Sorry - Shaun Whiteside

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and you’re sitting with your colleagues at the table and you raise your water glass to your lips even though it’s empty. Your colleagues don’t notice a thing. You quickly set your glass back down again, a waiter leans toward you and pours you some water. You ignore him and laugh with the others. It sounds like a joke. An agency that apologizes. You say something now too, you say:

      “Oh, come off it.”

      “No, no, it isn’t a joke,” your boss assures you, passing you the bread. “It’s the latest thing. A lot of big companies are working with them already. I’ve heard it firsthand. I wouldn’t even be surprised if we used them one day.”

      You all shake your heads in disbelief; the idea is ridiculous, unimaginable; all the things people come up with. You spread butter on your bread, sit still and look like someone spreading butter on some bread. Inside you’re in turmoil. What if it’s true? you wonder. What then? Your boss surprises you by reading your thoughts and says:

      “Look on the internet. They must even have a homepage.”

      A search on Google brings up 1,288 entries. The agency’s name is Sorry. Their homepage is only one page long. A short text, e-mail address, and phone number. You run your eyes over the comments on the agency but don’t click on them, because you don’t need the opinion of outsiders.

       An agency that apologizes …

      All those months, days, hours, minutes. Every second is a weight around your neck. Resistance is difficult. How many times have you wanted to fall on your knees? Always resisting, always bracing yourself. It’s understandable that you’re tired. Anyone else would be tired too, many would have given up, but you’re stubborn, and well on the way to freeing yourself of your guilt. You’ve found a way. You’ve only just figured out what needs to be done, and that same day in the restaurant you hear about an agency that apologizes in return for payment. Isn’t that ironic? Would we talk about coincidence or synchronicity? Do you want to enter into a discussion about the elements of fate?

       No.

      Your fingers tremble as you dial the number. It took you four days to accept the agency’s existence. Four days of stomach pains. Four days when you wanted to pummel the walls with your fists. You’re so nervous that you hang up after a single ring. You laugh. You’re aware that you’re overreacting. You’re not sixteen years old and calling the love of your life. You calm down and press redial.

      “This is Sorry, Tamara Berger speaking. How can I help?”

      “My name is Lars Meybach, I wanted to ask exactly how you operate,” you say, pressing your hand to your mouth to suppress a nervous giggle.

      “The procedure’s very simple,” Tamara tells you. “We listen to what you want to apologize for, who it’s to, and what’s to be said. After this detailed discussion, we send one of our colleagues to see you. He fulfills the commission and—”

      “How do I know that your colleague will fulfill the commission to my satisfaction?” you interrupt.

      “Trust,” she replies without a moment’s hesitation. “Of course you can also ask for a report, then we put the conversation in writing and send you the report.”

      “Sounds interesting. What’s the catch?”

      “The only catch is that we don’t take personal requests. Is it a private or a business problem?”

      “Business,” you lie. “Definitely business.”

      “Wonderful. Should I mail you a copy of our standard business terms?”

      You weren’t prepared for that. It’s all happening very quickly. Too quickly.

       Don’t hang up!

      You switch the receiver to your other hand and ask:

      “Is everyone at the agency as nice as you?”

      “No, just me, unfortunately. If you heard the others you’d never call us again.”

      She laughs; you like her laugh.

      “Miss Berger—”

      “Tamara,” she says.

      “Okay, Tamara, I’ve got a really pressing problem, and I’m not sure whether you can really help me. How fast is your agency?”

      “How pressing is it?”

      “Very.”

      “Then we’re very fast,” she promises.

      Minutes later you’ve printed out and read the business terms and the application form. You log on to your bank and transfer the advance payment to the agency’s account. The pace of it all takes your breath away. It’s going to happen in ten days’ time. You still can’t get your head around it.

      GIVE US A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF YOUR PROBLEM

      To concentrate on your text, you sit down on the balcony and take a deep breath. You think of the mirrors hanging in your flat. You think about how long it’s been since you could look yourself in the eye. Two months, twenty-six days, eleven hours.

      You pick up the pen and fill out the form.

      The words have to be right.

      Every sentence is important.

      WOLF

      HIS ROOM IS AT the end of the corridor. His name is in brightly colored wooden letters on the door. Frank. He lives in his mother’s flat. On the walls there are pictures of guardian angels. Pink little fatties, lowering their heads in prayer; stormy angels, bathed in light. Soft filters and kitsch. The whole flat smells of air freshener, all the curtains are drawn, and a budgerigar sings from a tiny cage.

      The mother adjusts her skirt, she can’t look Wolf in the eye. Her son is single, thirty-six years old, and a failure. She doesn’t know what she did wrong. Her hand trembles slightly as she pours out the coffee. Cups with floral patterns and gold rims. One of the cups has a crack at the top, and a dark lipstick stain can be seen in the crack. Wolf is glad it isn’t his cup. A glass of powdered milk is pushed in front of him. Wolf pushes it back. At last the mother starts talking. Her son is working at Lidl now, stacking shelves. He hopes to make it to cashier this year. Wolf isn’t learning anything new here. There isn’t a photograph of the son anywhere in the living room.

      “It was all different in the old days,” says the mother and touches the coffeepot with the back of her hand to check that it’s really hot enough.

      Wolf knows how different it was. Her son’s decline occurred incredibly quickly. There are still idiots who think they can surf the internet and download sex clips without anyone finding out. And then there are idiots who go in search of child pornography during their lunch break. The company sacked Frank Löffler without hesitation. Until September his monthly income was 3,377 euros before tax, a week later he was clearing the shelves at the discount supermarket for 9 euros an hour.

      “He works till eight,” his mother says, “but he should soon have a break.”

      By the door she clutches Wolf’s arm for a second.

      “Luckily there wasn’t a scandal. I wouldn’t have survived a scandal under any circumstances.”

      Frank Löffler looks exactly as you would imagine. Widow’s peak, belly hanging over his belt, greasy hair. His eyes are never still, his handshake is slack. After Wolf introduces himself, Löffler says he hasn’t got a break for twenty minutes and could they meet outside.

      “The management doesn’t like us talking to the customers.”

      “I’ll be over there,” Wolf says, crossing the street to a laundromat. He’s always liked laundromats. They’re like waiting rooms for people who never travel. Wolf gets a hot chocolate from the machine. Around him

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