The dress was lent to me by Hanna's older sister: black, severe, one size larger than my confidence. The shoes pinched like somebody else's principles. The Foundation's cloakroom smelled of fur and frost; the mirror there was tall and honest, and the girl in it looked like a person invited by mistake. I straightened my shoulders. In my first life I would have believed the mirror. In this one I knew that mirrors in houses like that lie in favour of the owners.
The evening was held in the Foundation's east hall: chandeliers, polished parquet, adults with glasses of mineral water discussing teenagers as though they were securities. Along the walls stood tables of food that nobody touched in earnest: here food was not food but scenery for conversations about the futures of other people's children.
My mother could not come: Saturday, the shop, the orders before the New Year. She pressed my dress, counted my hairpins and said in the doorway, "Keep your back straight. And don't disgrace the name Mohr." Nobody in that hall had heard the name Mohr. That was precisely what I intended to change.
Hanna arrived as my guest and began, before she was properly through the door, to count how many times the trustees would say the word 'resilience'.
"Four already," she reported ten minutes later. "The fifth will be at the canapé table. Five euros on it."
"I'm not betting against a person who underlines dates twice."
"Very sensible." She narrowed her eyes at the room. "Look at the way they talk to the candidates. They lean down. Like people at an aquarium."
Julian was there too, by the stairs, in a dark suit that fitted him badly and for that reason somehow suited him all the more. Charlotte stood beside him in pale blue satin, glowing as though she had been grown especially for these chandeliers. Her hand rested on Julian's elbow, but her eyes were on the tall boy by the window.
The boy by the window was Konstantin Eisenberg of Moritzberg Gymnasium – regional debating champion, son of a shipowner and a candidate whose surname already elicited a special tone at the Foundation. He stood in the circle of adults as easily as if he were at home, listening to them with that courteous attention which promises nothing. In my first life Charlotte had not noticed him: by then Julian had already won the scholarship and was the better story. Now her eyes rested on Konstantin half a second longer than was decent. Julian saw it. I saw him see it, and looked away before the geometry of his pain could draw me in.
At the refreshment table Mrs von Ahlenberg ran me to ground. She was of the same breed as her daughter, only with more self-command and a more expensive smile.
"Klara Mohr," she said. "I have heard a great deal about you."
"Good evening."
"First place in the selection exam. The national final. Impressive."
"Thank you."
Her eyes travelled over the borrowed dress, the plain shoes, my carefully straightened back. It was a professional look: the way a valuer inspects a flat that is about to be sold to cover debts.
"Remind me what family you are from?"
"The Mohr family," I said. "My mother works in a supermarket. At weekends, in the flower shop on Großfeldstraße."
"How very… down-to-earth." The pause was calculated to the millimetre. "You used to tutor Julian Wolf, did you not?"
The question was not accidental: women like that spend no words without an estimate.
"I did. Then I stopped."
"And why was that?"
"My own future needed attention."
"Naturally. Ambition needs pruning, like roses."
I almost admired the phrasing. She touched the glass to her lips.
"Julian is gifted, but a talent that is helped too much becomes dependent. It is possible that by withdrawing you did him a service."
There it was, the art of rich women: to turn my exhaustion into his useful lesson. Everything in that sentence was flawlessly built, apart from one thing. She was offering me a part in somebody else's story. I already had my own.
"I did myself a service," I said.
Her smile froze for exactly one second, like the needle of a scale flinching under a weight nobody had allowed for. She looked at me more attentively than she had meant to, and I understood that I had just been moved from one card index into another, out of 'talent's hired help' and into 'asset, unclassified'. It was not a promotion, but at least I was out of the basement.
Hartmann appeared beside us like a tired guardian angel.
"Mrs von Ahlenberg, I see you have met our top pupil."
"A very direct young person."
"That is her gift."
When she had moved off, towards other aquariums, Hartmann looked at me.
"Be careful in halls like this."
"I thought scholarships existed for the sake of halls like this."
"No. In halls like this, what exists is a price."
Across the room Charlotte laughed at something Konstantin had said. The laugh was calibrated: loud enough to reach not Konstantin but Julian. Hanna followed my eyes and delivered her verdict.
"That girl changes course like a yacht. She goes wherever the wind is more favourable."
The line was cruel but accurate.
"By the way," Hanna added. "'Resilience' – eleven. You owe me five euros."
"I never took the bet."
"That's what they all say."
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