23

MATRIX SQUARED

29th May 2007. People were starting their Tuesday in Eislingen. One
of Germany's countless anonymous communities where a broken traffic
light or a stray cow may be the biggest news story for many months,
Eislingen has a routine that is rarely disrupted. Life in Germany gets
going an hour or two earlier than it does in Britain or America. By six-
thirty in the morning there is already a steady stream of people on their
way to work, dropping in at the local Tchibo café. Here they exchange
what little gossip there is over coffee, topped unappealingly with
condensed milk, but compensated for by creamy cakes or a smoked-ham
weggle (a bread roll in Swabia's all-but-incomprehensible dialect).

Yet today was destined to be a special day in Eislingen, for the
twenty-first century was about to arrive. Halfway down H. Street, Detlef
Hartmann hauled himself out of bed, dimly aware that he had some-
thing important on his mind. With the mist still clearing from his
brain, he checked his hushmail account for any encrypted messages
and scanned his website to see if it required any maintenance. He
found nothing untoward.

Then he remembered. His parents were returning from their holiday
over the border in Austria. Action stations. He and his brother had just
a day to clear up. Desiccated spaghetti stuck like industrial cement to
the plates; ashtrays supporting small mountains of cigarette butts lay
higgledy-piggledy among the beer cans, bottles and indeterminate items
of clothing – a typical monument built by teenage boys when left to
their own devices. Detlef decided to take a quick bath before clearing
up and was just drying himself when the doorbell rang. He shouted
down to his brother to open it.