Free After Midnight by Irmgard Keun

like being released from a curse, and Aunt Adelheid lost interest in the wreathing of the picture. At last there came a Sunday when it got no wreath at all, because she had forgotten to buy the fresh flowers.
    Of course she soon ferreted out the fact that there was something going on between Franz and me. Well, we didn’t go to much trouble to hide it. Franz told her we were planning to get married in one or two years’ time, and how could she actually object? Hitherto Franz had been giving his mother his entire salary, getting just a little bit of pocket money now and then. Now he gave her only half of it, and saved up the rest of the money for our future. We were thinking of opening a shop some day. I thought a tobacconist’s would be best. We wouldn’t have needed much initial capital, because the cigarette firms give you credit, and youcould begin in an area where shop rents are really cheap. Later on, we might sell newspapers and magazines and stationery too, and we could add a little lending library as well. Franz and I often liked to lay such plans. We enjoyed it.
    Aunt Adelheid tried to annoy us and spite us in any way she could, but we didn’t much mind: there were two of us, after all, and we were of the same mind. When there are two of you, you can laugh at a good many things which would make you cry on your own.
    All the same, Aunt Adelheid managed to ruin practically everything for us with the help of politics. It was like this:
    We’d gone out for a walk one Saturday, in the middle of the day, Franz and myself and Franz’s friend Paul. Paul is short and round and fat, not a man you’d fall in love with, but I was extremely fond of him. As soon as he came rolling up you felt like laughing. He worked in a hardware factory in the Ehrenfeld district.
    That Saturday, he’d invited Franz and me out for a glass of local Cologne beer in the Päffgen Bar. We were very cheerful, and we had a gin as well. Then, unfortunately, I had to go back to serve in the shop, because Aunt Adelheid was having a coffee party that afternoon. Franz and Paul came too, to keep me company, and in return I promised to pinch them something to eat from the kitchen on the sly.
    Aunt Adelheid was sitting in the shop with Fraulein Fricke, an old maid who keeps house for her brother. We were in good time; the rest of the women coming to the hen-party wouldn’t arrive for another half hour or more.
    Fraulein Fricke was deep in political conversation with Aunt Adelheid. “Before the first of March, you know, I used to cry—every night, I used to cry, and if I didn’t cry I prayed, and what did I look like?”
    “Oh, dear me, you looked terrible.”
    “But I don’t cry nowadays, do I, and I don’t need to pray any more, and I’m looking better too now, aren’t I?”
    “Oh, dear me, yes, you’re looking better too now.”
    “Trust, you see, that’s all we need, and the Führer will do the rest.”
    They went on talking about the Führer, and Fraulein Fricke said she’d made a little altar to him in her room, with candles burning all the time.
    I could tell Paul wanted to provoke Aunt Adelheid and Fraulein Fricke, who is always a bit peculiar. That was fine by me. Paul produced a newspaper showing the main differences between National Socialists and criminals. On the left, there were pictures of the heads of Gauleiters, group leaders and other high-up Nazis, and on the right there were the heads of pickpockets, rapists, robbers, murderers and suchlike. Paul hid the captions below the pictures and got the two women to guess who was a National Socialist and who was a criminal. They actually guessed wrong three times running, which amused Paul a lot and made both ladies furious. Paul said it didn’t say much for their sound German instincts if they could take a National Socialist for a criminal, and vice versa.
    The atmosphere in the little shop was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. There was a hot and angry gleam in Aunt