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good, and if the film turns out it’ll make the rounds of the festivals.”
    “A student film?”
    “The director’s supposed to be quite talented.”
    On screen, the growth pattern of Jack Nicholson’s hair was clearly visible, cropped short against his skull. Coming to a crest at the center of his forehead, his power rails dipped back on either side without any indication of further hair loss. Walter glanced down at Mickey Rourke’s bloated cheeks.
    “I’m not quite desperate enough to make a student film.”
    “You’re not quite desperate enough to do anything. That’s your problem.”
    He got out of bed and picked up one piece of the map off the floor. He recognized the name of one of the streets that crossed the paper, Bernauerstrasse, but could not remember if it had been in East Berlin or West. For that matter, he could not remember if it was in the northern part of the city or to the south. Even after almost twenty years in Berlin, he still got turned around. Maybe it had something to do with being surrounded by the Wall for so many years. It hadn’t mattered much which direction you went in those days, there wasn’t very far to go.
    “No German actor has had a real career in Hollywood since Marlene,” said Klara. “Why hire some unknown Germanguy and deal with all the accent trouble when there are a million American actors who look just like him?”
    “I don’t have an accent when I speak English.”
    She sighed.
    “I can’t get you work in English even if it is your mother tongue.”
    The VCR suddenly released Jack Nicholson from suspended animation and the military tribunal resumed at top volume.
    “Sie können die Wahrheit nicht ertragen , ” he yelled. “You can’t handle the truth!”
    “What is that?” Klara asked.
    Walter scrambled for the remote control lost in the folds of the sheets and quickly squeezed Pause. This time, Tom Cruise’s face filled the small screen, eyebrows knit together seriously, jaw clenched.
    “Nothing.”
    “I have to get back to work,” she said, “but here’s something to look forward to: Tom Cruise is coming to Berlin, for the premiere of the movie in December.”
    “Tom Cruise.”
    “You’ve never met him, have you?”
    Walter stared at Tom Cruise’s face on the TV. He had stared at that face so many times, so intensely, that he knew its contours almost better than his own. But the idea of it attached to a warm, three-dimensional body seemed impossible. Through the crack in the curtains he could see the eggplant-colored sky outside, and the misery of the months to come unrolled in his mind like a carpet dropped carelessly downstairs:the decline of the temperature, the diminishing daylight hours, a terrible, inevitable descent into the hell of the holiday season. The decorations were already up at the bakery. Pretty soon all of Ku’damm would be alight with white lights, and the little Christmas markets would appear all over the city like elfin villages. Then next Sunday, the first Advent, the floodgates would open. Cookie-baking parties and colleagues setting up networks of Secret Santas, gas stations handing out cardboard advent calendars filled with chocolate; waitresses in restaurants in red stocking hats, local Bavarians calling out to him cheerfully, with the greeting God Bless. And in the diminishing December light, as the season picked up momentum, the people around him would retreat inside into their warm little worlds behind closed doors, to their Secret Santas and hymn concerts and their plans to roast goose with their families, opening presents, getting fat together on stollen. He closed his eyes thinking that he would do anything at all to get out of Berlin before Christmas. He had no children, no parents, no siblings, few close friends and Heike hadn’t called all day. He was going to be alone through the holidays. He was going to grow old here alone in this room. Walter pressed his fingers against his temples in a futile effort to