“The journey you undertook has apparently strengthened your love for Justus. I didn’t expect that, but my opinion about the young man is not what matters here. In these modern times, the old should advise, not prohibit. Your heart has spoken to you and, thus, the bride’s ring has fulfilled its purpose. So take it and wear it at the ceremony as a symbol of your love and your resolve. You have my blessing.”
The curtains billowed in the sudden breeze that drifted through the room, as if the faint, lingering doubt in Grandmother’s voice had materialised. I shivered. My grandmother looked at Grandfather’s pipe in the crystal ashtray and then at the old grandfather clock, which struck five, making the parquet floor vibrate. We used to lie down flat on the floor to feel it tickle our bellies.
“Let’s go to the salon, Josefine. I’ve felt guilty all day because I’ll have to indulge in that rich cake to avoid hurting Li’s feelings. Let’s get it over with quickly.”
I still sat there as if glued to my chair, her words reverberating in my mind—true love . . . key to happiness . . . my little moth, a term of endearment Grandmother had always used just for me.
She got up and smiled at me. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel intimidated by her gaze.
“By the way, your hair looks just lovely,” she said softly, and she caressed my cheek as she walked by.
With that, she left me alone with my heart, which bucked like a rodeo pony, kicking me again and again. What hurt most was that Grandmother had been wrong in one decisive respect.
I had no idea what my heart was telling me.
17
It’s strange how your world tilts as soon as you look at it from a different perspective. I couldn’t stop pondering Grandmother’s words—not on the way home, not at dinner with Justus, and not in the shower, where I stood under the hot stream of water for so long it turned my skin lobster red, but still I couldn’t wash away these unwelcome feelings. I lay awake all that night, staring at the ceiling, unable to get Aidan out of my mind while my future husband tossed and turned in bed next to me. When I finally fell asleep, the lavender-blue dawn followed me into a short, disturbing dream in which I relaxed into the embrace of a fire-breathing dragon.
“There you are, Frau Sonnenthal.”
The authoritative voice catapulted me back into my fishbowl of an office. I could feel Lara give a start next to me, and the dishes on her tray tinkled. How long had she been standing there?
I slipped the bride’s ring onto my finger and nodded to Lara. “Please bring another cup of coffee for Dr. Maibach.”
My assistant didn’t move. She stared at the boss with her mouth half-open, scared and awestruck. No wonder. The mighty Maibach showed his face on the lower floor no more than twice a year, if at all, and mostly for less than pleasant reasons.
Dr. Maibach unbuttoned his double-breasted jacket and plopped down into the visitor’s chair at my desk.
“Black with two sugars,” he barked, not bothering with even a hint of friendliness.
I knew Maibach well enough to anticipate what the hawk might do to an injured chick. Lara had to be removed from the line of fire.
“That’s all. Go now,” I said urgently, gesturing to the door with my chin.
Lara straightened her chronically drooping shoulders, set the coffee tray on the desk, and hurried away.
“By the way, you handled the Göthekind v. Henfler matter very well, Frau Busche. Keep up the excellent work!” I called after her.
Surprised, Lara stopped and turned back. I waved her away, then looked innocently at my boss, who frowned.
“Is everything all right, Frau Sonnenthal?”
“Why shouldn’t it be?” I replied quickly, but my smile evaporated when I recognised the document in his hand. My yet-to-be-granted vacation request floated down onto my desk like a silent reproach, right next to my wedding to-do list. Maibach looked at the latter and picked it up without a second thought.
“I thought you might want my signature on your request for time off,” he said, perusing my private list.
“The whole . . . it came up quite . . . unexpectedly.”
“Did you manage to accomplish on your ‘vacation’ what you set out to?” Maibach lifted his head. “I assume it was a family matter that couldn’t be postponed.”
Blushing, I said, “A family matter, that’s right.”
Dr. Maibach leaned back, loosened his tie, and swivelled from side to side in his chair. He didn’t take his eyes off the list that reported not only the colour of my garter, but also the number of glasses of champagne I planned to drink per hour to be pleasantly tipsy but not so drunk that I could lose control.
“Oh, don’t worry about the vacation request. I’m actually here to congratulate you on your impending nuptials. You really are an outstanding team, you and Dr. Grüning.”
He grinned, which made his face look more than ever like a dented egg. Even though Maibach the Great was fastidiously trim, his bald head and sturdy neck made him seem stocky.
“I’ve seldom come across young people who approach these matters so pragmatically.”
He tapped my to-do list as if it was Exhibit A in a complicated trial. I smiled uneasily.
“It seems you leave nothing to chance. I like that. Love, romance, and all that—highly exaggerated. One marries so the accounts balance—I completely agree with your fiancé on that! Be assured that, in addition to the wedding present from the partners, a substantial, encouraging sum will also be diverted into your future husband’s account—call it a little parting gift before you leave the firm.”
“Why would I leave the firm?” I asked, fighting a wave of nausea and processing what he’d said about my fiancé marrying to balance his accounts.
When Maibach’s eyes dropped from my chest to my belly, I had the answer I feared. Shocked, I put a hand on my stomach.
“Sir, you’re mistaken. I am not pregnant and have no intention of becoming pregnant in the near future.”
“Got it, Frau Sonnenthal.” He winked. “Just don’t let your fiancé know that I told you that he’d shared your plans with me. Take a little time if you wish. We’ll hold off dissolving the family law division until you leave.”
Self-satisfied as an oil baron, he rocked in the chair where Frau Ziegelow and other women had shed tears. I wanted to push him out of it.
“You’re shutting down the family law division?”
“Of course.” He laughed. Leaning forward, he whispered, “Don’t worry. Your future husband’s salary will allow you to employ a housekeeper and a nanny. Look forward to the good things in life—shopping, the gym, hair salons, all that stuff you women love—much better than wallowing in other people’s divorces. Yes, you planned everything perfectly, Frau Sonnenthal. Or should I call you Frau Grüning?”
“Sonnenthal is fine,” I said, pressing my shoulders against the back of my chair to keep from screaming.
Maibach examined me. He finally seemed to realise that something was wrong, very wrong. I stared at his hands with their short, square-cut nails, and tried to find an innocent explanation for what I’d just learned about Justus. I found none.
I got up, seemingly in slow motion, staggered, but caught myself on the glass table top. I felt as if I were made of glass myself, like this entire office. “Would you please excuse me, Herr Dr. Maibach? I have an important meeting with a client right now.”
Unbelievable. I was showing my boss the door. And I had lied about a meeting. But as Charlie would say, “Who gives a shit?”
Lara came around the corner with Maibach’s coffee, but caught my look through the glass wall and retreated. Mighty Maibach pushed himself out of the chair and nodded at me with a patronising and far-too-familiar smile.
“Yes, yes. That’s how it should be—work before pleasure. It’s not easy to find a woman like you, who so doggedly heads for the home stretch. Almost a pity. You could have had quite a law career.”
He turned to leave and I reached to g
rab my phone.
“Oh, before I forget, Frau Sonnenthal, be sure to always leave the blinds up from now on—including whenever you meet with clients.”
Then he headed for the elevator that would carry him to Mount Olympus, as we lowly peons called the partners’ floor. Tucking the phone between my chin and shoulder, I called Lara’s extension.
“Lara? Please ask Dr. Grüning to come to my office immediately. And don’t let his manicured receptionist scare you off. It’s important.”
“I hope you have a good reason for calling me away from the budget meeting, Josefine.” Justus sat down on the edge of my desk with crossed arms and glared at me. “You look just fine, so I guess your secretary was lying when she said it was a matter of life and death.”
I suppressed the learned reflex of taking off my glasses for him. Instead, I went to the glass wall, caught my assistant’s eyes, and mouthed a silent “Thank you.” Then, in front of her flattered smile, I pulled down the blinds.
“Don’t say a word about the freaking blinds,” I snarled. “This is my office. At least for right now.”
It gave me some satisfaction that these words made him frown as if he had a migraine, a recent quirk of his. I strutted back to my desk but made sure not to sit down. I had looked up to this man for far too long.
“So you’re in a budget meeting.”
“I was in a budget meeting,” Justus replied. “God, Josefine. What’s the matter with you? I barely recognise you lately.”
“That makes two of us.”
With a stiff smile, I turned to the window. It hit me, for the first time in all these years—all you could see from this window were the shiny façades of skyscrapers. Squinting, I followed the trail of an aeroplane until the white line dissolved in the endless blue of the sky. Grey cloud ponies would have fitted the day much better—and rain. I missed rain.
“When did you plan to let me know that Maibach, Roeding & Partners is going to shut down the family law division?”
Justus exhaled audibly. “Who told you that?”
“The boss himself,” I replied. “And he told me some other interesting things, too.”
“I don’t know what your problem is,” Justus said after a pause. “Your family cases are extremely expensive to prepare and bring in close to nothing in return. A single licence agreement brings in three times the profit—without having to spend years putting up with emotional wrecks like the Ziegeltoff woman. Besides, nobody plans to shut the department down tomorrow. The partners will vote on my suggestion at the end of the next quarter, and it’ll be a while after that before all your pending proceedings are settled.”
“So it was your idea.”
“I will be one of the partners of this firm, Josefine. It is therefore one of my duties to make sure that Maibach, Roeding & Partners maximises its profits. Anyway, the family law division is a one-woman enterprise, and once you leave—”
“What in the world makes you think that I intend to quit?” I interrupted.
“I thought that was a given.” He was genuinely surprised.
I couldn’t believe it. I opened my mouth, then closed it again, realising my fiancé was truly unaware that he’d done anything wrong. He pushed off the desk and walked towards me. I raised my hand to stop him.
“But we’ve discussed all this, Finchen,” he said, sounding like a doctor trying to convince a coma patient that she’d slept through two years of her life. “You wrote it on your list yourself—our list. Don’t you remember? Our son’s going to be called Valentin, or if it’s a girl, Sofia. A nanny was out of the question, since you hated how your mother never had time for you. So I assumed . . .” He shrugged.
Thoughts whirled through my head like a swarm of wasps, and they didn’t hesitate to sting. My list. Our list. Justus wasn’t wrong, exactly. Of course I wanted kids, just not . . . like that. My pride lost the battle against crushing despair and hot tears streamed down my cheeks.
“I never said I wanted to stop working,” I whispered.
His expression hardened. “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, young lady,” he said. His lenience was suddenly gone, as if Cinderella’s doves had eaten up all the crumbs of patience he’d begrudgingly thrown me.
“Since it’s necessary for me to marry to become partner, I at least want a wife who’s entirely committed to me and my children and isn’t one of those stressed-out, part-time career women who do justice neither to their jobs nor their families. What the hell changed our plans? Did five foolish days in Scotland make you lose your mind?”
His words were like a slap in the face. I swallowed and clenched my fists.
“So that’s the real reason you want to marry me, Justus? To make partner? I’m another one of your . . . profit-maximising schemes?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Answer me.”
He looked at me silently for quite a while and then shook his head as if nothing made sense to him anymore. “The two of us make a good team and Maibach values partners whose personal circumstances are up to snuff. So why shouldn’t we get married if it benefits us professionally?”
“You.”
“Excuse me?”
“Use the singular—benefits you professionally.”
“So what? It’s for both of us. If it makes you feel better, I’ll have them draw up a prenup to make sure you’ll be properly compensated if worse comes to worst.” With his palms up, he asked, “What else do you want? Tell me, and you’ll get it.”
I was silent, letting his words sink in. Taking shallow, concentrated breaths, I wound up the next question like a toy car.
“Do you actually love me?”
“God, Finchen.” He rolled his eyes. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything.” I looked up, and was astonished not to feel any sadness.
“You never used to be so goddamn sentimental.”
He came closer and pulled me roughly towards him. I held my breath, no longer able to stand his scent of soap, of perfect cleanliness. He represented my entire life—clean, disciplined, perfect. I could no longer stand that either.
“I can’t do it, Justus.”
I gently extricated myself from his embrace and crossed to the window, searching for a sign, any sign, that would tell me what to do. But there was nothing out there, nothing but sky, glass, and steel. No snow-covered mountains, no green-brown heath, no calm, peaceful lake. There were no magical, fantastical clouds, either, and no eyes looking at me as if I was the only thing on earth that mattered.
Listen to your heart.
I heard it distinctly even though I knew that neither Frau Ziegelow nor Bri, neither Grandmother nor Charlie were in the room. Their insistent voices swooshed in my ears as if I held conches against them.
I looked at my hand, the engagement ring on my ring finger, and the fake bride’s ring that only fit my pinkie, no matter how hard I tried. Sighing, I pulled off Justus’s promise of marriage, worth twelve thousand euros—as he’d been keen to tell me.
“What are you doing, Finchen?”
I turned around slowly and placed the ring on the desk, right in the middle of my wedding to-do list with its bullet points and stars, next to the framed photo showing Justus and me on a sailing trip to the North Sea—a beaming, perfect couple with big plans for the future.
“It’s not your fault. I thought I loved you, but I was wrong. This has been a mistake for years—I just didn’t see it.”
“You can’t do this.”
“I know.” I nodded. “But I am doing it. I’m sorry you won’t make partner, but I’m sure you’ll find another woman to help you benefit professionally.”
“What the hell are you—” He stopped. “You can’t just leave.”
I shook my head and picked up my handbag. “Be so kind as to let Dr. Maibach know that he’ll have my written notice on his desk soon. I’m going to look for a firm that cares more for their clients and less for their assets.”
&n
bsp; “Finchen . . .”
Justus stood in the middle of the room with drooping shoulders and an expression of shock I’d never imagined he had in his repertoire. He resembled a star pupil caught cheating. I stroked his arm as I walked by, feeling he deserved some conciliatory gesture. He pulled away.
I took my coat and scarf from the rack by the door, then pulled hard on the blinds so that the slats snapped up with a loud clatter. Startled, Lara spilled coffee all over a file.
Glancing back felt like thumbing through a long-winded novel to read the final sentence. Justus still stood where I’d left him, only now he looked angry rather than sad, which reassured me. I knew from my professional experience that it wouldn’t take Justus long to get over me. He was Justus, after all.
“My name is Josefine. Josefine Sonnenthal,” I said with a smile.
There no longer was a Finchen.
I was free.
That intoxicating feeling lasted exactly two hours and fifteen minutes. I rushed home through Grüneburg Park, packed my belongings, then called my grandmother. She listened to my torrent of words and, when I came up for air, told me to come stay at her place. A few minutes later, I was in a taxi on the way to Sachsenhausen, wailing like a baby seal stranded on an ice floe.
With a pitying look, the taxi driver handed me a handkerchief. It was perfectly ironed and smelled of soap, which made me cry even harder. I had no man, no home, and—due to my eagerness for a clean break—no job. I had to start from scratch.
I don’t know what made me pull my personal organiser out of my bag. I leafed through, finding no solace among its pages, but leaving tearstains all over the Post-it notes and to-do lists. A few business cards fell into my lap—the flower shop, the catering company, the pastry shop. I’d have to call them all. There would be no tiered buttercream cake for Grandmother and no filet mignon in Barolo sauce with duchesse potatoes—no funeral flowers either, though Li’s mistaken order seemed strangely appropriate now, as if my aunt had known how everything would turn out.
I saw the stone von Meeseberg lions glide by out of the corner of my eye and, just as the taxi pulled up in front of the house, I found something tucked into the organiser that had completely slipped my mind.
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