by Dora Heldt
We made a start in a shop for bathroom fittings. It was the one I already knew. Baths made from wood, chrome, and porcelain, round and corner bathtubs, crazy washbasins, and wild fittings. Along with decorations whose price tags made me gulp.
After twenty minutes Luise had chosen and reserved a bathroom mirror with a heavy silver frame. She looked very happy indeed. So did the man at the checkout counter.
I bought a soap dish made of blue porcelain, three chrome boxes, a shallow black basket, and a shower curtain. It came to 320 euros. A bargain, really. The elegant bag and my feeling of elation confirmed the feeling of foolishness that was growing within me.
Next up, a fabric store. We touched every fabric bauble, every fold, and found the colors beautiful. I looked at Luise. “I can’t even sew.”
She shrugged her shoulders regretfully. “Me neither.”
“It’s such a shame.”
We left the store without any bags. The next one was an office equipment store. We sat on at least twenty office chairs, stroked our hands across writing tables, and turned lamps on and off. I bought a wall clock, three filing boxes, a container for paperclips, a table lamp, and a metal notice board—340 euros.
Luise picked up some catalogues.
Then there was a kitchen shop. Luise piled cups in her shopping baskets while I looked for candleholders and serviettes. We stopped for a while in front of the glasses. Luise picked up a red wine glass and looked at it admiringly; it was simple, big, beautiful.
“Look, Christine, this costs almost ten times as much as my glasses from IKEA.”
She put a box of six in her basket. Next, we found ourselves looking at the espresso machines. These had been the epitome of a luxury kitchen to me for years. Bernd didn’t like espresso; I loved it. Ines had once bought me a small pot for the stove; a machine was just a dream.
Luise stood next to me. “Which one are you getting?”
Charlotte whispered, You’ve still got over ten thousand euros.
My newfound reason beat Edith to it.
“Oh, it’s not worth it. For just a few cups of espresso or cappuccino? Besides, none of them cost less than eight hundred euros.”
Luise nudged me and laughed. I looked at her.
“Are you serious?”
“Christine, it’s for you—of course it’s worth it.”
I saw myself standing in my bathrobe and warm socks in front of this wonderful chrome appliance in the mornings, saw myself push a button, heard the sound of the grinder, and smelled the coffee. The last bit turned out to be real; a shop assistant was standing in front of us, balancing two small red espresso cups.
“May I offer you an espresso and show you the machines?”
Half an hour later I was writing my address on the delivery paperwork and signing a credit card receipt for 1,150 euros. The candlesticks, serviettes, six espresso cups, chrome jug for hot milk, and a pepper grinder were an additional 160 euros. Luise got a dark gray material bag to carry her wine glasses and cups in. I felt great and grabbed her elbow.
“Luise, I’ve got an espresso machine. This is amazing. Let’s have a break; I’ve got a completely dry throat.”
We found a small bistro with standing tables and bar chairs, and we ordered a big bottle of water and two glasses of champagne. I was still over the moon; Luise laughed and raised her glass.
“To cappuccino and espresso and the fact that everything that we do for ourselves is worth it.”
I was almost dizzy with happiness and drank some water to help calm myself down.
Charlotte was happy too. An espresso machine. At last.
Edith answered. That’s over two thousand euros you’ve spent on things that you don’t really need. Call it a day now; you really need to put some money away.
Luise interrupted both their voices. “What are you thinking about?”
I answered quickly. “Nothing, I’m just happy. Now let’s find you a bed, and I’ll take a look around.”
Luise pulled her list back out of her bag. Before she could say a word, someone stumbled against our table and the water bottle fell over, spilling its contents directly between my elegant shopping bags and Luise’s feet.
“Oh heavens, I’m so sorry. Oh God, is everything wet? I’m so terribly sorry. Oh, it’s you guys. I didn’t even recognize you. Well, isn’t this great?”
Anke. Black miniskirt, tight top, poison-green jacket, red shoes, everything too tight, as usual. Her hair was crazy and wild, her face glowing.
She whirled off, said something to the waiter, and then ran over to a blond man who looked about thirty years old and talked on and on at him energetically. His handsome face looked pained.
Luise’s facial expression was unfathomable.
I looked at her questioningly. She lowered her voice as one of the waiters dried our table with a cloth, and said, “Hamburg is a metropolis with more than 1.7 million inhabitants. This is the smallest bar in Stilwerk. And yet we still manage to run into Anke.”
By now Anke was standing in front of our table with the young man in tow. He clearly didn’t seem very comfortable. Luise’s face still showed no discernible signs of emotion. I had no idea what was coming. I hardly knew Anke; I’d barely seen her outside of our gatherings. Anke pulled the young man nearer to her, looked first at him, then at us, and then introduced him with her usual loud voice.
“Girls, this is the lovely David. Isn’t he delicious? And these are my colleagues, Luise and Christine.”
Luise raised her eyebrows. David went red, and I felt incredibly embarrassed by Anke’s behavior. In an attempt to save the situation I stretched my hand out to him, a little overdramatically perhaps, and said, “Hi, I’m Christine.”
He shook my hand, which seemed to make him even more embarrassed.
Anke was unmoved. She stroked his blond locks and said, “So you’re on a spree at Stilwerk? Are you girls earning too much, or what?”
She giggled. David carefully freed his shoulder from her grip. I searched for a noncommittal answer, but Luise beat me to it.
“Exactly.” She waved to the waiter. “We’d like to pay please. And we still have a lot on our list. I’ll just pop around the corner again, and then we have to push on. So, Anke, David, I hope you have a good day.”
She stood up, nodded to them both briefly, and disappeared in the direction of the restroom. Anke looked at me, astounded.
“She’s getting more and more arrogant. Christine, I really don’t understand why you hang around with her.”
I tried to catch my breath and find an answer, but David saved me. “Come on, Anke, we have to be at the fish restaurant on the harbor at twelve.”
He smiled at her with effort, and she looked up at him with a smile that was equally forced.
“Oh yes, we must dash.” She patted my shoulder. “Enjoy the rest of your shopping then, Christine. How’s single life treating you? Well, hopefully it won’t be forever. But keep your head up until then.”
I didn’t need to answer. David pulled her towards the exit, and she didn’t turn around again. Luise came back to the table at the same time as the waiter and the bill. I already had the money in my hand. After I’d paid, I looked at Luise, who was putting her cigarettes in her bag and standing up.
“So who was that?” I asked.
Luise shrugged her shoulders. “That was so typical of Anke. Always making things embarrassing, always putting her foot in it and then blaming other people. I can’t bear her.”
I was astonished at the harshness of her reaction. “Oh, she’s not that bad. I felt a bit sorry for that David. Is he her boyfriend? What happened to Werner?”
Luise rolled her eyes.
“Boyfriend! That’s her new trophy. She’s always picking up men, and they seem to get younger and younger. David must be ten years younger than her, easily. She makes out she’s just some scatty woman and spends her whole time messing around with these boys. Completely brazen and always so that Werner gets wind of it. T
hen she complains about Werner and plays the innocent wife. And Werner and the others go along with her games. It’s really messed up.”
I was surprised. “How do you know about all this?”
By now we were walking up to the entrance of a furniture shop. Luise stopped.
“I know Werner from way back, from Berlin. I was friends with both of them. At the beginning of their marriage at least. But the whole story got more and more hypocritical and embarrassing, so I’ve all but broken off contact. Christine, I’ll tell you another time; I’m not in the mood right now to let Anke ruin our day.”
We were standing in front of the entrance. The door opened as I stood in front of the motion sensor. I went through and turned back to face Luise. At that moment her cell phone rang. She searched frantically through her bag, found it after the third ring, and took the call with an eager look on her face.
“Oh, hello, Franziska.” She looked disappointed.
“No, you’re not interrupting anything. I’m at Stilwerk with Christine. What can I do for you?”
She listened for a moment.
“They belong to…yes, exactly. Wait a moment, she’s called Mrs. Strehlke, the one that buys the children’s books too.”
While Luise listened to Franziska, she smiled.
“You know, we were planning to window-shop, but Christine is going crazy in here, spending money left, right, and center. I know, just imagine.”
Franziska was saying something. Luise looked at me.
“You think five hundred euros is an awful lot? Wait, Christine, what are you up to so far?”
I did a few quick sums and said, “Two thousand six hundred and twenty euros.”
“Did you hear that, Franziska? Two thousand six hundred and twenty euros.” She burst into loud laughter. “Yes, I’ll tell her. Okay, I hope the rest of your work goes well. Bye.”
Luise put her cell back in her bag, still smiling.
“Franziska reckons you’ll get to ten thousand easily; after all, it’s only midday. And she wanted me to remind you that expensive things don’t save lives, but they can make them a damn sight nicer.”
Make a note of that, Edith, I thought.
Luise’s expression had relaxed again. But I couldn’t help asking, “You were waiting for another call, weren’t you?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “For some reason I’m always waiting for Alex to get in touch. But he hasn’t. We haven’t seen each other for weeks; we’ve only spoken on the phone. I wanted to sort out everything with Dirk first.”
“Does he know that you’ve got your own place and are moving out?”
Luise bit her lip. “I sent him a text. His answer was, ‘Give me time.’”
I felt compassion for her. “Oh, that’s not great perhaps, but come on, you’ve got a great apartment, we’re here now, and it will all work out somehow. After all, you had a good thing going, so maybe he means something else or he’s really busy at the moment or he just mistyped. Just wait and see. It’s easy to misunderstand these stupid text messages.”
I hoped I was right.
Luise nodded. “Yes, hopefully. So, come on, I’ll buy myself a huge bed and think of Alex, or the other men that will come after him.”
We made our way slowly down the aisles. I decided not to let myself be intimidated and made an effort to put on a facial expression that left no doubt that I’d been shopping exclusively in shops like this for years. I thought about the sofa in the old house, wooden with red upholstery, 380 euros from IKEA, and the pinewood table in front of it, 120 euros from the Home Depot. Bernd had thought they were sensible purchases, and back then I thought we would buy something nicer later. Now it was later, and Antje was sitting on it.
Charlotte said, Exactly, later is now, so buy yourself something beautiful.
And at that moment I saw the most amazing armchair I had ever seen in my life. It was enormous, soft, warm, safe, dark red, velvety, and with a matching footstool. I went over to it, sat down, and felt like I never wanted to stand up again. I shut my eyes and heard Charlotte say, Oh, yes, and then Luise said, “I was looking for you. You wanted to look at the beds with me, right?”
I opened my eyes and looked at her. “I’ve just fallen in love. I have to have it, without a doubt.”
Edith’s voice said, Only if it costs less than three hundred euros.
Luise looked at me in it. “It really suits you. It’s beautiful. How much does your new love cost then?” She looked for the price tag, shaking her head.
“This shop is too expensive for them to stick labels on the furniture. But it has to be somewhere.”
She continued looking. I stood up and found a discreet price list on a small side table. “Luise, I’ve found it, four hundred and fifty euros. Sold!”
Charlotte was pleased. That’s fine. Give or take a hundred and fifty.
I sat down contentedly and joyfully in the wonderful chair. Wrinkling her forehead, Luise studied the list. “You have to read it properly, sweetie. The footstool is four hundred and fifty, but that’s without the velvet cover; with, it’s six hundred and fifty. As I said, just for the footstool. The chair in velvet, so, just as you see it now, costs two thousand two hundred euros.”
I swallowed. So did Edith. Are you crazy? Almost three thousand euros? You paid that for half the kitchen in the old house.
Charlotte answered, Exactly, and now Antje is cooking in it.
A very smart sales assistant popped up in front of us and smiled at me. His name tag said Daniel. “It’s a really beautiful piece of furniture. Once you sit in it, you really don’t want to get up again, do you?”
I smiled back and felt understood. Luise looked at me and opened her mouth. I was quicker.
“I’ll take it.”
Luise closed her mouth again.
The smart Daniel looked at me, baffled. He seemed disappointed that he couldn’t do his sales pitch. Still sitting in my “half kitchen,” I smiled up at him. I felt unbelievably good. He turned to Luise, appealing for help.
“Yes, er, okay.”
She held his gaze. “And I need a bed.”
Now he was really unsure. “If I may, er, show you something…”
Luise interrupted him. “I’ve already found one; come with me.” She turned around and walked purposefully towards a huge bed, a dream in white, on which countless cushions and blankets were draped.
Before I followed Luise, I stroked the velvety arm of my new sanctuary. Daniel was watching me uncertainly and followed us. We stopped in front of the dream bed, where Luise was already laid out on her back. She spread her arms out, looking first at me and then Daniel through half-shut eyes, and said, “I’ll take it.”
Visibly strained, Daniel tried to find a way to get his practiced sales pitch in. He was clearly debating whether he should check to see if his spontaneous shoppers had any idea of what the prices were. His anguish was brought to an end by a resolute colleague. She walked up to us, introduced herself as Mrs. Grönke, and telling us she had just attended a mattress seminar, began to impose the fruits of her wisdom. Still lying down and bobbing her hips up and down on the mattress, Luise was subjected to the detailed differences between latex, feather core, and tempur as Mrs. Grönke worked up to full speed. The sight of Luise bouncing away like a kid in the presence of the prim sales assistant threatened to make a fit of giggles take hold again, so I moved on a few meters.
While Luise worked her way steadfastly and earnestly through all of the possible sleeping positions, I stopped in front of a chest of drawers that would look wonderful in my hall—920 euros. The lamp on it emphasized the warm tone of the wood—320 euros. I liked it. I decided to buy both.
Half an hour later we were sitting opposite Daniel at a glass table. In front of us were two glasses of champagne. We wrote our addresses down again while Daniel wrote two separate receipts, reading each section out loud to us and watching us closely. We looked back without betraying any reaction.
Once our c
redit cards had been put through, we stood up slowly, Daniel looking relieved. I thanked him and shook his hand, which put him in a muddle again. Luise did the same, giving a beaming smile while she shook his hand and thanked him as emphatically as though he had just given us everything for free. Looking embarrassed, he immediately turned around and took two small white porcelain vases from a display dining table. With a grand gesture, he handed them to us.
“May I offer you ladies a little something, for two such charming customers.”
We bowed appropriately and left the shop with controlled posture and without looking at each other. We walked through Stilwerk, collecting Luise’s reserved purchases on the way. Determined and without exchanging a single word, we made our way to the parking lot. Just before getting to our cars, in the middle of the parking lot, we both stopped, looked at each other, and the suppressed laughter burst forth.
I held the little vase towards Luise. “May I offer you…”
Our laughter became hysterical. Luise held her sides. “He thought we couldn’t pay.” The tears were running down her face.
So were mine. “Luise, we just spent over eight thousand euros in just forty-five minutes.”
She gasped for air and then carried on laughing loudly.
“And we didn’t even try to barter.”
I had a stitch. I looked at the vase. The laughter started to build up again.
“But we’ve got two vases which we can fit roughly two small flowers in.”
We were crouched next to one another in the middle of the parking lot, elegant shopping bags all around us, our faces deep red, and laughing like two teenagers. Passersby looked at us in amazement. A few smiled. Eventually, we wiped our tears away and pulled ourselves together. Luise took deep and concentrated breaths in and out. “God, that was fun!” We walked slowly over to our cars. I felt both lighthearted and grown up at the same time. I’d never spent money with such abandon in my whole life.
Once we were standing in front of Luise’s car, she looked at her watch and said, “So, what are we doing now?”