Charly had only wanted to tell Erika Rath about her work at Lichtenberg District Court, to get their faltering conversation in that stuffy cafe off the ground. Then came the offending sentence, and an even more embarrassed silence. Gereon looked at his shoes and sipped his coffee; Mother Rath didn’t seem to realise what she had done.
In all the months they had been together, they had never once spoken about marriage, not even jokingly, but that hadn’t stopped him from brazenly introducing her as my fiancée when they ran into Mother Rath by chance outside a large department store. For simplicity’s sake, he had whispered in her ear.
Cologne had been a total disaster, yet she had been so looking forward to getting out of Berlin, to seeing Gereon’s old friend Paul, and visiting his home city for the first time. Things had started so promisingly too.
It was the football that had sealed the deal. She had seen Hertha Berlin play a few times at the Plumpe, their home stadium, but never away, and certainly not in a final to decide the German championship. What a game it was! At halftime, Hertha were unlucky to be behind München, but had turned the game thanks to Hanne Sobek. When the winning goal was struck, shortly before the final whistle, she flung her arms around Gereon, then around Paul, and the two men joked that she was the only woman to be interested in football. They celebrated the win in Cologne’s old town, together with the visiting Hertha fans and a few sympathetic Rhineland Prussians until, at some point, Paul discreetly took his leave. Gereon had booked a room with a Rhine view, and later, as she stood by the window in her nightshirt and gazed onto the lights reflected in the river, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her on the nape of the neck. She felt as happy as she had done in a long time.
She wouldn’t discover how illusory this feeling was until the next day when, wandering through Cologne’s shopping district, they were caught unawares by a woman whom Gereon introduced as my mother, before gesturing towards Charly and saying: ‘Fräulein Ritter. My… fiancée.’
Erika Rath’s eyes widened in a mixture of curiosity and suspicion as she dragged them into the nearest cafe. ‘I’d have invited you to our home, of course,’ she said to Charly. ‘But Gereon never tells me anything.’
She had never seen him so subdued. ‘I… we were going to visit you, of course,’ he said. ‘But it was meant to be a surprise. We only arrived yesterday.’
Mother and son looked at each other in silence. Charly spoke a little about the District Court, until Erika Rath voiced her opinion about work and marriage, whereupon they lapsed back into a suddenly icy silence.
‘We’ll be round tomorrow,’ Gereon said. ‘Don’t tell Father, it’s meant to be a surprise.’
In the evening, Gereon took her to an exclusive restaurant on the banks of the Rhine, a modern building with windows all around, which offered a spellbinding view of the cathedral and river, but the evening was ruined before it began. Erika Rath was still present. It would have been better to talk about it, but Gereon preferred to remain silent.
The next day they paid the Raths a formal visit as promised. Charly was still his fiancée, for simplicity’s sake, and it became clear that Gereon had never breathed a word about her to his parents. The Raths felt ambushed by their presence and, for Charly, that second afternoon was even worse than the first.
Afterwards they left, as planned, by overnight train for a week on the Baltic Sea. The holiday flat in a captain’s cottage was tiny and wonderfully pretty, the weather in Prerow superb, but the atmosphere between them was soured. The blue skies over the Darss couldn’t salvage things, and their first holiday together was a disaster. Even if they had never spoken about it.
In fact they hadn’t spoken about anything, had simply returned to their daily lives upon arriving back in Berlin. Of course, she could have made the running, but she didn’t see why she should. It was his silence that had got them into this situation, and so it was up to him now to break it.
She just didn’t know where she was with him anymore, and the more she thought about it, the more she realised she never had. What did Gereon Rath want? To marry her? Then he should damn well go ahead and ask! But if he thought she would abandon her career, he’d better think again.
Charly went into the kitchen and put on water for coffee. The place still smelled of dog. Kirie’s guest basket stood outside in the hall under the coat stand. She gazed at the rims of her eyes in the bathroom mirror and decided for once to follow Weber’s orders and stay home.
She had a slice of bread with honey and two cups of coffee, and gradually her mind felt clear enough to reach for the telephone. She knew the number by heart. A secretary answered.
‘Good morning, Ritter here,’ she said. ‘Could I speak to Assessor Scherer please?’
46
Rath had a strange dream. Dancing with Charly through the lobby of the Excelsior, she kept standing on his bare toes with her pointed high heels. The music was bizarre and out of time. Behind reception, he thought he could make out the face of Johann Marlow above a gold-embroidered Excelsior uniform. Abe Goldstein sat at the bar, drinking one enormous glass of whisky after another and, with each new glass, toasting Rath and smiling cynically. Suddenly, he slid from the barstool, pulled a pistol from his jacket and pointed it at Rath, at Charly, at Marlow. Three times he pulled the trigger and the barrel spewed fire, but there was no bang, just an ear-splitting DRRRRRNNNG, DRRRRRNNNG, DRRRRRNNNG.
Rath sat up with a start. His hands groped for Charly, but couldn’t find her. Gradually he recovered his bearings, but only when the fourth DRRRRRNNNG sounded did he realise it was the doorbell. Damn, what time was it? Where was his wristwatch? His alarm clock was still in Moabit. He must have overslept.
It rang for a fifth time. Whoever it was they were damn stubborn. Rath got up and looked for his dressing gown, but it was in Spenerstrasse too. He fished fresh underwear and socks out of the wardrobe, threw on yesterday evening’s suit, which hung damp and mud-splattered over the chair, and went to the door. Kirie gazed at the door as curiously as her master. It couldn’t be Charly; the dog would have greeted her differently.
When Rath opened the door, a man in dirty blue overalls was crouched on the floor, trying to slip something through the letterbox. There were dark circles under his eyes, suggesting a lack of sleep. He gave a start and sprang to his feet. In his hand he held a familiar-looking key.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, ‘I didn’t think there was anyone home, so I…’ He held the key under Rath’s nose. A car key. ‘Your vehicle. You’re a busy man, and we thought why don’t we drop the car round, seeing as it’s ready.’
Rath was speechless. He took the car key and nodded thanks.
The man marked time for a moment, then gave a little cough. ‘Ehm, the replacement – could I take it back with me?’
Rath needed a moment to work out that the replacement was the Hanomag. He nodded, still not sure if he was really awake. ‘Of course,’ he muttered, searching in his coat pocket for the Hanomag key. The man took it and disappeared with a tip of his oil-stained cap.
‘The bill?’ he called after the mechanic, who had already reached the bottom of the stairs.
‘We’ll send it on,’ it echoed from below.
Rath went back inside. The kitchen clock showed just after half past eight. No need to panic, he wasn’t that late. Through the window he saw the mechanic crossing the courtyard with quick steps. He seemed to be in a hurry. Rath looked at the car key, then at Kirie.