“I understand you have taken and the Maldives for may I not light. But at least in Berlin on the eve of Victory Day, we could fly?” And so, throwing Sasha to grandma and grandpa’s (my six-month-old son while smiling, as long appreciated that their spacious apartment for understanding the world much more interesting our three-pointers), my wife was in Germany.

Of course, if you plan ahead, you can even enroll on a tour of the Reichstag, you can see many autographs of Soviet soldiers made in the spring of 1945, and then climb the famous dome and sitting in the open restaurant here, to enjoy a peaceful European sky… But foresight is not our plus. So the question is how to spend a day and a half of travel, remained open.

Fortunately, four months ago at a dinner party – MAMM Director Olga Sviblova then opened an exhibition of classic modern painting of Sean Scully – I was talking with a German gallery owner Barbara. Drew close, she advised not to say in the 72-year-old Sean, the name of the artist Katharina Grosse, which Moscow has seen in the “Garage”. “Sexual orientation of the lady and the recent affair with Russian girl, just her artistic style he considers plagiarism, distracting from its internationally recognized genius” who quietly taught me Frau Barbara and finally kindly invited in his Berlin gallery, which houses many creations of the gross. The name of the picture as the words galeristka that “inside there is a small but beautiful garden”, as I then thought, remembered well. And so I dial the phone Barbara, but I know that in Berlin it is not.

“I’m on vacation in their beautiful house in Mallorca, but that’s okay. Drove up to 17.00, I’ll warn my assistant Sara, who will show you everything”, – she assured.

Realizing that other than Sarah in the gallery Barbara we will have to wait just a flowering garden and, if lucky, champagne in Berlin I version Cum quickly throw in German sausages with onion crisps (in the Mall they are the most delicious) and jump in a taxi.

“Please, gallery Ke…? Ke…?” – I’m frantically trying to remember the name.

“Konig?!” happily telling the driver, and after a few minutes we drove up to the modernist experiments of the 60s – the former Church of St. Agnes, and now one of the most famous art galleries of Berlin.

From blocks of raw concrete, very reminiscent of the bunker, as if from a science fiction portal, there is a nice girl. Of course, we are telling her, they say, from Barbara and want to see Sara. At the mention of Barbara’s girl gives us a bit of a strange look and leaves. When he returned, she once again cautiously looking at us. “Maybe I shouldn’t eat onion rings” – trying to breathe to the side, I think.

“Sarah’s I – is a girl – but I only have 10 minutes.” Then in her sight falls on the bag of my wife, her eyes warmer, the voltage becomes a little smaller and the tour of the halls begins.

Number of pictures popular German Anselm Reyle impresses me once (the first time I met c abstractions of this artist in the collection of Umar Dzhabrailov). Happy eyes and promised a small garden, the abundance of curious sculpture of the world famous Austrian Erwin Wurm’s almost funny. The works of Katharina Grosse, despite promises Barbara, are stored somehow in the vaults, but the work is impressive.

It is also nice that after our conversation Sarah look almost calm.

“I’m sorry,’ she says. – When was the last time you talked to Mrs. Barbara?”

My story that I gained the owner of the gallery two hours ago, and we met at a dinner in Moscow, again taking the girl off balance, but she finds the strength to politely say goodbye. At the exit my phone is ringing.

“Andrew, you all right? Sarah thought you got lost, but she hasn’t left yet”, the voice of Barbara for a moment deprives me of speech.

And then, bursting with laughter, I know that the gallery Barbara is called Keurig, we paid a visit to its main competitor – the largest European art dealer Johann könig, whose father, Kasper könig, was the curator of the Biennale of contemporary art “Manifesto” in St. Petersburg. It also turned out that the mother Johanna was also named Barbara, but three months ago she died.