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book immediately. The cover, with its ancient engraved letters, was worn from rereading, the cloth binding slightly loose. It was an old edition and as children they were not allowed to touch it. When Mother came into their room at night to read from it, sitting on the edge of the bed, there was always a special, almost ceremonial atmosphere. Maybe this was because the book was unreachable for them and its mysterious content full of adventures and hidden secrets. It was a fond childhood treasure, and it gave Claire a strange pang that this book was now here, in Anne’s possession.
    â€œMum gave it to me so I can read it to Margarethe. If you have kids, I’ll pass it on.”
    Claire turned her head. “Of course,” she said, immediately ashamed of her feelings of jealousy.
    She emptied the glass and slumped into the Charles Eames chair. Anne was watching her on the swivel armchair, turning around as though she were on a carousel.
    â€œYou know this is the only piece of furniture I still have from Berlin?”
    â€œOf course I remember. We were living off pasta for weeks because of it.”
    Anne had spent a whole month’s wages on it. The chair became the centrepiece of their living room. When they had shared their flat in Charlottenburg it was Anne who was in charge of the decoration. One of her favourite subjects was talking about creating a whole range of furniture on wheels that would reflect the new mobile and flexible way of living. The walls were white, and Anne forbade her to hang anything up. For her there was nothing more anachronistic than hammering a nail into a wall. “As long as we can’t afford Mark Rothko, we will leave the white wall as it is. Why put up a crappy poster? A white wall is perfectly beautiful,” was one of Anne’s typical arguments and Claire never objected. After all, Anne did make the flat look special. She even had a way of arranging lemons on the kitchen table to make them look like an objet d’art . Right back then, Claire knew Anne would one day build her own house. She started spending her spare time building prototypes. The floor of her room was always scattered with perfectly built little cardboard houses. And here she was, in her own nest. Everything exactly the way she wanted it.
    Claire stopped turning around on the swivel chair. Maybe it was the wine that had suddenly made her feel unpleasantly off-balance. She looked at her sister and realised how accomplished she was, that she had carefully planned this all along. Just like the flat they had once shared, the house was perfect. There was nothing obtrusive or too much. Everything had its place and purpose, without being overly minimalistic – even the concrete ceiling didn’t seem cold. As she had dreamt in her student years, everything was mobile and neat. The coffee table was on wheels, even Karl’s Brompton bike in the hallway could be folded together and carried under one arm.
    Anne was now talking about her plan to start her own architecture firm. As soon as Margarethe was old enough to go into a nursery she would start drawing up a business plan. Karl was clearly proud of her intentions. “She is just not made to be an employee,” he said to Anthony, lovingly rubbing Anne’s arm. “She is too talented and thrives on stress.”
    Karl himself was quite happy to work for a company. As team leader of the web development department at a big publishing house, he had a very good job. Claire could see that he loved Anne and, more, he was proud of her. Was Anthony proud of her ? She wasn’t sure. It confused Claire that her sister seemed so complete and accomplished. When she got up from the chair she was still a little dizzy, blaming herself for drinking the wine too quickly.
    â€œAre you alright?” Anne asked. At that moment Margarethe started to cry and, almost instantly, as if mother and baby were somehow invisibly wired, Anne hurried into her