The appeal decision hung behind glass, printed on the same cream paper Eberwald used for its triumphs and its executions alike. My portfolio had gone through to the Foundation's national selection. Julian's portfolio had been refused.
The wording was polite and annihilating: "The candidate demonstrates considerable potential; the portfolio, however, lacks the coherent independent authorship, the stable structure of argument and the maturity of reflection required for the decision to be reviewed."
I read the words "maturity of reflection" three times.
"They write beautifully," said Hanna at my shoulder. "I'd love to know who they copied 'maturity of reflection' off."
I said nothing. Something unfamiliar was going on inside me: two kinds of joy competing for the same space. The first was simple and loud – my name on the list of those admitted, my application, my signature. The second was quiet and strange – there was nobody standing behind that line but me. In my first life I had not known that victory could weigh like that in your hands – like something you were finally carrying home rather than up to somebody else's floor.
Julian did not come to the noticeboard for a good twenty minutes. I could see him at the far end of the corridor, standing by the window and pretending to read something on his phone, while the crowd at the glass thinned out and turned to look at him: some with pity, some with curiosity, some with badly hidden relief that the fall had happened to another person. Eberwald knew how to watch. They taught that here better than they taught mathematics.
When he finally came over, Charlotte was with him. She took his hand before he had finished reading; he let her, and read on, and his hand went slack in her fingers by degrees. Charlotte tightened her grip.
"Papa can still arrange an outside recommendation."
Julian said nothing. She hurried on.
"There are private grants, better ones. The Arnsberg scholarship is prestigious, but it isn't the only light in the sky."
It was easy for her to say: Charlotte's life was made of emergency exits. Julian raised his eyes and found me in the crowd. This time there was no accusation in them, and that was almost worse. He was simply standing in front of a locked door, understanding at last that the key had never been love. The key was work.
I left before pity could turn itself into movement.
And after lessons Hartmann gathered the finalists of the national selection in an empty classroom and handed out the timetable: research application in three weeks, two interviews in January, a public essay in February. Six weeks lay ahead, and a whole second life would have to fit inside them. He handed round the regulations – twenty pages of small print – and advised us to read them the way one reads a tenancy agreement: twice, and with a pencil.
A separate gilt-edged sheet held an invitation to the Foundation's winter trustees' evening, which candidates were required to attend. Below it were the dress code, directions and a programme listing people whose names the city's hospitals bore and whose decisions had closed factories.
"This is not a party," Hartmann said, looking, for some reason, at me. "It is a display case. Behave like exhibits with self-respect."
"And if somebody wants to buy us?" asked a voice from the back row.
"Then you will find out your price," said Hartmann. "Useful knowledge. Only try not to confuse price with worth."
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