Three months later, Veronica sat in the district courtroom as the chief witness for the prosecution, looking at the defendant’s dock where Arthur and Karina sat side by side. They didn’t look at each other—haggard, broken, like random fellow travelers on a train to nowhere.
“I was silent, hoping to save my family,” she answered the questions of the defense attorney, who was trying to portray her as a vengeful wife. “I spoke up only when silence became impossible.”
The verdict: six years in prison for Arthur for embezzlement, three and a half years for Karina for complicity.
Outside, it was spring, March, dripping eaves, the first thawed patches on the sidewalks. A northern spring, late, but bright. The divorce decree was handed to her in the same courthouse—a thin sheet of paper with a blue seal, in which ten years of life were summed up in a few official lines. She went out to the square, took off her wedding ring, and put it in her pocket. She would think about what to do with it later.
She dialed a number, squinting in the bright sun:
“Herr Schmidt? I’m ready to start work.”
A year later, she stood on the stage of the European Business Forum in Berlin in front of a thousand people, in an elegant dress, confident, radiant, telling her story.
“Never let others define your worth,” her voice echoed under the high arches of the conference hall. “Sometimes, collapse is the beginning of rebirth. Sometimes, you have to burn down to rise from the ashes.”
Ovation. Schmidt came up on stage with a bouquet of white roses and whispered to her in German:
“I am proud of you, Veronica.”
After her speech, she went out onto the terrace, where she was found by Mark, a linguistics professor from Humboldt University who had helped her adapt during her first year.
“You were amazing.” He smiled, stumbling over the word. “Amazing. I’m inviting you to a restaurant, the best in Berlin.”
Veronica laughed.
“Just not a Russian one. I’m craving currywurst.”
Their laughter rose into the evening Berlin sky. The sun was setting over the Spree, and the woman who had been silent for ten years in a northern mansion was spreading her wings over Europe, free, strong, finally becoming herself.
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