstairs, a floorboard creaked, a faint, deliberate pressure. Then, the clear, resonant chord of a guitar sounded once, twice, tuning. Then it began, a riff of intricate, melancholy beauty, weaving its way down through the old building’s bones, a new thread in the tapestry of their days.
The guitar riff lingered in the air long after the last note faded, a ghost melody haunting the rest of the afternoon’s steam-wand hisses and clattering cups. Yvonne found herself listening for its return, her attention divided between the espresso machine’s ritual and the ceiling above.Joost, of course, had commentary. “Sounds like someone’s practicing for a funeral,” he muttered, arranging slices of apple strudel with excessive precision. “A very stylish, Italian funeral.”
By seven, the café was quiet, a landscape of wiped tables and stacked chairs. The large windows reflected the warm interior back at itself, turning the room into a cozy dioroma suspended in the navy-blue evening. Yvonne was topping up the salt sprinkle for the garden path when the door opened, bringing in a gust of chilled air and Victoria.
Victoria’s shoulders held the entire day’s weight. She leaned back against the closed door for a second, eyes closed, before peeling off her wool coat. The professional sharpness had been sanded down, leaving behind a quiet weariness. “The number of people who think a heat pump runs on fairy dust,” she sighed, not moving from the spot.“Come sit,” Yvonne said, her voice soft. “I’ll get your wine.”
Victoria didn’t argue. She made her way to her regular spot, the worn armchair in the corner that offered a view of both the front door and Edith’s painting.She sank into it, letting her head rest against the back, and slipped off her shoes. The simple acts were a liturgy of return. Yvonne brought over a glass of deep red and a small plate with two leftover slices of sourdough bread, some butter, and a wedge of strong Bergkäse.“Long one?” Yvonne asked, settling on the footstool beside her.
“Mm.” Victoria took a long sip, the tension in her jaw beginning to unknot. “Mostly just tedious. Negotiations with a contractor who thinks ‘historic preservation’ means not using a sledgehammer for five minutes.” She reached out, her fingers brushing a stray flour mark on Yvonne’s forearm. “Your day was more interesting, I hear.”
Yvonne felt a faint heat on her cheeks. “Joost has a big mouth.”
“Vita’s eyes were the size of teacups. Described her as a ‘storm of confidence.’” Victoria’s gaze was observant, tender. “She unsettled you.”
“Not unsettled, exactly.” Yvonne searched for the words.“She just…occupies space differently. Like she’s already familiar with everything.” She took a breath.“She saw us in the painting. Immediately.”
Victoria’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Huh.” She took another drink, her eyes drifting to the vibrant canvas. “Perceptive.”
Before Yvonne could respond, the door chime cut through the quiet.Laura entered, her energy transformed from the morning’s contemplative stillness. She moved with purpose, a large, battered guitar case slung across her back like a second spine. She was still in black, but had swapped the sweater for a tailored blazer, her makeup more dramatic under the café’s warm lights.
“Ah, perfect timing!” Laura’s voice filled the empty room.She smiled, her eyes finding them in the corner. “A coffee for the road, please.Black.To go.” She approached the counter as Yvonne stood.
“Late night?” Victoria asked, her tone casually polite.“A gig. At a little place in Kreuzberg.” Laura leaned against the counter, watching Yvonne grind the beans. The sound was loud in the quiet. “It pays in free drinks and exposure, which is a currency I apparently deal in.”
Yvonne handed her the paper cup.Laura’s fingers wrapped around it, warming them. She took a quick, appreciative sip.“Excellent. Fuel.” She hitched the guitar case higher on her shoulder, but hesitated, her gaze traveling around the room—over the empty tables, the soft lighting, the painting.A speculative look crossed her face.
“You know,” she began, her tone shifting to something more earnest, playful.“This space has a beautiful acoustic. All this wood, the fabrics… it hums.” She paused, looking directly at Victoria, then Yvonne. “Would you ever consider… hosting a small performance here?Sometime? Just me and the guitar.Very chill, I promise. No raging amplifiers.”
Victoria’s weariness seemed to recede, replaced by a spark of professional curiosity. She sat up straighter, her eyes scanning the room as if measuring it anew.“Live music.That’s an interesting proposition. It could redefine the weekend vibe.”
Yvonne felt a immediate, protective clench in her stomach. “It’s a very small space, Laura.The regulars come for quiet, for conversation. A performance, even a chill one… it changes the whole center of gravity.” She gestured vaguely, as if trying to contain the potential disruption. “The noise, the rearranging…”
“But the novelty,” Victoria countered gently, thinking aloud.“It could draw a different crowd for an evening. A curated event.” She looked at Laura. “Your songs, what are they like?”
“Poetry with a pulse,” Laura said, her smile confident.“Stories.Some are in English, some in Italian. They are… intimate.They would suit this place.” She checked a thin silver watch on her wrist. “Scheiße, I have to run or I’ll miss my slot.” She backed toward the door, holding her coffee aloft.“Think about it, yes? I would love to talk more. But now, I must go be a starving artist!”
She was gone as suddenly as she appeared, the door swinging shut behind her, leaving a vacuum of silence in her wake.
Victoria slowly swirled her wine. “Well.”
“You’re actually considering it,” Yvonne said, hearing the slight edge in her own voice.“Aren’t you? Even a little?” Victoria turned her head toward her.“It’s a completely new idea. It could be good for business. A Saturday evening series, perhaps.”
“It’s a café, not a club.” Yvonne frowned, looking at her beloved, mismatched chairs. “Frau Engelmann comes here to read her paper.Lukas brings his thesis drafts.It’s their sanctuary. What if they hate it?”
“What if they love it?” Victoria reached over and took Yvonne’s hand. “It wouldn’t be every night.One evening.An experiment.” She softened. “I saw your face when she was talking about the painting. She sees things, Yvonne.”
“That’s what worries me,” Yvonne admitted softly.“She sees everything. It feels… intrusive.”
Victoria was quiet for a moment, contemplating.“She’s fascinating, though. A composer, a performer, polyglot. Living right above us.” A playful, challenging glint entered her eyes.“My corporate soul is intrigued by the logistical puzzle. Your earthy soul is worried about the ecosystem. Both are valid.”
Yvonne let out a long breath, squeezing Victoria’s hand back.“She’s a storm. Beautiful to watch, but you never know what gets uprooted.”
“We’re not easily uprooted.” Victoria nodded toward Edith’s painting, its golden threads shimmering in the low light. “We’re the kind that holds the wall.”
They sat in companionable silence, listening to the faint sounds of the evening square outside. The idea hung between them, another delicate, foreign object placed gently on their shared table—fragile, glittering, and waiting to be picked up and examined from all sides. Upstairs, all was quiet. The storm, for now, was performing elsewhere.
The storm, for now, was performing elsewhere.
Joost observed everything.
He noticed the way Yvonne’s gaze flickered toward the ceiling the next morning when a floorboard groaned above. He catalogued the new, slightly-too-bright tone in Vita’s voice whenever she said “the new neighbour” and the thoughtful, distant look that would settle on Victoria’s face during afternoon lulls, her pen tapping a silent rhythm on her notebook. The ecosystem of Café Klee had been subtly pressurized, and Joost, as its self-appointed chief naturalist, felt compelled to study the cause.
His investigation began discreetly.
He started with the garbage, a font of worldly knowledge. On Thursday, hauling the recycling bins to the curb, he noted the labels on Laura’s discarded bottles: an expensive Barbera, a craft German beer, a bottle of San Pellegrino. It indicated taste, not desperation. The paper bin yielded torn sheets of musical notation, Italian newspaper clippings, and a shredded envelope from a Berlin-modeling agency. “Huh,” he said to the freezing air.
“What’s ‘huh’?” Vita asked, appearing beside him with a bag of compost.
“Our storm is multi-faceted.” He nodded at the bin. “She’s a model, too. Or was.”
“She has the face for it,” Vita said simply, not understanding the depth of his profiling.
The digital phase was next. During a quiet moment, he leaned against the cleaned espresso machine, his phone hidden below the counter. He typed ‘Laura Morricone Berlin’ into a search engine. The results were a sparse but intriguing constellation. A SoundCloud link with a handful of haunting, guitar-based tracks. A few faded editorial photos from an Italian magazine, her hair darker then, her expression more distant. An event listing for a tiny gallery in Neukölln from last year, where she’d provided “ambient sonic texture.” No social media profiles that he could find. She existed, but in fragments, like a document with most pages torn out.
“Stalking is a crime, you know.” Victoria’s voice, dry and close, made him fumble the phone.
“Research,” he corrected, slipping it into his apron. “For security. She wants to perform here. Shouldn’t we know if she’s… I don’t know… a chaotic entity?”
“We’re all chaotic entities, Joost.” Victoria poured herself a glass of water, her eyes on the stairwell door that led to the upper apartments. “What did your ‘research’ uncover?”
“She’s got a SoundCloud. Forty-seven followers. She did some modeling. She’s played exactly one gallery, billed as ‘sonic texture.’” He relayed the facts, a hint of disappointment in his voice. “It’s not exactly a pedigree for a Saturday night crowd.”
“Or it’s the perfect one.” Victoria took a sip. “No hype. Just craft. That’s more interesting than someone chasing algorithms.” She glanced at Yvonne, who was listening while carefully icing a bee-sting cake. “What’s the verdict from the security team?”
Yvonne didn’t look up. “I listened to one song. Last night.” She smoothed a ridge of cream with the side of her knife. “It was in Italian. I didn’t understand the words. But it sounded… lonely. And a little angry.”
“That’s not a ‘no’,” Victoria observed.
“It’s not a ‘yes,’ either.” Yvonne finally met her wife’s gaze. “It just made her seem more real. Which isn’t easier.”
Joost saw his opening. “I’ll do a physical reconnaissance. Direct source intelligence.” He ignored Vita’s giggle. “I’ll ask her, casually, about her usual crowd size. Her setlist. Noise levels. Professional inquiry.”
His chance came that evening.
Laura descended just before closing, her guitar case again strapped to her back. She wore a thick, blue-knit beanie pulled over her white-and-blue hair, making her look younger. “A redemption coffee,” she announced, placing her previous night’s to-go cup on the counter. “I was caffeinated chaos last night. Today, I am contrition.”
“The gig went well?” Yvonne asked, taking the cup.
“The audience was four drunk Swedes and a bartender texting his girlfriend.” Laura’s smile was wry. “But the guitar sounded true. That’s the transaction.” She noticed Joost lingering, polishing the same spot on the grinder for an unnatural length of time. “Hello again. You are the meticulous one.”
“Joost. Senior operations manager.” He extended a hand, which she shook. Her grip was firm, her rings cool. “I couldn’t help but overhear you discussing a potential performance with the owners.”
Laura’s pale eyes gleamed with amusement. “You have excellent hearing.”
“It’s a small space. Acoustics, as you noted.” He leaned in slightly. “Logistically, I handle things here. Crowd flow, seating capacity, noise compliance with our other residents.” He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. “If you were to do a set, what’s your typical… draw?”
Laura leaned against the counter, mirroring his posture. “My typical draw, Joost, is somewhere between a polite circle of friends and a phantom limb. I am not a ‘draw.’ I am an experience that sometimes finds witnesses.” She tilted her head. “You are worried I will pack your café with rowdy bohemians who will carve lyrics into your beautiful tables.”
“The thought had occurred.”
“I would not let them.” She said it with a startling simplicity. “This place is… it has a soul. I hear it upstairs. The murmur, the laughter, the dog’s happy sigh. I would only want to add another layer to that, not strip it bare.” She looked past him to Yvonne. “A whisper, not a shout.”
Yvonne held her gaze, saying nothing.
“And the content?” Joost pressed, feeling the investigation slipping from factual to philosophical. “Your songs. Any outright profanity or themes that might distress our regulars? We have a Frau Engelmann.”
Laura laughed, a bright, genuine sound. “I will provide a lyric sheet for Frau Engelmann’s prior approval. Scout’s honour.” She pushed off the counter, accepting her fresh coffee from Yvonne. “My themes are love, loss, city lights, and the peculiar silence of being surrounded by people. The profanity is reserved for my internal monologue when I break a guitar string.”
She headed for the door, then paused, her hand on the frame. She looked back at Joost, her expression softening from tease to something approaching earnest. “Your protectiveness is good. It means you care about the heart of this place. I care about it, too, already. That is my only credential.”
Then she was gone, melting into the indigo evening.
Joost turned to Yvonne, his report ready. “Assessment: She’s clever. Charismatic. Possibly sincere. Her crowd is negligible, which is low-risk. Her attitude toward the café’s…” he searched for the word, “…ecosystem, seems respectful.”
“You sound like a secret service report,” Yvonne said, but she was smiling faintly.
“I am thorough.” He put the final, crucial piece of intelligence on the table. “Also, when she paid, I saw the name on her debit card. It wasn’t Laura Morricone.”
The air stilled. Victoria, who had been ostensibly reviewing invoices at the corner table, looked up.
“What was it?” Victoria asked.
“Lauretta Morricone.” Joost let it hang there. “Laura is… a construction. A performance. The person upstairs is Lauretta.”
A profound silence filled the café, broken only by the refrigerator’s hum. That small fact felt immense, a crack in the meticulously cool façade. It whispered of a past, of a transformation, of a person who had perhaps left a girl named Lauretta behind somewhere.
Victoria slowly closed her notebook. Yvonne untied her apron, the cloth whispering in the quiet.
Joost had completed his investigation. The mystery, however, had only deepened.