The Thin Red Line

After the brainstorming fiasco, Borowski noticeably deflated. Even Konrad’s snide remarks — delivered with a kind of malicious delight, like pressing a smoldering stick into a wounded bear — didn’t seem to revive him. As if it had been him, not me, that Borowski had grabbed by the collar earlier.

And yet, when I looked into his eyes, I didn’t see real anger. I saw something else — a sense of unbearable confinement.

So I wasn’t even surprised when, eventually, Borowski got up from his desk — cluttered with empty instant noodle cups and the usual debris of office life — and stepped out onto the balcony.

I had already finished my work, so after a moment’s hesitation, I followed him. I didn’t want to talk. I just needed to be sure.

If Zhanna had called us to order, and Konrad had made that remark about “offended visitors,” then everything really had happened, right? If it hadn’t, Borowski would’ve been acting like his usual self…

I was getting hopelessly tangled in all these ifs, and I couldn’t stand it anymore.

No new title ideas had appeared on the board since lunch — nothing that could outshine mine. With a faint sense of superiority, I stepped out onto the balcony.

Our office was on the fourth floor, overlooking the rather unremarkable view of Berlin’s Ostbahnhof. You got used to working under the constant announcements of arriving and departing trains.

Borowski stood leaning against the railing, staring down. When I stepped out and closed the door behind me, he glanced at me for a second — then went back to looking down. I stood beside him.

“Listen… sorry,” he said, turning toward me. “I kind of snapped earlier.”

That surprised me. Not the apology — but the wording. Snapped. It didn’t quite fit him.

Not that I thought he was too dumb to know words like that — no. It was just… off. This heavyset guy, whose build perfectly matched his last name, didn’t quite belong with that kind of language.

The metal railing seemed to bend outward under his weight. He was clearly shaken. No one could hear us. We were on equal footing here.

And still — no swearing, no raw outburst, nothing he wouldn’t have said in front of Zhanna or Alina.

Just: “I snapped.”

“I’m not mad.”

“Still… I went too far.”

Now that sounded more like him.

“Forget it.”

“I really am sorry. You okay?” he looked at me again.

“What is this, middle school?”

“What?”

“Two boys get into a fight, then the teacher comforts the one who got hit and makes the stronger one apologize. Except Zhanna didn’t comfort me. So don’t worry about it.”

“Still… shouldn’t have done that.”

“Yeah, the reason was pretty stupid.”

“And you quoted it but couldn’t even remember the name,” he said, his guilt already softening.

“Francesco Udinelli,” I laughed. “Now I definitely won’t forget — after this. How did you even hear about him?”

Borowski tilted his head up toward the sky, thinking.

“Oh… yeah, my dad once—”

He stopped mid-sentence. Turned sharply toward the glass door. Stared inside the office.

“Did you see that? Did you see?”

“What?”

I followed his gaze.

Alina was leaning over Zhanna’s desk, holding some papers. She was wearing a short, tight dress with thin horizontal stripes — red, black, white. Almost resting her elbows on the table, standing with her back to us.

From where we stood, the view was… better than any sunset.

The dress clung exactly where it needed to.

“Look,” Borowski nudged me. “A thin red line.”

The hem of her dress was indeed edged in red.

Alina leaned forward a little more. For a second — I could’ve sworn — something from another world flashed before us. Like Dvořák.

Borowski reached for his phone.

“Send it to me after,” I said, my voice suddenly hoarse.

He nodded, struggling to focus.

“Turn the flash off.”

“Done. Just don’t tell Konrad. Though… he’s practically a faggot anyway, wouldn’t matter.”

If you think Borowski and I were a couple of immoral bastards — you’d probably be right. He had a gift for turning anything into something crude.

“The thin red line.” Two centuries ago, Scots had died under Balaclava for that line — and here we were, admiring a woman’s ass.

But the idea that Borowski disliked Konrad? That was completely wrong.

Borowski actually liked him a lot.

We came back in from the balcony with wide smiles on our faces. Zhanna and Alina turned at the sound of the door.

“Leo?”

“All good,” Borowski nodded. “I’m done for today. Can I head out?”

“Yeah, that’s it for today,” Zhanna said.

“Wait up for me,” Konrad called from the other room.

“You coming?” Borowski asked me.

“I’ll stay a bit longer. Got a few emails to send.”

“Then you’ve got the keys.”

“Alright.”

Borowski stomped over to his desk and started packing his things into his backpack. I was about to follow when Zhanna called out to me:

“Got a minute?”

Surprised, I turned and walked over to her desk. Just then, Alina passed by us. We met eyes, and she smiled — blinking like a camera shutter.

“You and Leo okay?” Zhanna asked.

“Yeah, we talked. He apologized. Nothing serious.”

“Good. But that’s not the only thing.” She rubbed her forehead tiredly. “I saw what you were doing out there. You do understand that’s not acceptable?”

Something thudded dully inside my chest.

Why me? Why not Borowski? I was just… there. Moral support at best. A coward, really. And anyway — we were just drawn to beauty… to something higher…

Everything tangled in my head. I started sweating.

“How many times have I told you,” Zhanna sighed, “don’t lean on those metal railings. They’re not that sturdy. Leo won’t listen — at least you try to talk some sense into him. I don’t need injured employees during work hours. Fourth floor is no joke.”

That’s what it feels like when you finally manage to gasp in a breath after being hit in the stomach — after a few endless seconds of suffocation.

“Yeah… yeah, of course. I’ll tell him,” I exhaled, cold sweat running down my back.

“You look tired. Don’t overdo it.”

“I won’t.”

I turned and walked away, barely holding myself together.

Half an hour later, I was mechanically packing my things into my backpack. Everyone else had already left.

What have you done, Zhanna?
Now you’re part of the network too.

***

I turned off the lights, closed all the windows and doors, locked the office, and started down the stairs.

I’d been here a few weeks now. Honestly, I liked it — except for the fact that I kept ending up in strange, absurd situations. I didn’t create them. They found me. And more often than not, Borowski was at the center of it.

That was exactly why I wasn’t in a hurry to become close friends with him. But in my current situation, I didn’t have much of a choice.

We were a small team. Before Konrad and I joined, it had been even smaller. Zhanna had moved from Russia to Berlin years ago and done all sorts of things before founding this agency — organizing, coordinating, mediating, sometimes even directly running events, as long as she could convince the right people in Berlin that this festival or that educational trip would somehow improve relations between our countries.

Public diplomacy in its purest form.

I had nothing bad to say about it — except that our current team clearly wasn’t enough for the scale of its ambitions.

A couple of years ago, Zhanna had taken Alina on as her assistant. Borowski was a permanent employee. After that, things got messy — constant turnover.

I was here for a short internship — just over two months. Konrad had arrived a bit earlier and didn’t seem planning to stay much longer either. There were also temporary partners — “agents on partial rations,” working remotely, showing up in the office only occasionally. I didn’t even know their names.

And yet this chaotic, constantly shifting structure somehow kept functioning year after year — largely thanks to Zhanna’s persistence and business instinct.

I stepped outside and headed toward the metro.

Time to go home.

And then, as I turned the corner, I saw Konrad and Borowski — standing by the station entrance for some reason.