François got no further with his enthusiastic account, because there was suddenly a noise outside the door, a violent argument, a defensive voice could be heard, and another, furious voice that would not be fobbed off, and then the door to the drawing room flew open and Mimi stormed in, tramped over the rolled-out plan, her heels tearing holes in the paper, pushed Arthur aside and grabbed François by the arm, pulled him up from his kneeling position and grabbed him by the lapels of his coat so that he was forced to stand facing her, her face very close to his. The terrified maid appeared in the doorway and tried to explain that she had simply been pushed aside, that there was nothing she could do about it, but she couldn’t get a word out because Mimi was shouting at François, shouting at him so violently and so furiously that she spat as she did so, shouted and shouted and wouldn’t let go of him the whole time. He didn’t defend himself, just put up with it and tried unsuccessfully to understand what it was that Mimi was saying over and over again, and which made absolutely no sense.
‘I will never forgive you for that!’ Mimi shouted. ‘Never, never, never will I forgive you for that.’
46
In the end it was a delivery of English gentlemen’s boots that brought the whole structure of lies crashing down.
The two wooden crates full of shoe-boxes, which had arrived two days earlier than expected, were too big for the door of the warehouse marked ‘Bureau’, so they stayed in the salesroom and compromised the sales-promoting elegance on which Siegfried Weill placed such value in his shop. So he decreed that the crates be emptied immediately, and the boxes placed on the shelves, an operation for which he had to call upon the services not only of his two members of staff, but of his whole family, ‘yes, you too, young lady, you can take that elegant coat of yours off right this minute and put on an apron instead.’
That afternoon Esther Weill had arranged to see her friend Désirée, and had been on the point of leaving the house when her father stopped her and dragooned her to work for him in spite of all her protests. An hour previously, and this was among the precautionary measures they had agreed, she had dropped in at the Pomeranz household as if by chance, and had discreetly confirmed to Désirée that nothing stood in the way of their autumn walk together. Only then had Désirée confided in her mother that Esther Weill was meeting her suitor again, and that as her best friend she had once again to act as chaperone and alibi in one.
In the event of last minute obstacles, they had agreed this, the rendezvous was to be cancelled straight away and rearranged for a different time. But Désirée was too much in love to be sensible. More than a week had passed since the last time, and this week had been an eternity.
They had already missed far too many years together. As if everyone and everything had conspired to keep them apart. When in fact they were meant for one another.
From childhood onwards.
Désirée and Alfred.
Alfred and Désirée.
They had arranged to meet on the Dolder, in the deer park behind the Grand Hotel. It was a long walk there from the hut in the forest where the rack terminated, so one could be fairly sure, at least on weekdays, that one wouldn’t meet anyone.
When she arrived he was already there. He was always already there, he missed her so much every minute. Even from a distance he could see that Désirée was carrying her hat in her hand, and that made him happy because he knew what it meant. Mimi insisted that Désirée wear wide-brimmed hats because of her sensitive complexion, and they got in the way of kissing. They kissed each other for a long time, and no one was watching them. Only a stag, no more timid than a cow stood behind the bars of its enclosure, seemed like them to be waiting for something.
Esther didn’t come; it was already twenty minutes past the agreed time, and she had never been as late as this before. ‘She mustn’t have been allowed to get away for some reason,’ said Alfred. ‘You’ll have to go back straight away.’
But his face was so sad, and Désirée couldn’t bear to see him sad. ‘Just five minutes, just three, just one.’
His tongue tasted of peppermint. Before they met he always sucked these little pastilles; it made her laugh at him, and love him all the more.
And then a whole hour had passed, and there was no getting around it; she had to deceive Mimi one way or another. Sometimes Désirée completely forgot that she lied to her mother every time, it become so natural to let Esther Weill play the lead in her own love story. It was so easy to forget everything in the few hours they had together.
It was so beautiful.
‘Nothing will happen,’ Désirée whispered. They whispered often when they were together, even if there was no danger of anyone hearing them. She laid her head very close to his and whispered in his ear, and then there was his earlobe, which had to be kissed as well, sometimes she nibbled on it and even bit into it. Once she had tasted his blood, just a drop, and it had made a magical connection between them.
But they were magically connected anyway.
When they had met again anyway, just by chance, she had been dismissive of him, really quite brusque. Alfred continued to hold it against her, and claimed he was still angry with her about it. Only as a joke, of course, in truth he could never have held anything against her. Then he tried to pull a severe face, which he couldn’t do at all, and after that he imposed a punishment on her that had to be kissed away, kiss after kiss. ‘I am a lawyer,’ he said, ‘I cannot let lenience prevail.’
She had been quite brusque with him.
Her piano teacher lived and taught in Stockerstrasse, an old Frau Breslin who actually had a much more complicated Russian name, and who seemed to hate the music she hammered out of her piano every bit as much as she hated her pupils. No one liked going to see her, but her unfriendliness had won her a reputation of particular capability, and Mimi wouldn’t hear of her daughter giving up her lessons or switching teachers. ‘You just have to practise more,’ she said.
Désirée hadn’t practised that day either, and she was late as well, which would lead to a tirade half in German and half in Russian. At the Conservatoire in St Petersburg lazy pupils were rapped on the knuckles with the conducting baton, and Frau Breslin was very sorry that she wasn’t allowed to introduce this method in Zurich as well. Désirée had wedged the thin music folder under her arm, turned the corner far too quickly — ‘A lady doesn’t run!’ — and almost knocked him over. Her music fell to the ground, he bent down for it and only when he handed it to her did they recognise each other.
‘Where are you off to in such a hurry, Déchirée?’ asked Alfred, and she wrenched the folder from his hand as reproachfully as if he had been responsible for the collision, and walked on without a word.
She had been really brusque.
And then, an hour later, when she left the house in Stockerstrasse again, he was already standing outside the door, he had just walked after her and waited for her and said, ‘Hello, Désirée.’ But the tone in which he said it sounded arrogant, and she didn’t like him at all, not at that first meeting, and not the next time either.
Because a week later he was there again. ‘I’ve waited for you every day,’ he said. ‘Except on Shabbos, of course.’ The word sounded artificial coming from his lips.
She didn’t like him, she really didn’t. She threw her head back and left him standing. He had watched after her for ages, he claimed later, but she hadn’t turned round. And why should she have? It wasn’t as if he thought she was interested in him.