Berlin

Berlin is both a real city and the destination of a childhood dream Martha has carried since her parents died. First introduced to her through a map and a promise, it later acquires measurable distance through a GPS: 1,030 kilometres from “little Berlin,” with an estimated drive of twelve hours and fifteen minutes. The contrast between an imagined refuge and a practical route gives the place its emotional significance.

A Childhood Place on the Map

Martha remembers growing up in a lively community where people looked out for one another, though the closeness did not make life idyllic: they argued about money, criticised one another’s art, and had affairs with one another’s spouses. As children, Martha and her sister believed they lived in Berlin. Their father showed them on a map where the actual city was and explained that it lay more than a thousand kilometres away. He promised that one day they would drive there to see the Brandenburg Gate and Charlottenburg Palace, where the girls imagined themselves as princesses.

A Dream Kept at a Distance

Martha never made the promised journey with her parents. They had little money and did not live to old age; Martha was eighteen when they died, and she had to care for her sister. Berlin consequently remained a dream rather than a shared family experience. Its distance is geographical, but also bound to a future her parents did not live to fulfil. Martha says she has dreamed of the city for so long that she is no longer sure it really exists, a doubt that makes the real Berlin feel almost as remote as the childhood fantasy.

From “Little Berlin” to the Real City

Later, during a drive with Stig, Martha works with him for more than fifteen minutes to remove the car’s old, rotten hood, alternating practical effort with brute force. She knows she will not be able to put it back without spare parts and Anders’s help. Once she is in the car, Stig enters Berlin into his phone’s GPS. The device confirms her father’s account: from little Berlin to big Berlin is 1,030 kilometres, with an estimated driving time of twelve hours and fifteen minutes. The map’s childhood promise becomes a concrete route, though the scene establishes the distance and estimate rather than confirming arrival.

Martha then drives fast, as if urgency—or escape—were propelling them. The image of towering white clouds over the fjord, resembling a bride advancing with a veil of rain, accompanies the journey; when heavy drops begin falling in dense traffic on Ring Road 3, Martha realises the battle is lost. Berlin therefore remains a destination charged with possibility, not a completed arrival. The movement from childhood map to GPS reading makes the dream newly tangible while preserving the gap between knowing the way and reaching the place.