For three days, Ana panicked. She stared at the printed pages—the reading exercises, the grammar tables ( Trennbare Verben! ), the empty writing prompts. But without the listening tracks (telephone messages, train announcements, a man describing his Wohnung), she felt blind.

The writing prompt: “Ihre Freundin hat Geburtstag. Schreiben Sie eine Einladung.”

“No, no, no,” she whispered, pressing the power button like a defibrillator. Nothing.

She wrote: “Liebe Sarah, möchtest du am Samstag Kuchen essen? Ich backe Schokoladenkuchen. Bring bitte nichts mit. Deine Ana.”

She breathed. And answered.

Ana had exactly one month to pass the Goethe-Zertifikat A2. Without it, her apprenticeship in Berlin would vanish like morning fog.