"A wonderful trousseau, she has," said Rosa. "Antimacassars even!"
"Antimacassars? What; are they for?" I asked.
"Oh, come, Bob!" Rosa looked at me so reproachfully that I immediately explained I knew, of course, what they were: lace covers, crocheted furniture ornaments, the symbol of little bourgeois respectability, the sacred symbol of married love and paradise lost.
They were none of them pros'titutes by temperament; they were the wreckage of middle class existence.
Their secret ambition was not vice, it was the marriage bed.
But they would never have admitted it.
I sat down to the piano.
Rosa had been waiting for that.
She was, like all these girls, fond of music.
As a farewell gesture I played all her and Lilly's favourite songs.
To begin with,
"The Maiden's Prayer."
The title was perhaps not specially suited to the place, but it was a tune with plenty of go and jingle.
Then followed
"The Birds' Evensong,"
"Alpine Glow,"
"When Love Dies,"
"Harlequin's Millions," and finally
"Home, Sweet Home."
Rosa was particularly fond of that one. pros'titutes are at one and the same time the hardest and the most sentimental of people.
They all joined in, Kiki singing contralto.
Lilly got up to go.
She must go and collect her bridegroom.
Rosa gave her a resounding kiss.
"Good luck, Lilly.
Don't take it too hard." Laden with presents, she left us.
God knows, but she had quite a different look from before.
The hard-bitten expression, common to all who have to do with human baseness, was wiped away; her face had softened; it actually had again something virgin.
We were standing in the door waving to Lilly when Mimi suddenly started blubbering.
She had been married herself, but her husband had died of pneumonia in the war.
If he had been killed, she complained, she would have had a small pension and would not have had to go on the streets.
Rosa patted her on the back.
"Hell, Mimi, don't lose heart.
Come and let's have another drop of coffee."
The entire party turned back into the International like so many hens into a pen.
But the right atmosphere was there no more.
"Play us one more to finish, Bob," said Rosa. "Something to buck us up."
Then I also took my leave.
Rosa slipped some more cake into my pocket.
I presented it to "Mother's" son, who was already setting up the sausage stall for the evening.
I considered what I should do.
I did not want to go to "The Bar" in any case; nor to the cinema.
What about the workshop?
I looked at my watch.
Eight o'clock.
Koster must be back by now; if he was there, Lenz would not go on jawing by the hour about the girl again.
I went.
There was light in the shed.
And not in the shed alone— the whole courtyard was flooded.
Koster was there by himself.