Places
Lena’s Apartment
Lena’s Hamburg apartment, which never looks quite lived in
Lena Voss lives in Hamburg, in an apartment that always looks as if someone has just moved in or is about to move out again. On the evening before departure, Anna Kessler sits on the sofa with her legs tucked under her. She has brought wine that neither of them drinks, and she puts a handwritten list on the table: fourteen nursing homes in the first ring, each followed by the number of residents who can’t walk on their own. That night, three things lie side by side on the table next to Lena’s bed: the cruise plan, Anna’s list, and a spiral notebook. At four-thirty Lena gets up. The train to Kiel leaves at seven.
First encounter
- First noticed: the apartment “that always looked as if someone had just moved in”
- Object: the spiral notebook “with the crossed-out line”
Connected to
- Lena VossOceanographer at the ICRU in Hamburg, following a falling line
- Anna KesslerLower Elbe emergency manager who has known Lena thirteen years
- KielWhere the Nordmark’s voyage begins
- The Lower Elbe and the DikeThe land behind the dikes between Hamburg and the estuary
Spoiler-free. This describes the starting point of the book named, without its major twists or resolutions.