The studio was a converted warehouse loft in Kreuzberg, all exposed brick and iron beams and tall windows that faced the river. I had found it six months after the divorce, after the Madonna in the Marienkirche had been restored and word of my work had begun to spread through the city. It was not large, but it was mine. The north wall was dominated by a scarred wooden worktable cluttered with jars of pigment and bundles of sable brushes and bottles of solvent that filled the air with the sharp, clean scent of turpentine. The south wall was lined with canvases in various stages of restoration, some leaning against each other like old friends, others mounted on easels under carefully angled lamps. And the east wall, the wall that faced the street, was a gallery of sorts, a collection of finished pieces that I had restored and was offering for sale. They were mostly minor works, Dutch landscapes and Italian still lifes and one very fine German Romantic that had taken me four months to bring back from the dead. That one, the Caspar David Friedrich study of a lone figure on a cliff edge staring out at a turbulent sea, was the most expensive thing in the room. I had priced it at fifteen thousand euros, a sum that still made me breathless when I said it aloud, and I had hung it in the place of honour, perfectly lit, waiting for the right collector to walk through the door.