The lift took them up to a huge ballroom with a wrap-around gallery, the imitation gold Rococo offering the perfect contrast to the modern façade. Another five marks guaranteed a front row seat and an unusually obliging waiter. Rath was glad when they finally sat down. He was starting to run out of change.
The first dancers began moving to the sounds of the jazz band, who played flawlessly despite their stiff appearance. Rath ordered champagne to start while Charly studied the menu. Apparently she was hungry. He watched her eyes widen as she whistled quietly through her teeth. ‘You must be feeling flush!’ she said, placing it to one side.
‘It’s a special evening.’
She threw him an enigmatic glance. All of a sudden he felt overcome by the insecurity which had dogged him these last few days.
The champagne arrived and they clinked glasses. ‘What are we drinking to?’ he asked. ‘To us?’
‘How about we start with tonight, and your bulging wallet,’ Charly said, revealing her dimpled smile. At that moment he knew she had long since made up her mind, and that her answer would be more complex than a simple ‘yes’. They were silent for a time as they browsed the menus.
‘So, you want to marry me,’ she said at length, fumbling a Juno out of her handbag, the trailing vestiges of a smile still on her face. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re letting yourself in for?’
‘I think so,’ he said, and opened his cigarette case. ‘I mean, we’ve been practising long enough.’
‘Marriage means more than performing your conjugal duties,’ she whispered across the table.
‘Keep talking like that and I’ll jump on you right here.’
‘Seriously, Gereon. How do you envisage our everyday life?’
Here they come, he thought, the complex Charly-style questions, and even though he’d been expecting them, he still didn’t have any answers. How could he? He didn’t envisage his everyday life or his future, he just wanted to live them, with her by his side.
‘It’ll be like a fairy tale,’ he said, drawing the words in the air with his cigarette: ‘And they lived happily ever after.’ He held his lighter first to her Juno, then to his Overstolz. ‘What about you? How do you envisage our everyday life?’
Charly’s response came promptly. ‘I know I don’t want to spend the whole day in the kitchen looking after our hundred kids, just waiting for the master of the house to return so I can serve him dinner and pamper him.’
‘What a picture. But who said anything about a hundred kids? I’d settle for between one and three…’
She laughed. ‘Oh, stop being such a silly clot! I’m not saying I don’t ever want kids! Just that I want a career first!’
The waiter came to take their order. The table held nothing like the romantic atmosphere Rath had been hoping for. Somehow it felt as if they were negotiating a contract, rather than deciding to spend the rest of their lives together out of love.
Charly waited until they were alone again. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, but I know there are lots of women who’d like to work, who are forbidden from doing so by their husbands, and I’ve no desire to join their ranks.’
‘What do you mean “forbidden”? All I’m saying is I earn enough to support us both.’
‘Gereon, listen to me, I’ll work for as long as I please, there’s nothing you can do about it. If you should ever try, I’ll divorce you on the spot!’
He could have embraced her, the way she sat there looking so indignant. He lifted his glass and grinned. ‘Let’s drink to that.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Well, if I’ve understood correctly, you’ve just said “yes”. If we can’t drink to that, what can we drink to?’
For a moment she looked bewildered, only for her dimple to reappear. ‘No flies on you pigs, are there?’ She reached for her glass, and they clinked before she took his hand in hers and gazed at him through her brown eyes. She was worth every grey hair she’d already given him, as well as those that were still to come.
‘Seriously, Gereon,’ she said. ‘These things are important to me.’
He nodded. No one had said it would be easy with Charly, but that’s not what this was about. ‘I promise,’ he said and smiled. ‘I’ll never prevent you from working. But… that doesn’t mean I don’t want kids with you… at some stage.’
She smiled, revealing her dimple again. ‘We can have a hundred as far as I’m concerned, but I must warn you: I can only have girls. And they’ll all be exactly like me!’
‘Lord have mercy! Perhaps we should reconsider after all.’
‘No chance. Now, give me that ring!’
He took the little case out of his inside pocket and opened it. ‘If I could ask for your hand, Fräulein Ritter.’
She stretched out her hand and skilfully he eased the ring onto her finger. It was a perfect fit. ‘You’ve done this before,’ she said.
‘I thought you knew.’ He raised his glass. ‘To us. To the best engagement I’ve ever had!’
She inspected the ring from a distance. ‘You’re lucky it’s so pretty, otherwise I’d be throwing it straight back in your face. The effrontery.’
‘No can do. It’s official now.’ Rath took the champagne from the cooler and poured. ‘But I want to hear it from you, just once.’
‘Hear what?’
‘What do you mean “what”? That little word. “Yes”.’
‘I thought that didn’t matter until the registry office.’ She smiled.
There was a commotion. It must have been going on for some time, but up till that point the music had mercifully drowned it out. Now the piece was finished, however, a man could be heard screeching into the applause.
‘If I want a beer, then it’s your job to get me one, fancy pants!’
Rath turned around. The waiter stood at most three tables away, wine list in hand, trying to pacify a beetroot-coloured customer who seemed determined to kick up a fuss. His companion, a full-figured beauty, was clearly ill at ease. The waiter spoke at a civilised volume, meaning Rath could only catch the odd snippet. ‘…I’m sorry…’, ‘…you have to order wine here…’, ‘…beer is only served in the gallery…’ Then the loudmouth started again, with the whole room listening this time.
‘Are you trying to tell me what I can and can’t order? I’m the customer here, so bring me a goddamn beer! Or do I have to make you?’
In the meantime two elegantly dressed, well-built men had approached. The waiter discreetly took his leave to see to the other guests, while they quietly persuaded the troublemaker to start looking for his cloakroom ticket. The loudmouth still wasn’t ready to accept defeat. He sprang to his feet, thrusting a hand from his shoulder. ‘I won’t stand for it, not in a goddamn Jew restaurant! You can’t treat a German like this!’
He was wrong, of course. As discreetly as possible the strongmen ushered the hothead out of the room. ‘Someday you’ll be in for a surprise,’ he ranted, before being bundled into the lift. ‘You Jews!’ he yelled as the doors closed. ‘Think you’re better than the rest, but you’re wrong!’
His companion gazed around in embarrassment, then took her handbag and stood up.
By now the musicians had finished turning their pages. The band started up again, and the guests, who had listened to the exchange in silence, resumed their conversations. The dancers swayed as before, as if nothing had happened.