She would escape the bare concrete steps, layered with dust, that led up into rooms without windows, the walls painted lurid, glossy colors, as if to make up for the dreariness, the television covered with an embroidered cloth.
Stefan is the son of a cast-off diplomat who is sacked from the East German foreign service for a minor misdemeanour just as the Vogel family was about to be posted to New York and escape the dreariness of East Berlin.