Kissed by the Rain

by Claudia Winter

  “Charlie dropped out of college,” Bri explained as she refilled her glass. “Or, to be precise, she was taken off the university rolls since she apparently struggled in her exams.”

  “You mean she failed them because she hasn’t seen the inside of a lecture hall in six months,” added Carl.

  “Business Administration never was a good fit for her. If you had allowed her to study what she wanted—”

  “A von Meeseberg who cooks for people? Over my dead body!”

  “Don’t be such a snob.” Bri’s eyes flashed. “A talented chef can go far these days.”

  “Do you seriously believe Charlotte has the discipline to work her way to the top in a temple of gastronomy?”

  “If you do what you love to do, you can achieve amazing things,” Bri responded, and I silently agreed with her.

  As a child, when Charlie wasn’t hunting for spiders in some corner of the basement, you could find her helping out in the kitchen, and she had remained an avid baker to this day. Her cheesecake was a revelation. Unfortunately, she’d never found a diplomatic way to make her domineering father understand her gift. So, at a young age, my cousin had rebelled. And she’d carried on rebelling ever since.

  Bri took a gulp of her drink. “Anyway, the girl was expelled from that chichi private university and she sublet her apartment to a classmate, who claims that she went—”

  “Why the hell to Scotland of all places?” interrupted Uncle Carl.

  “Well, I think that Scotland is quite—”

  “Shut up, Li,” Carl and Bri shouted at the same time.

  Aunt Li threw up her hands.

  “She could at least have told us,” Silvia whined.

  “But she did.” Li removed her glasses and cleaned them with her jumper.

  All eyes turned to the small, plump woman who almost disappeared in the armchair, a book balanced on her knees as always. I marvelled, not for the first time, at how different my great-aunts were, despite being twin sisters. I had never seen Bri with a book in her hands, but Li studied even brochures as diligently as if they were Mann’s Buddenbrooks.

  Aunt Li put on her glasses and looked around. “What is it?”

  “Would you kindly explain what you just said, Li?” Bri suddenly seemed nervous.

  “They were delightful—a young, great love, so full of hope. The two are made for each other. By the way, Bri, I’d like some apricot liqueur, the Italian one. It’s delicious.” She sighed. “The little summerhouse was empty anyway.”

  “You mean to say that Charlotte was staying here in the backyard? With her boyfriend?” The words just slipped out of my mouth.

  “We are living in the twenty-first century. You no longer have to be married to sleep in the same bed.” Li blushed and smoothed down the crocheted book cover. It was just one of her many awful handmade creations that lay around all over the house, or which she frequently gave to people who had no intention of ever using them. “And by the way, he isn’t some ‘bum,’ as Carl claims. He’s a musician—a very nice, talented young man.”

  “Spare me the details! When did all of this happen?” screamed Carl.

  Poor Li was visibly confused now.

  “Three weeks ago.” Pouting, she added, “Charlotte asked me not to tell anyone about her travel plans. She also said she’d leave her phone at home. So it makes no sense to call her.”

  “Oh, Li,” said Bri, shaking her head and emptying her glass.

  A muffled sound came from the sofa. Mama had her hand in front of her mouth and looked very pale. “I completely forgot,” she whispered, fidgeting. “Charlie spent a night at our place last month.”

  I looked at her in disbelief.

  “Knew how to handle a hedge trimmer quite well, her boyfriend did,” mumbled my father.

  “Well, isn’t that wonderful? A conspiracy—in my own family,” grumbled Uncle Carl, his face crimson.

  “She said something about water damage in her apartment . . . Was I to turn her away?” Mama blinked. Then, her eyes suddenly widened and she looked at me, trying vigorously to mouth something I couldn’t begin to decipher.

  “Are you all right, Mathilde?” Li asked.

  “Of course I am, Aunt Li. I just suddenly remembered where I . . . last saw my amber necklace!” She gave a little cough and tapped on her ring finger. “I’ve been looking for it for the last few days.”

  “Isn’t that the worst? I feel like all I do is misplace things. Just the other day, I . . .”

  Li’s voice seemed to fade away as I finally understood my mother’s pantomime—the chronically broke, currently homeless Charlie staying in my parent’s house, their daughter’s birthdate as the less-than-secure code for the safe . . .

  I brushed a strand of hair from my forehead, noticing that my palms were clammier than ever. It wouldn’t be the first time Charlie had filched something. But could she really have done that to me? I looked up at my father.

  “Papa?” I whispered. I felt numb. “Did you by any chance take the velvet box from the safe?”

  “What velvet box?” he asked.

  My breath caught in my throat. So the little monster really had absconded with my ring. I exhaled and started to laugh hysterically. Uncle Carl gave a start.

  “It seems that several people in this room have lost their goddamn marbles. Care to tell us just what you find so funny?”

  “Don’t attack Josefine just because she’s doing what we all would like to do,” Bri interjected. “I honestly don’t understand your goal for this meeting, my dear nephew. As you said yourself, Charlotte is twenty-four. An adult. Nobody can keep her from travelling wherever she pleases. You’ll have to postpone your sudden paternal yearnings until your daughter gets tired of either her friend or the Scottish rain. Josefine’s the only one with reason to be upset—Charlie would’ve been a lovely maid of honour. Which reminds me—we’re having a wedding in three weeks, people, so let’s talk about pleasant matters, such as flower arrangements and cakes! Li, why in the world did you order those funeral flowers after we’d already agreed on white calla lilies?”

  By that point, I really needed schnapps or chocolate cookies—and plenty of either. Mama responded to my gloomy look with an equally melancholy head shake.

  “We’re not finished discussing this, Bri,” thundered Carl. “I have by no means exhausted all possibilities—if I have to, I’ll hire a private detective to bring my daughter back to Germany.”

  “A bounty hunter,” Li corrected. “The correct term is ‘bounty hunter.’ And before you shush me again, I have no doubt that Charlie is doing splendidly in Scotland.” With her chin raised, she turned to her sister. “Regular white lilies are on sale right now. Don’t be so old-fashioned, Bri. And you’d better explain to me why you promised Mechthild she could do Josefine’s hair even though she cheated when we played cards last week. Why are you validating that horrible woman?”

  Uncle Carl cast a condescending look around the room. “Fine. Just go on quibbling about flowers and hairdos while I am trying to save my child. I will do everything I can to bring Charlotte back and make sure she graduates. I owe it to her since her mother was such an abject failure.”

  “Amen,” said Bri, filling her glass for the third time, this time to the brim.

  With my arms wrapped around me, I stood at the window and watched Mama’s Audi pull out so fast it sprayed gravel all over the yard. It was after ten by now, and neither of us had worked up the courage to tell Grandmother about the ring—not when Uncle Carl took Silvia by the arm and grouchily said goodbye, and not during the quarrel between Bri and Li about who had made a bigger mess of the wedding preparations. Now it was my turn to leave without having achieved anything.

  I smelled roses even before my grandmother joined me. She looked out of the window into the darkness of the garden, as attentive and alert as if she were expecting a late guest. Her voice, on the other hand, was weary.

  “What is it you have to tell me, Josefine?”

>   Two hours of Uncle Carl’s ranting and the spectre of Charlie hovering over us like a demon bent on sowing discord had strained her nerves as well.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I answered with forced cheerfulness, but I’d much rather have thrown my arms around her the way I used to as a little girl.

  As an adult, my relationship with Grandmother had become less overtly affectionate. It was simultaneously deeper and more distant. I admired my grandmother so much that it would have felt disrespectful to take her hand without an invitation. Yearning for her approval, I feared the slightest sign of her displeasure.

  “I’m old, not senile,” she replied, and walked to her armchair. “Something has been bothering you all evening.”

  With her hands folded in her lap, she stiffened her back, as if sitting up straight was a carefully rehearsed process. It reminded me of how often she had exhorted Charlie and me to keep our composure in every situation. I didn’t think my grandmother even knew how to slouch in a chair.

  “Have you changed your mind about the wedding? It can happen, you know. Your great-great-aunt, for instance, just before—”

  “Absolutely not,” I snapped. The thought alone was absurd. I never changed my mind once I’d made a decision. That was something only indecisive people did—people like Charlie, people who didn’t have real goals in life.

  “Josefine, if you’ve realised that your fiancé is not a good match for you—”

  “Justus and I are an excellent team. You don’t have to worry about that,” I assured her.

  A strange expression crossed her face, but maybe it was just a shadow from the crackling fireplace.

  “What is it, then?”

  I hesitated. Maybe Mama was right. Maybe we shouldn’t tell her. It couldn’t be too hard for a skilled jeweller to create a replica of the simple gold ring. And properly cut glass didn’t look so very different from a genuine diamond, and if Grandmother didn’t look too closely . . .

  “I won’t bite your head off, no matter what it is. Besides, I can’t imagine you’ve done anything worse than broken a piece of china. Unless we’re talking about your great-grandmother Helene’s china—that I would hold against you.”

  “The bride’s ring,” I whispered, feeling my heart sink. “It went missing . . . from the safe.”

  I could have dealt with her crying out in horror. Even a temper tantrum, composure be damned. If she was so attached to Great-Grandmother Helene’s ugly plates, how much more unthinkable would the loss of a family heirloom from the Thirty Years’ War be?

  But she just sat in her chair like a statue, her face strangely waxen from the glow of the fire. She was silent for what felt like an eternity.

  Then she turned her face to the window and sighed—a sigh that expressed everything, from disappointment to sadness, all the way to resignation. “That’s unfortunate,” she said quietly to no one in particular.

  “I think Charlie has it. So maybe it’s not really gone; it’s just . . . somewhere else.”

  “Such things do not happen without a reason.”

  “Grandmother,” I pleaded, irritated to hear Frau Ziegelow’s words echoed. “It’s only a ring. A piece of metal that—” I fell silent when I saw her face become impenetrable.

  “You cannot walk down the aisle without that ring, Josefine—not if you want my blessing.”

  I was familiar with the feeling that now threatened to crush my chest like a corset laced too tightly. I only managed defiance for a split second—there was no sense fooling myself. I’d been raised in a house where tradition was revered and where Grandmother’s word was law. A wedding without Adele von Meeseberg’s blessing was as inconceivable as a church without a priest. I’d sooner cancel the wedding than carry on without Grandmother’s blessing.

  “Please don’t do this to me.” I trembled as if I were standing barefoot in a bucket of ice water.

  “What does the number twenty-six mean to you?” my grandmother continued.

  “It’s the number of failed marriages in our family,” I replied in a flat voice. I hated myself because I was about to let a stupid superstition ruin my life. But the only rebellion I could muster amounted to two clenched fists behind my back.

  “What do they all have in common?”

  “They lasted no longer than half a year . . . and . . . none of the brides wore the ring when she said ‘I do.’”

  Goosebumps rose up on my arms even though I had heard the stories hundreds of times and had long ago stopped believing in the connection between the ring and failed marriages. Our family’s tragic history of doomed lovers had been part of my life for as long as I could remember, and the dissolution of some unions hadn’t just been messy, but bloody. As a ten-year-old, I had relished making Charlie cry with the terrible details of one or another of those tragedies, but for a while, I’d actually believed that the women in our family were cursed, and that the only way to stave off the curse was to wear that special ring during the wedding ceremony.

  As I got older, those stories met the fate of most fairy tales—they were put away and largely forgotten. But my grandmother had never grown out of them. She was still convinced that any marriage in our family undertaken without the ring’s protection would end either in divorce or in the cold waters of the river Main.

  “Go ahead, call me a foolish old fossil.” She raised a hand to stop me from objecting. “I know very well what my lovely clan whispers behind my back. But, whether it’s a curse, fate, or coincidence, I will not be responsible for my favourite granddaughter becoming the family’s next suicide risk.” A hint of a smile played around her lips. “But of course, the choice, dear Josefine, is yours to make.”

  “I have a choice?” My voice was very low and submissive. If I’d been standing next to myself, I would probably have shaken myself silly and screamed at myself. It was frightening how well I could control my emotions.

  Now Grandmother smiled. “Well, you said that the ring wasn’t lost, just elsewhere. You have three weeks until the wedding—if I have the dates right.”

  I was amazed. Was she seriously suggesting that I—

  “Let me quote your great-aunt Li—Scotland is an enchanting country.”

  Driving home, I thought about the relationship between Charlie and myself. As a teenager, I was convinced that the sole reason for my cousin’s existence was to make my life difficult.

  On my tenth birthday, for instance, the little monster had discovered how to use matches and proceeded to burn down the table with all of my presents on it—all the while with a huge grin on her face. When I was fourteen, I had a huge crush on a boy named Marius Goll—that is, until Charlie, in whom I had stupidly confided, splashed my secret on the wall of the gym in red paint. Jo loves Marius. The feeling was not mutual, which became clear when Marius made fun of me in the cafeteria, in front of the entire school. Charlie always insisted that she’d actually done me a favour. Thinking back, she had never had anything good to say about any boy I liked.

  I hit the brakes, stopping in the middle of the rain-drenched road. Other cars screeched to a halt and someone honked. I switched on my hazard lights and, grasping the steering wheel, I bent forward and gazed into space.

  Charlie didn’t like Justus either.

  I sucked in air until it felt like my lungs might burst. Then I exhaled in short puffs until I was so empty I felt dizzy.

  Charlie had been against my marriage from the start, and now she had found a way to prevent it. Even if I flew to Scotland, where the heck was I going to start looking for her?

  I stared at the squeaking windscreen wipers for quite some time. Then I started the car, turned off the emergency blinkers, and stepped on the accelerator.

  I was still furious when I arrived home and immediately went to my briefcase. Working on that stupid restraining order was exactly the distraction I needed right now.

  When I pulled out Frau Ziegelow’s folder, a postcard fell to the floor and landed face up—the belated birthday
card from Charlie. My pulse quickened. I knelt down and looked at the image of a Victorian stone building in the middle of unspoiled moorland that immediately reminded me of . . . No way.

  Unsettled, I picked up the card and flipped it over.

  Fàilte! O’Farrell Guesthouse, Kincraig, Scotland.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It was getting harder to doubt that some strange power not only meant to derail my wedding, but also wanted to transport me to a foreign land. I closed my eyes until I felt strong enough to decipher the scrawl that confirmed what I already suspected.

  Dear Jo,

  I’m sorry, but I had no choice. You should marry someone who deserves you.

  With all my heart, even if you never talk to me again.

  Charlie

  P.S.: Justus is an idiot.

  3

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  The Asian flight attendant wore false eyelashes and a name tag that didn’t seem to fit her—Candy Dee. She had already come to my seat three times since take-off.

  “Would you like some more water?” Candy Dee asked in a tone usually reserved for mentally challenged patients.

  I managed to nod, but the rest of my body felt paralysed—bolt upright and engulfed in fear. I was panicking because I was flying to a country I only knew from movies, because I’d left before my vacation time request had been processed, because I could imagine Justus’s reaction when he found out, and because I had no idea what I would do if I didn’t find Charlie, or even what I would do if I did. Not to mention I was terrified of flying.

  “You may undo your seat belt and lean back if you wish.”

  Candy Dee was still in caregiver mode. My knees trembled and I tried to calm myself by focusing on the tray table in front of me.

  “Everything is fine,” I replied hoarsely, knowing that Candy Dee didn’t believe a word.

  She nodded sympathetically and continued down the narrow aisle, repeating her spiel as she went.