Now she was writhing on the pavement. Cars went by but none slowed. A woman pushed a pram towards the girl and manoeuvred it round her. A couple stepped off the pavement into the gutter to avoid her.
Jago took a step forward, than another. The man who had hit her was smartly dressed: designer jeans, windcheater, lightweight maroon pullover and polished shoes. His hair was well cut. The look on his face was part pleasure and part about the need to exercise power: he had been challenged by a lesser creature. He called a few words to the man in the doorway, who cringed. Something about ‘tomorrow’ and ‘coming back’, a warning to be ‘very careful’. Then he headed towards the parked sports car.
The older man, the one who had held and kneed her, passed her, following the first. Her arm came out and she grabbed his ankle. He pitched forward, then went down hard onto the pavement. He swore. The first man came back as the second stood up. They circled her, then launched the attack. They kicked her . . . People passed them, looking away.
Jago started to run. He shouted, in German, ‘Stop that. Leave her alone!’
This was a criminal assault. He expected them not to yell back at him but to walk away. Where he had been brought up, in East London, kids carried knives after dark and only an idiot would intervene in a fight. An even bigger idiot would stay behind as a witness when the police arrived. But this was Berlin, and not just any part of Berlin: it was the Charlottenburg and Savignyplatz area. He went forward – it was about bloody time that the guy in the doorway shifted himself, but he didn’t.
Both men kicked the girl’s backside and belly. She was shouting at them, struggling to get the words out and trying to claw their ankles but they danced out of her reach. Neither had yet turned towards him.
‘Stop that! Stop it, for God’s sake.’
He was armed with his leather briefcase, a self-indulgent purchase during his first week in the German capital. A church clock chimed, telling him he was now late for his appointment. He couldn’t turn back. They hadn’t run to the car. He was drawn in, as people were towards a cliff’s edge. Logic had clouded, and the red mist came down. He reached her, crouched over her.
They watched him. He looked into the face of the younger man. Nothing was said but Jago saw his expression. It said, Who the fuck do you think you are? Or None of your business. Superior, dismissive. His heart was pounding and he had lost the calm that the bank’s Human Resources people looked for in young people they employed. The girl looked up into his eyes, and the two men peered down at him. There was a moment of quiet before he spluttered, ‘Go away, you bastards! Leave her alone. Scum—’
The older one hauled him upright. Jago’s eyes were close to the younger face. He could see the clean skin and the immaculate hair, could smell the deodorant and the mint on the breath. He noted the scar on the right side of the chin. The heel of the hand came up fast, no warning, and caught his upper teeth, lip and nose. His eyes watered as pain shot through him. He was dropped. When he could see again, the sports car was reversing into the traffic flow. They didn’t look at him. He wasn’t important enough, he realised, for them to glance back and see how he had reacted.
She didn’t thank him, or ask how he was. She pulled herself onto her hands and knees, then half upright. The man in the doorway come to help her, and the two of them went inside. Jago used his handkerchief to wipe away the blood that was streaming from his nose.
He steadied himself, then walked down the pavement towards the client’s apartment block.
The messenger had come across Europe and far to the south, delivered and gone. Giulietta had met him. Then the dutiful daughter, whom he could not marry off but was precious to him for her understanding of the technology he would never master, had brought it to him. Bernardo danced.