One clear, blueback, starry night, in the city of Berlin, in the year 2003, two young people sat down to dinner. Their names were Sophie and Patrick.

These two people had never met before today, Sophie was visiting Berlin with her mother, and Patrick was visiting with his father. Sophies's mother and Patrick's father had once known each other, very slightly, a long time ago. For a short while, Patrick's father had even been infatuated with Sophie's mother, when they were still at school. But it was twenty-nine years since they had last exchanged any words.

-Where do you think they've gone? Sophie asked.

-Clubbing, probably. Checking out the techno places.

-Are you serious?

-Of course not. My dad's never been to a club in his life. The last album he brought was by Barclay James Harvest.

-Who?

-Exactly.

Sophie and Patrick watched as the vast, brightly lit glass-and-concrete extravagance of the new Reichstag came into view. The restaurant they had chosen, at the top of the Fernsehturm above Alexanderplaz, revolved rather more quickly than either of them had been expecting. Apparently the speed hd been doubled since reunification.

-How is your mother? Patrick asked. Has she recovered?

-Oh, that was nothing. We went back to the hotel, and she lay down for a while. After that, she was fine. Another couple of hours and we went shopping. That's when I got this skirt.

-It looks great on you.

-Anyway, I'm glad it happened, because otherwise you're dad wouldn't have recognised her.

-I suppose not.

-So we wouldn't be sitting here, would we? It must be fate. Or something.

It was an odd situation they had been thrown into. There had seemed to be a spontaneous intimacy between their parents, even though it was so long since they had known each other. They had flung themselves into their reunion with a sort of joyous relief, as if this chance encounter in Berlin tea-room could somehow erase the intervening decades, heal the pain of their passing. That had left Sophie and Patrick floundering in a different, more awkward kind of intimacy. They had nothing in common, they realised, except their parents' histories.