#1 – Breakfast with a question mark

The morning crept cautiously through Johanna Weber’s flat – a timid light crept along the edges of the curtains, casting pale streaks on the floor. It smelled of paper, old wood and the last remnants of coffee from the night before.

Jo, as she was simply called, stood barefoot in the kitchen, stirring a cup of cold mocha, more out of habit than enjoyment. Newton had curled up on the armchair, a ball of wool with ears. The world was still quiet, as if it wanted to give her time.

Jo stopped in the hallway, the mug in her hand. Her grandmother’s antique mirror hung crookedly above the chest of drawers, the glass slightly clouded. She glanced into it. A chestnut-brown strand had come loose from the tangle that was supposed to be a bun. She brushed it aside, adjusted her glasses, and looked at herself as one might look at a stranger.

Thirty. And sometimes it feels like a test run for later.

She turned to leave – but stopped. Something strange had crept into the bottom of the mirror. A fine streak, almost invisible.

Jo stepped closer to the door. There was an envelope, delicate and cream-coloured, only halfway through the crack.

She bent down and picked it up. It felt cool in her hand, almost solemn. A blue-grey ribbon encircled it, no sender, no words. Nothing.

‘And you, Newton?’ She looked over at the grey tabby cat, who only twitched one ear. ‘Nothing to see again, huh?’

He responded with a yawn and a stretch that made it clear: Mail isn’t my department.

Jo carefully untied the ribbon and pulled out a card. A single, yellowed photograph. She turned it slowly between her fingers, a faint, barely perceptible shiver running over her skin. The picture showed an old garden gate – cast iron, half open, overgrown with ivy and wild clover. Behind it, a narrow, moss-covered path disappeared into something hidden.

On the back, in slightly faded writing, was a single sentence:

‘Answer the question before someone else does.’

Jo furrowed her brow. No signature, no explanation. Just this strange message that began to echo somewhere deep in her memory. She pondered for a moment. A moment that felt like hours. Shocked on the one hand, searching on the other.

At that moment, her mobile phone vibrated. A message from Lexi lit up the display:

‘You promised you’d come over this morning. It’s our anniversary! And the coffee machine’s not working! ♥’

Jo took a deep breath, shook off the brief feeling of unease and put the photo back in the envelope.

Later. She had promised Lexi – and today was not a day to break promises. She grabbed her bag, took one last look at Newton and opened the door to her flat.

The card with the strange photo lay still on the chest of drawers, waiting like a thought that had not yet been thought to its conclusion.

Outside, she was greeted by cool morning air, the sky still grey over Berlin. On her way to the coffee shop, the streetlights flickered in a tired yellow, her shoes crunching on the damp asphalt. The city seemed slow, as if it hadn’t yet decided whether it really wanted to wake up.

As she entered the café, she was hit by warm air mixed with the smell of coffee and the aroma of freshly baked croissants. Lexi stood in the middle of the room, balancing on tiptoes to hang a garland of paper lanterns. Her turquoise hair was tied up wildly as usual, her apron dusted with flour.

‘There you are at last!’ Lexi exclaimed with relief. ‘Anniversaries are kind of hard to manage without coffee.’

‘Is it that bad?’ asked Jo with a smile, placing the tin of brownies she had brought with her on the counter.

‘Don’t ask,’ said Yara from the background. She had thrown on a thick wool cardigan, her dark hair falling in loose waves around her shoulders. In front of her were empty coffee cups that she had tried in vain to fill.

‘Lexi claims the machine suddenly has moral qualms.’

‘Perhaps more physical ones,’ said a deep voice from the doorway. Prof. Karl Hoffmann entered, as always in his slightly rumpled coat, his light hair a little tousled. His gaze swept over the scene, attentive, almost amused. ‘Moral crises are rare in household appliances.’

Felix came in shortly afterwards, carrying a stack of books for the reading corner under one arm. His long scarf fluttered behind him, his glasses fogged up from the damp morning air. ‘Coffee drama again?’

Lexi just pointed silently at the espresso machine, which was hissing and coughing quietly.

Karl stepped closer, took his glasses out of his coat pocket and leaned over it like a doctor making a diagnosis. ‘Classic case of limescale,’ he said. ‘Hard water leaves behind calcium deposits – calcium carbonate, to be precise.’

Lexi sighed loudly. ‘And that’s incurable?’

‘No, fortunately not.’ Karl carefully opened the housing. ‘The best way to remove it is with acetic acid. Household vinegar will do. The acid reacts with the calcium carbonate, converting it into soluble acetate and carbon dioxide. It looks like a chemistry lab, but it works wonders.’

‘And you’re sure the machine will survive?’ Yara asked sceptically.

‘If you’re gentle enough, it’ll work brilliantly.’

Jo watched as Karl cleaned the parts of the machine with calm, explanatory movements. He looked satisfied, as if he had anticipated this moment – a professor and espresso whisperer rolled into one.

When the first coffee finally began to pour into the cup, Lexi applauded cheerfully. ‘My hero of the day!’

Jo sat down in her favourite spot by the window. She took out her notebook and wrote with a small smile: Knowledge question of the day – How do you remove limescale from an espresso machine?

The afternoon was cheerful. Guests came and went, laughter mingled with jazz from the speakers. Felix discussed books with a customer, Yara served tea, while Lexi happily enjoyed the anniversary.

When Jo returned in the evening, her flat was quiet and dark. Newton greeted her with a tired purr and rubbed his head against her legs. She turned on the light and immediately saw the cream-coloured envelope on the chest of drawers again.

It was waiting. Right where she had left it.

She picked it up again, carefully opened the flap and pulled out the photo. Black and white, grainy, old – it showed a cast-iron garden gate, half hidden behind climbing plants, slightly open, like an invitation to the unknown. In the background, she vaguely recognised an old apple tree.

She looked at the picture silently for a while, the feeling of memories pressing on her chest. Her fingers slid almost unconsciously over the back of the photo, where the words were written:

‘Answer the question before someone else asks it.’

Only now did she notice the tiny embossing at the bottom. A number, fine, barely visible: 27.

Jo took a deep breath. The number echoed in her head, triggering a fleeting memory – an image of her grandmother, her books and the strange silver key in the second drawer of her desk.

She slowly opened the drawer. There it lay, untouched, silent, waiting.

And suddenly it felt as if the photo, the key and that one number were not coincidences, but the cautious signs of a secret that had just begun to ask her the first questions.

To be continued…