Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

What François had brought was the plan of a store, a colourful architectural drawing, lovingly prepared down to the smallest details. Smiling mannequins, dressed in the latest fashions, already paraded in the window displays, and outside the double front door a line of carefully sketched customers waited impatiently to be allowed in.

The three-storey building was in the classical style, the wide shop windows separated from one another by half-relief Corinthian columns from whose capitals chiselled acanthus leaves flourished. On each of the two columns which, twice as broad as the others, flanked the entrance, there sat a stone lion with the crest of Zurich between its claws. On the upper storeys the windows were bigger than usual, which produced the idea of inviting, light-flooded spaces inside.

On either side of the plan a row of medallions was arranged, drawn window frames through which one could see as if through a window all the things that were actually going on in the store. A salesman was helping a customer in his shirt-sleeves into his new jacket, a woman was trying on a hat decorated with feathers, a young couple with a bashful expression considered a selection of cots.

‘This is it,’ François said proudly. ‘The most beautiful department store in Zurich.’ He looked so happy that Arthur felt closer to his brother than he had for ages.

‘You’re planning a new building?’ he asked.

‘Eventually. Eventually.’ François said it in such an exaggeratedly dismissive way that it was clear: he couldn’t wait to be asked about further details.

‘And where?’

‘Right beside the Paradeplatz.’ François rubbed his hands. He was still kneeling on the floor, and it looked as if he was praying.

‘So you got the land after all?’

‘Not yet,’ said François, his face radiant with anticipation. ‘But it can’t go on for much longer. I have it from an impeccable source that old Landolt is on his death-bed.’

They had to admire the drawing, and François couldn’t stop revealing more and more details to them: ‘the whole thing has three underground levels — the store-room on its own has more floor-space than the whole shop! A garage specially for home deliveries — all motorised vehicle, of course, and the chauffeurs in uniform! An annual catalogue with a mail order service covering the whole of Switzerland!’ In his enthusiasm he was, without knowing it, an exact copy of his father. Janki had once, when he was bargaining over Mimi’s dowry, described the planned Modern Emporium to old Salomon Meijer.

Arthur made the right noises, said, ‘really?’ and ‘impressive!’, but he might just as well have said nothing at all, because François was basically just talking to himself. Mina, as was her way and special talent, listened to her husband as attentively as if he hadn’t described his plans and ideas to her a hundred times.

‘The most modern steam heating that closes off the entrance with an air curtain, so that the doors to the street can stay invitingly open even in cold weather! A tea-room in the fabrics department, so that one can look at the swatch books as if in the comfort of one’s own sitting-room! Four paternoster lifts and also…’

François got no further with his enthusiastic account, because there was suddenly a noise outside the door, a violent argument, a defensive voice could be heard, and another, furious voice that would not be fobbed off, and then the door to the drawing room flew open and Mimi stormed in, tramped over the rolled-out plan, her heels tearing holes in the paper, pushed Arthur aside and grabbed François by the arm, pulled him up from his kneeling position and grabbed him by the lapels of his coat so that he was forced to stand facing her, her face very close to his. The terrified maid appeared in the doorway and tried to explain that she had simply been pushed aside, that there was nothing she could do about it, but she couldn’t get a word out because Mimi was shouting at François, shouting at him so violently and so furiously that she spat as she did so, shouted and shouted and wouldn’t let go of him the whole time. He didn’t defend himself, just put up with it and tried unsuccessfully to understand what it was that Mimi was saying over and over again, and which made absolutely no sense.

‘I will never forgive you for that!’ Mimi shouted. ‘Never, never, never will I forgive you for that.’

In the end it was a delivery of English gentlemen’s boots that brought the whole structure of lies crashing down.

The two wooden crates full of shoe-boxes, which had arrived two days earlier than expected, were too big for the door of the warehouse marked ‘Bureau’, so they stayed in the salesroom and compromised the sales-promoting elegance on which Siegfried Weill placed such value in his shop. So he decreed that the crates be emptied immediately, and the boxes placed on the shelves, an operation for which he had to call upon the services not only of his two members of staff, but of his whole family, ‘yes, you too, young lady, you can take that elegant coat of yours off right this minute and put on an apron instead.’

That afternoon Esther Weill had arranged to see her friend Désirée, and had been on the point of leaving the house when her father stopped her and dragooned her to work for him in spite of all her protests. An hour previously, and this was among the precautionary measures they had agreed, she had dropped in at the Pomeranz household as if by chance, and had discreetly confirmed to Désirée that nothing stood in the way of their autumn walk together. Only then had Désirée confided in her mother that Esther Weill was meeting her suitor again, and that as her best friend she had once again to act as chaperone and alibi in one.

In the event of last minute obstacles, they had agreed this, the rendezvous was to be cancelled straight away and rearranged for a different time. But Désirée was too much in love to be sensible. More than a week had passed since the last time, and this week had been an eternity.

They had already missed far too many years together. As if everyone and everything had conspired to keep them apart. When in fact they were meant for one another.

From childhood onwards.

Désirée and Alfred.

Alfred and Désirée.

They had arranged to meet on the Dolder, in the deer park behind the Grand Hotel. It was a long walk there from the hut in the forest where the rack terminated, so one could be fairly sure, at least on weekdays, that one wouldn’t meet anyone.

When she arrived he was already there. He was always already there, he missed her so much every minute. Even from a distance he could see that Désirée was carrying her hat in her hand, and that made him happy because he knew what it meant. Mimi insisted that Désirée wear wide-brimmed hats because of her sensitive complexion, and they got in the way of kissing. They kissed each other for a long time, and no one was watching them. Only a stag, no more timid than a cow stood behind the bars of its enclosure, seemed like them to be waiting for something.

Esther didn’t come; it was already twenty minutes past the agreed time, and she had never been as late as this before. ‘She mustn’t have been allowed to get away for some reason,’ said Alfred. ‘You’ll have to go back straight away.’

But his face was so sad, and Désirée couldn’t bear to see him sad. ‘Just five minutes, just three, just one.’

His tongue tasted of peppermint. Before they met he always sucked these little pastilles; it made her laugh at him, and love him all the more.

And then a whole hour had passed, and there was no getting around it; she had to deceive Mimi one way or another. Sometimes Désirée completely forgot that she lied to her mother every time, it become so natural to let Esther Weill play the lead in her own love story. It was so easy to forget everything in the few hours they had together.