KARSTEN KREPINSKY
Berlin 2039
Translated from the German by
KARIN DUFNER
Copyright (c) 2016 by Karsten Krepinsky
English translation in 2021 by Karin Dufner
www.karindufner.de
First published with the title Berlin 2039 – Der Tod nimmt alle mit in 2016 by Karsten Krepinsky/Neuwelt Verlag.
Cover design by Ingo Krepinsky, Die TYPONAUTEN
www.typonauten.de/eng
Published by Karsten Krepinsky
Berlin, March 2021
All rights reserved.
No part of this e-book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.
www.theworldbehindthewindow.com
About the Book
Berlin 2039 – The Reign Of Anarchy
Population has doubled within the last twenty years, leading to a living hell where poverty, crime, and claustrophobia rule. Those who can afford it, have withdrawn to the well-protected gated communities, while the police have left entire neighborhoods to their own devices. In these lawless blank spots, the authorities use so-called pushers to maintain a level of constant unrest between Arab clans, Turkish gangs, and Chechen brotherhoods. They are mavericks, men and women outside the law, who only answer to their supervisors based in the LKA, which is short for Landeskriminalamt, the State Office of Criminal Investigation. This is the story of Hauke the Pusher and Detective Natasha…
Dedicated to the freedom of thought
Berlin Locations:
Prenzlauer Berg
Today: a white middle and upper class neighborhood
2039: now P’berg, a gated community behind barbed wire, seemingly a safe haven for civil servants and government officials
Kreuzberg
Today: a bohemian neighborhood, inhabited by students, hipsters, and immigrants with touches of gentrification
2039: now X’berg, a place with a great view of the Ghetto where bored young “Globals” live in expensive penthouses
Friedrichshain
Today: a bohemian neighborhood with a lively nightclub scene
2039: now F’hain, dubbed The Ghetto.
Wedding
Today: a working class and immigrant neighborhood with a few students tossed in the mix
2039: the puffer zone between the rich and the poor population
Wannsee
Today: a very upscale neighborhood
2039: ditto

“We won’t stand idly by while this human trash gnaws its way through the city of Berlin like a cancerous growth. Therefore, I have given order to immediately seal off those areas of the city forever lost to us...”
From the press statement of Chancellor Vasily Schmidt on the National Emergency Act of August 23, 2036.
Three years later...
Prologue
The dead man’s cap has come off, his white caftan is soaked with blood. Slumped forward on a chair, his head lies on the kitchen table in a pool of blood. The skull has been smashed, more blood is oozing from a deep wound. Remains of his last meal cling to his full beard. The killer wipes his cudgel on his victim’s robe, kisses the wooden crucifix he is wearing around his neck on a leather thong, and pulls his hood down deeper into his face. He is an apparition, dressed in worn-out shabby clothes. All in gray and covered in the dirt of the streets. His face hidden in the half-shadow of his hood, he pulls a playing card from a fabric pouch secured with a length of rope and crams it between the murdered man’s index and middle fingers. He sits down next to him at the table, pulls the soup plate closer, tears off a piece of pita bread, dunks it into the soup, and starts eating. Rivulets of arterial blood mingle with meat broth. The killer reaches for the glass of black tea, empties it, gets up, and places plate and glass in the sink, which he then stops up and opens the faucet. With a wordless nod he takes one last look at the dead Salafist, as if a score had just been settled. Before he leaves the kitchen, he turns off the light.
1
The Lemons call all Germans potatoes. Or Jews, if they happen to be in a bad mood. Which they usually are. Especially because F’hain is surrounded by a fence with checkpoints now, effectively blocking their access to the better-off citizens of Berlin. Concrete steles and soldiers, sporting assault rifles. MG nests, sheltered behind walls of sandbags. Those obstacles can really be a challenge, even for a testosterone-controlled kid of the Ghetto. Barriers and checkups remind me of the Holy Land somehow, if you know what I mean. In some places the fence is already being replaced with a wall. An installation that seems to be meant for eternity. Thus, leaving F’hain has become difficult. The high-rises of Alexanderplatz, the posh shopping malls of Potsdamer Platz, or the fancy boutiques of Friedrichstrasse are now out of reach for most people here. And the future doesn’t look rosy. Now and then I can see those poor devils at their windows. The losers of this world, you know what I mean. With all their dreams of happiness and wealth. Them, who spend their evenings standing at the drafty windows of the run-down dumps they live in, because all the violence around stops them from venturing out in the streets. Pasty faces pressed against the glass and eyes filled with yearning, they gaze into the far distance. They breathe the same air as the Globals at Alexanderplatz. They look up to the same sky. But fate has dumped them on the wrong side of the fence. Once Ghetto, always Ghetto.
Once upon a time we had another wall in Berlin—this was fifty years ago. Almost ten years before I was born. Nobody knows about it anymore, because in the Ghetto book-learning doesn’t mean shit. The Quran is the only book that counts. In many areas of F’hain life is ruled by Sharia, Islamic law. The version favored by the Imam, that is. The Quran leaves lots of room for interpretation, you’d better take my word for it, my friends. Even the Lemons themselves constantly bicker about it. Other than the big-shots living in the Wannsee neighborhood would like to believe, they don’t form a monolithic bloc. Far from it: the Turks hate the Arabs, the Kurds hate the Turks, and everyone hates the Chechens. And the Arabs? Who cares who the Arabs hate? I also have no idea why the Muslims
