Chapter 2 - The House of Glass and Judgment
Alexander’s apartment complex sat in one of Frankfurt’s most exclusive residential districts, where the balconies were draped in carefully tended ivy and the underground parking garage smelled faintly of new tires and polished concrete.
When Helga pressed the brass doorbell of apartment 4B, the chime echoed softly inside. It took a long moment before the door swung open.
Alexander stood in the doorway, wearing a casual cashmere sweater that cost more than Helga’s monthly grocery budget. He looked handsome, but his face was drawn, dark shadows lingering beneath his eyes.
"Mom," he breathed, stepping forward to pull her into a brief, awkward hug. He smelled of expensive cologne, completely masking any trace of the boy who used to smell of cheap laundry detergent and wet soil. "You’re here. Come in, come in."
"Happy Mother’s Day, my boy," Helga said, stepping over the threshold and immediately noticing the pristine, light-oak flooring. She carefully wiped her shoes twice, acutely aware of how heavy her steps felt.
From the open-plan kitchen, Bianca appeared, wiping her hands on a linen dish towel. She wore an ivory silk blouse and tailored trousers, her blonde hair pulled back into a sleek, flawless chignon. Her smile was a masterclass in polite hostility.
"Helga," Bianca greeted, her voice landing somewhere between a welcome and a dismissal. "You found the place all right? Alexander said you sometimes get confused by the new transit lines."
"I navigated Frankfurt’s tram system before this neighborhood was even paved, Bianca," Helga replied calmly, her voice steady and warm, refusing to take the bait. "I managed just fine."
Before Bianca could formulate a cool retort, the front door clicked open again, and a wave of cool air heralded the arrival of Bianca’s parents, Ewald and Lydia Brandt.
Ewald was a retired bank executive with silver hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a posture so rigid he looked as though he had a steel rod sewn into his spine. Lydia followed close behind, wrapped in a camel-hair coat that she handed to Alexander without so much as a glance of acknowledgment.
"Ah, the matriarch," Ewald said, his voice deep and dripping with condescension as he offered Helga two stiff fingers to shake. "Splendid weather we’re having, though a bit brisk for an older constitution, isn't it?"
"My constitution has survived worse than spring breezes, Ewald," Helga said, maintaining direct eye contact until the older man awkwardly looked away.
Lunch was an exercise in calculated discomfort. The food was spread across the long marble dining table—dishes of smoked salmon, artisanal cheeses, and delicate pastries that clearly bore the packaging label of an upscale gourmet deli downtown, though Bianca made a theatrical show of adjusting her apron as if she had spent hours standing over a hot stove.
"I just love experimenting with authentic French culinary techniques," Bianca declared, spearing a piece of melon with a silver fork. "Of course, one has to have the palate to appreciate them. Not everyone grew up with... simpler culinary traditions."
Lydia chuckled, a dry, papery sound. "Indeed, Bianca. Some people are quite content with potatoes and gravy."
Alexander sat between his mother and his wife, his fork scraping against his porcelain plate with a high-pitched whine. He didn't eat. He kept moving a single piece of salmon around his plate, his eyes fixed on the grain of the wood table. Every time Bianca or Lydia made a subtle dig at Helga’s background, Alexander’s shoulders tightened, but he remained silent—a coward trapped in a golden cage of his own making.
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Helga watched them all. She saw the way Ewald glanced at his watch every ten minutes, as if waiting for an important board meeting. She saw the way Lydia surveyed the apartment’s high-end electronics with proprietary satisfaction. And she saw the exhaustion in her son’s eyes—the quiet, suffocating misery of a man who had traded his soul for social approval.
They thought she was blind. They thought that because her hands were rough and her coat was ten years old, she lacked the capacity to see the web they had spun around her son. They didn't understand that cleaning offices for four decades had taught her how rich people hid dirt. She knew how to look behind the gleaming facade and find the rot underneath.
