"Are dogs allowed into the church?" Ryan inquired.
"No, zey are not, it's impossible. Are zey not creatures of God?" My father raged. "I'm not coming in. I don't go into ze church unless zey pay me to go!"
"Pay you, Sir?"
"Yes. Tourists, you know? Since I am retired I must do guided tours viz ze senior citizens! My vife, she forces me, you see? I say, I only vant to play golf, but she forces me."
The 'vife' came running towards the church as we spoke, advising the guests to move and take their seats, bride and groom would be arriving in five minutes.
Contrary to the Anglo-Saxon tradition, German couples walk down the aisle together.
We entered the church and found our allotted benches.
Lilly and Nicky joined us and the two men shook hands.
Nicky was forty-nine and a yogi. He was dressed completely in white, never shaved his beard and wore a turban.
"Jude," he bowed and then hugged me. "You are absolutely radiant, I see you are well connected with the universe."
"May the longtime sun shine upon you, Nicky."
"Oh right, that reminds me! Maybe, you, Ryan, can come too. You need a partner for this." He handed me a sheet inviting me in both German and English to his White Tantra Workshop - 24 hours meditation for the summer solstice with Bhagwandas Joshi Singh. It was Nicky's stage name.
"Thank you, Nicky! I'll have to coordinate my bookings with Mum before I can commit."
"Take your time. Oh, the organ! We have to behave!" He folded his whippet-thin body onto the bench.
"Twenty-four hours Tantra workshop," Ryan murmured to me under his breath, "sounds like the perfect plan for tomorrow…"
"It's white tantra. It's without fondling one's partner."
"That's not okay."
The organist played Mendelssohn's wedding march. What else?
Christian and Corinna walked past our row in the dignified tempo befitting a bridal couple.
She was a tall woman with chestnut hair.
When I first met her, her figure had been excellent and her face had been lovely. She had to have gained at least forty pounds since then and was constantly expanding. Christian, who was of average hight, but on the lanky side, nearly disappeared next to her. That was probably why she continued to grow. She wanted to cover him from the view of any designing females, like me.
Christian ambled obediently along, smiled good-humouredly, and basically accepted his own surrender. He was neither handsome nor ugly, too pale for my taste and with thin red lips.
On my left, I sensed Ryan relaxing significantly.
But I may have imagined it. Or hoped.
Corinna's dress was the most average wedding dress imaginable and her hair was done up in a braid around her head, interwoven with pearls.
Did she not know pearls represented future tears? Although, with her there would be tears anyway, pearls or no pearls.
Lilly, who was standing on my right side, pinched me carefully.
"Don't be unkind," she mouthed.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
I bowed my head in fake shame.
The ceremony was completely uneventful. We sang, we stood up, we prayed, we sat, we sang, the couples exchanged their vows, we prayed, we sat, we sang and when they walked out, Celine Dion informed us how her heart would go on over the sound system.
I could name several analogies between Corinna and the Titanic.
The interesting part was yet to come.
Christian and Corinna had taken up position by the portal to receive their guests' congratulations. We had to cue for almost ten minutes until it was finally our turn.
Nicky and Lilly, bliss incorporated, fell on the couple, calling out their blessings. What they both lacked in latitude - next to Corinna they were almost non-existent - they made up in greatness of mind, probably advancing the bride's and groom's karmic career by several generations of rebirthing, without them even noticing.
I felt the reluctance in Corinna when she had to embrace Nicky, as if he was somehow unclean, which he was certainly not. Lilly and Nicky spent hours every night in their jacuzzi tub, scrubbing each other's skin off.
How I abhorred the prejudicial, fat, passive-aggressive bitch!
"Corry!" I screeched, employing the highest note I could possibly reach. "Darling, you look marvellous! Stunning! Oh, I cried the whole time! Chris, old bugger, you can be so proud of her! To choose Celine Dion! What an idea, so beautiful!"
"Jude!" Corinna cried, equally in raptures. "Oh, you're gorgeous, honey! Wow, your dress! How do they call that red, it's incredible!?"
"Poppy red!" I shrieked deliriously and we hugged and hugged again. "Oh, I'm so happy for you!"
"This must be Ryan!" Corinna jubilated. She continued in her solid English. "How great of you to have come so far! I can't wait to know everything about you."
"I compliment you on this beautiful ceremony and well done to the groom." He shook Christian's hand. "Marvellous to finally meet you, I feel as if I've known you forever. Jude spoke so much abou—"
I dug my heel into his foot.
"—about this wedding, telling me how happy she was for the both of you."
Christian, whose English was nowhere near solid, laughed nervously. "Yes, ahem, welcome, yes. Ha, it's funny because, you know, we did not believe you exist."
From the way his face changed, Corinna had also dug her heel into her man's foot.
"Ahahahaaha!" I almost doubled over with feigned hilarity. "You always say the most droll things, old boot!"
Ryan closed his eyes beatifically, "Who knows, what is and what is not… Who are we? What are we? What is love…?"
"Baby don't hurt me…" I blipped, unable to resist the lure.
"We will definitely talk like forever, later!" I promised Corinna.
"Oh, I can't wait!" she promised back and we were passed on the the couple's parents.
I avoided being groped too much by Christian's father, whereas Ryan got the full treatment by his mother.
"Don't let her anywhere near me, please," he begged when we had reached safer grounds beneath a group of linden trees with Nicky and Lilly.
"What's next?"
"Motorcade to the venue!" Nicky keened. "Hurray! They're already bringing up the bridal car! We have to hurry, come on, Blossom!"
Ryan called his driver who pulled up only seconds later, as eager as Nicky to join the motorcade. When did one get to honk like a madman as a five star hotel's VIP chauffeur?
"Shouldn't they be riding on a flying carpet or something?" Ryan asked when we got in.
"Oh, he has something much better than a flying carpet. Look!"
Lilly and Nicky pulled up in their vintage white Aston Martin Volante convertible, hooting like crazy.
"Wow!" Ryan was stunned.
"They got married in this car."
"Of course!"
"No, I mean IN the car. The guy from the registry stood at the grill, while the witnesses, myself and Nicky's yogi pal Karta, were sitting in two go-carts, left and right from Lakshmi. That's the car's name. It's a she, too."
"I didn't know yogi workshops paid so well, maybe I'm in the wrong business."
"Until eight years ago, he was a senior partner at McKinnley's. But in fact, the yoga does pay off nicely."
"Aren't they worried about the pollution? That car's not organic! I mean, they should really care about earth's future, being born over and over again."
I laughed. "Yeah, but what's the chance to be born again and being able to drive an Aston Martin?"
"Good point."
Now our driver joined the motorcade.
"Give it all you got, Peter!" I shouted at him in German.
He laughed and hit the horn.
"Where are we going to?" He asked in between hoots.
I told him.
"Are you sure? You want to take HIM there?"
"It was his choice."
Peter lau
ghed even more.
"Hey, that's not fair!" Ryan complained. "What are you laughing about?"
"About the venue."
"I thought it was a tennis club."
I hooted too. "It's not the kind of tennis club you know, trust me."
"Does that mean something kinky? Balls and rackets?"
I laughed even more. "No! It's the anti-thesis of kinky! It's the TSuBC Nedderfeld! Tennis Squash und Badminton Club! It'll roll in the club house, where sweaty, moustached, overweight German garden gnome enthusiasts come together after a match to have a pint. But, Inshallah, there will be roast beef with fried potatoes and a limitless supply of beer."
"Sounds perfect to me. I've never seen moustached garden gnome enthusiasts before. Anyway, I went to Harrow. Nothing can shock me."
I gasped in horror. "Not Eton?"
He fell on me.
The club house was as dower and as dreadful as I remembered it from Karl-Walter's fiftieth birthday.
How any human being could feel the desire to celebrate anything but an appendicitis in this neon-lit, brown-carpeted abomination of a restaurant, escapes my comprehension until today. The ingrain wallpaper could have inspired me to write the novel 'Fifty Shades of Puke'.
Thirteen
My mother came running towards us.
"Darling, you look radiant! Ryan, hullo, I hope you're enjoying yourself. I'm so sorry I haven't been able to talk to you in church, I was charged by Sybille to act as maîtresse de conference!"
"Hello, Imogen. You're looking very lovely."
"Hello Mother. God this place is awful. Couldn't you influence them at all? The seating is a complete disaster, she has put couples next to one another."
My mother nodded in conspiracy. "Nothing I could do, Popps. Oh, but my dove, you really are amazingly pretty today and I haven't seen you smile so much since we gave you Grobi! By the way, he has dug himself through the fence again. My tulips are gone."
"Who's Grobi?" Ryan inquired alarmed, possibly expecting another Great Dane or a royal python.
"One of the ponies. Our eldest. Thirty-two and as cheeky as ever."
His face lit up. "Ponies! Poppy Jude, you didn't tell me you actually owned ponies. What kind are they? How many?"
"Five," I said. "Well, four ponies and a horse. Four Shetlands and a Clydesdale."
"Yes, Ryan," my mother started on one of her lectures. She always lectures everybody on everything. "In the beginning there was only Grobi. We got him when Poppy Jude was six or seven, when we had settled permanently in Hamburg, you see. He lived at the pony club at first. Later, we moved into a house with a larger plot and we partitioned it with a paddock for Grobi, but clearly Grobi could not live alone so we got him a goat. Then there was an ad in the newspaper. Three shetlands needed adopting so I adopted them. Finally, when Jude was too tall for Grobi, we got Fleur, the Clydesdale. I love big things you see, big horses, big dogs, big men, big— drinks! Stop here, young man!" She arrested a waiter who carried a tray of sparkling wine. "Do you own any horses, Ryan?"
"Yes, nearly four-hundred. Hasn't Poppy Jude told you? I play polo. Well, I wished I played more, I hardly find the time these days. My family has been breeding polo ponies for over a hundred-fifty years."
"Fantastic! You must show us your stud some time."
"It's only an hour from Buenos Aires."
"Pretty far away from here, wouldn't you say?"
"We can go on my Gulfstream, not a problem."
My mother made a funny noise. Usually it indicates amusement. "Your Gulfstream. All right. I'd like to see that!"
"Why?"
"Ha, don't you know!? She needs to take 10 mg of valium before she gets onto a one hour flight to London! Why do you think she's making you come here, to stay in her tiny shoebox, when she could come to you just as well. I can perfectly understand you booked the Hof this time. I don't think you live in a shoebox."
"Fine, Mum, yes. We better move on. I'd like to sit down before the speeches start. I don't want to embarrass our hosts by falling over, bored to death."
We were seated at a table themed 'People who speak good English'. Lilly and Nicky were there, praise the Buddha, but so were Christian's former exchange student Daisy from Newcastle (whom he had deflowered in her parent's bedroom as far as I remembered) and a South African couple, David and Anita. Daisy was a slightly improved version of Little Britain's Vicky Pollard, wearing a pink dress and flakey pink lip stick. David was a colleague of Christian's, an expat sales representative for Rachholder Machines and his fiancée Anita was a dead bore but prettyish, with a set of fake boobs.
"Are you celebrities, or something," Daisy asked me right away.
"No," was all I could say, too stunned for words.
"No? I thought you were a model maybe. Victoria's Secret or something. Or like this actress… Charlize."
"Charlize Theron," Anita added and for the first time I knew how to correctly pronounce the name. Anita was from South Africa after all, she would know.
"No, not by three inches, I'm not."
"It's the shoes…" Ryan added.
I did not, nor ever will, look in the least like Charlize Theron. Our only similar feature is blonde hair, sometimes draped over one shoulder. Well, maybe, the mouth, maybe also the cheekbones in the right light…
"Tell me, Ryan," Nicky eagerly beamed, "how did you meet Jude? Lilly never tells me anything, you know, anything."
Ryan's mouth twitched. "We met at a pub. The Silver Bell. It's in Cambridge, just off Wheeler Street, behind Corpus Christi."
I almost blurted out 'how did you know, have you been there before?', instead I nodded in silent agreement.
"Yes, but it is so exciting!" Nicky went on. "How did you approach the unapproachable ice queen? We want to know everything!"
I was furiously trying to think of something logical. Why had I not prepared anything beforehand?
"I walked right up to her and asked her where her cello was. It was a total knock-out because she wouldn't believe I could remember her from eleven years back."
"What? You really remembered her?" Lilly cried in surprise and I could not tell whether it was real or fake.
"Certainly. You don't forget a beautiful girl who plays the cello, wearing high heels and hold-up stockings underneath her tartan skirt. I had front row seats… which, by the by, was rather unpleasant when the boys' choir sang "This sweet child Jesus Christ". I was drained in spittle."
"That's our Judy!" Nicky cajoled.
"You saw?" I was drowning in a sea of embarrassment.
"Sure. I watched you very carefully."
"We all wore gaiters back then," I explained, flushed. "To rebel against the system. His sister did too, you know."
"I don't think we should go into further details about my sister's past sins."
"How beautiful!" Nicky lifted his arms into the air. "What a beautiful love story, don't you agree, Blossom?"
Lilly's eyes had grown wider and wider. "I certainly do."
"So, Nicky," Ryan began, "how did you meet your wife? I already heard how you got married. Great car, by the way."
"Thank you, it's a 1980 Aston Martin Volante. It belonged to a steel dealer in Calcutta."
"Nicky…" his wife lilted, "you were asked how you met me, not the car."
"Yes, yes, I apologise. My car's my passion."
"I can perfectly understand you. My boat is mine."
"Yes? What kind of bo—"
"We met in Mogadishu," Lily barged in.
"Yes, yes. In the Mogadishu Grand Hotel. I was still in my old job, you see, as a consultant for petrol companies. Somebody said 'Hallo' and sat down next to me, and took a sip from my bitter lemon. It was Lilly. She was in Somalia with Unicef. The next thing she said was 'I love you' and she kissed me. I said, 'You can't be right, I'm too old for you, what do you want with me, who are you?' She said 'My name is Lilly, I'm on my voluntary social year, I will study medicine in Berlin. Do you have a room here?' I said 'Yes', she
said 'Fine, let's go'."
"And it was such a groundbreaking experience you quit your job and dedicated your life to the spiritual world?"
Nicky shook his head. "No, no. Before Somalia I lived in India for ten years. I was head of McKinnley's office in Delhi. Yoga helped me with the stress and the conscience, I had practised for a long time. I wore the turban already when Lily found me. She says it's my second best feature."
"What's the best?"
"My penis."
Ryan and Nicky laughed themselves giddy.
Nobody else did. Men!
"Are you a doctor, Lilly?" David asked uncomfortably. Maybe he had a small one.
"Yes."
"Do you specialise in anything yet?"
"Maybe I will be a gynaecologist. Obstetrician. At least something to do with spelaeology."
"What is spelaeology?" He had problems with the pronunciation, but then again, who would not?
"Cave science. Digging in holes."
Ryan, who had just recovered, went into spasms again.
"She can tell you all about your health by feeling your pulse." I tried to fend off the shaking man burying his face in my shoulder.
"Really?" Daisy stretched out her arm. "What can you tell?"
Lilly took Daisy's pulse and pursed her lips. "You smoke, you eat too much carbs…"
"Yeah, well, that's no news."
"You have a cyst in your left ovary and you had a varicose vein removed."
"Wow! That's right! Cool! Amazing, you must go on TV or something."
"Oh, no," Lilly blushed. "I don't like to be in the centre of attention, I prefer to remain inconspicuous."
Ryan shook some more.
"Ok, now me!" Anita held out her hand and Lilly took it.
"Do you want me to say it out loud?" Lilly asked teasingly.
Anita's face changed into a beacon of happiness. "Yes!"
"Yes, you're pregnant. You conceived after your last ovulation."
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