Dearest Mina, I can’t wait to see you!
They were inseparable in Berlin. Late October weather was still warm enough for them to spend endless hours walking in parks, holding hands and gazing at each other ceaselessly. Willi observed them on the very first day with a mysterious smile, excused himself from their company quite soon and to all of their protesting, only laughed in his usual careless manner.
“I have a phonebook full of girlfriends who have been dying to see me. Besides, you two will hardly notice my absence.”
Johann couldn’t get enough of those hours with her. He waited for her every single day outside the gates of her all-girls’ school with flowers in his hands, oblivious to Mina’s classmates’ giggles and envious looks which they threw her way. He kissed her modestly on her cheek then, but after, as soon as they would walk into a darkened movie theater, they attacked each other as two people starved; mouth on mouth, hands under the coats, until the lights would turn on at the end of a movie.
At the end of the first week, when Willi’s father pulled in front of the house in his Mercedes, Johann ran out to him first and nearly took the unsuspecting driver off his feet.
“Herr General, could you please spare a moment so I could speak with you alone?” he blurted, out of breath.
“Yes, of course. What’s the matter?”
Johann walked him further away from the entrance and turned to face him suddenly, his face flushed with emotion. “I would like to ask you for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”
General von Sielaff appeared to be at a loss.
“Who? Mina?” He asked, at last, still looking thoroughly confused.
“Yes, Mina,” Johann almost laughed. As though Herr General had another daughter.
“But… she’s still a child. She goes to school…”
“Yes, I know. I’ll wait one more year till she’s eighteen so we can get married but it would make me extremely happy if we were engaged, with your blessing, before I fly back to the base, Herr General.”
Deep in thought, General von Sielaff searched his pockets for his cigarette case.
“You’re a fine fellow, Johann,” he said at length, carefully choosing his words. “And of course, I love my daughter and I wish only the best for her, which, I feel, would be you. But don’t you think that you two are a bit too young to marry?” Catching a blank, confused stare from Johann, he released a sigh and assumed a consciously patient smile of an adult talking to a child. “I married very young too; about your age as a matter of fact. I fell in love with Wilhelm’s mother and proposed to her within three weeks, with an absolute conviction in me that we’d grow old together. But then… I did this foolish thing which ruined it all.”
He cast a probing glance at Johann◦– you do know the story perhaps?
Johann nodded stiffly. He knew; Willi told him about the entire rotten affair. Frau von Sielaff was pregnant with Mina and Herr von Sielaff, a good caring husband, hired a girl to help her around the house. The maid developed feelings for her employer◦– such a banal plot, really!◦– Willi shook his head in disgust as he spoke. And then one day Herr von Sielaff made the mistake of reciprocating them. It wasn’t even an affair of any sort, according to his logic; he merely used her as a substitute for his wife whom he couldn’t touch while she was heavy with his child. The whole trouble was that the wife found out of course and then… He begged her for her forgiveness at first; then he cried; went down on his knees, but she had decided everything already. And so, he left her the house after the divorce and told her that he’d be paying for all of the expenses till the end of his life. Perhaps, he was hoping that she would forgive him eventually.
“Do you know that Mina’s name was supposed to be Henrietta and not Wilhelmina?” General von Sielaff said with a sudden bitter snort of a chuckle. “When we were first married, we decided to name our children after our fathers, so since Wilhelm was born first, we named him after her father whom my wife loved and respected immensely. The second child would be named Heinrich or Henrietta after mine. But after... after the divorce, she named the girl after her Papa too. I don’t particularly blame her.” He chuckled softly. “She never remarried in the end and neither did I. Such a stupid mistake, which I blame solely on my being far too young and irresponsible. That’s why I’m saying all this to you, Johann. I want you to think long and hard about what you’re doing.”
“I’m sorry it turned out this way for you and Frau von Sielaff, Herr General. I’m in no way judging you but I’m merely saying that I would never do any of this sort to Mina.”
General von Sielaff regarded him for some time. “Yes, perhaps you’re right. Well, you have my blessing. I hope you two will be happier than her mother and I.”
He offered his hand to Johann and shook it firmly just as Willi appeared on the steps. “Did he say yes?”
Johann’s beaming face was his reply.
“No offense, Father, but he asked me first.”
With the celebratory dinner out of the way, Johann sat through the familiar cabaret experience, politely declined General von Sielaff’s offer to go someplace else after that and with an immense relief crashed on top of his bed in the guest bedroom which Frau von Sielaff had kindly offered him, still wearing his overcoat. A soft, startled cry prompted him to jump off the bed. In the pearl-gray light from outside, he finally made out a familiar slender frame propped against the headrest of his bed.
“Did he say yes?” Mina asked in an expectant whisper.
“He did.” Johann was suddenly aware of his disheveled state and the room spinning with uncertainty under his unsteady feet. “What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to know what he said.”
Mina climbed off the bed and stood in front of him. “Let me help you with the coat.”
“No, it’s quite all right. I’ll manage. Go to your room now before your mother notices that you’re gone. She’ll have my hide if she does.”
Mina’s soft laughter caressed his cheek as she leaned in to kiss him. “She loves you like her own. She won’t say a thing. Besides, we’re now officially engaged.”
Johann stiffened in her arms as she continued to remove his belt, jacket, tie. Suddenly aware of his wildly beating heart he barely heard her when she asked, “did you go to one of those places where Willi always goes? Where half-naked women dance?”
“Yes.” He couldn’t lie to her even if he wanted. He was raised on the principles of truth and truth only and besides, what good would it do, starting an engagement with lies? Wasn’t that what destroyed her parents’ marriage? “I didn’t enjoy it though. I was thinking about you all the time.” That was the truth as well.