The “I Do” Joker: Or Why You Should Never Marry a Washing Machine
Part 9: The Interrogation Beneath the Swan Banner
Grandma Hildegard’s black Mercedes rolled into the hall like it was leading a raid. The tyres kicked up the dust Mia and I had only just painstakingly swept into the corners. The door swung open and Hildegard stepped out, wearing a trench coat and gloves—an outfit that screamed: “I’m here to secure evidence.”
“Everyone listen up!” Lukas hissed at the eBay extras. “Look happy, but distant! Malte, pull the beret lower over your face!”
Hildegard stopped and slowly let her gaze sweep across the hall. It lingered on the stack of old tyres, where the extras now sat like a flock of depressed ravens. Then her eyes moved to Beate, who was trying to decorate the stuffed swan, Lohmeyer, with a string of fairy lights.
“Beate,” Hildegard said dryly. “I see you’ve brought Aunt Erna’s dust collector. It’s a miracle it doesn’t start sneezing spontaneously in this smell.” “Mum!” Beate called, rushing towards her. “Isn’t it wonderful? Finn and Mia chose this… raw aesthetic.”
Hildegard ignored her and headed straight for Basti, who was still standing behind the duct-tape altar in his tight turtleneck. Basti froze, clutching his empty notebook like a shield. “And who might you be?” Hildegard asked, inspecting him from head to toe. “You don’t look like a registrar. You look like someone who writes poems about rain at night and never reads them to anyone.”
Basti swallowed hard. “I am… Dr h.c. von Vogelstein,” he croaked, trying to smile away his penguin past. “I practise the… phenomenological wedding ceremony. We unite not just two bodies here, but two narratives in a post-industrial context.”
Hildegard stepped closer. She sniffed. “Interesting. And why do you smell of breaded pollock fillet, Doctor?” I felt cold sweat run down my back. Lukas intervened instantly. “That’s a special perfume! ‘Ocean Breeze’. Very exclusive, very… maritime.”
Hildegard slowly turned to me. “Finn-Alexander. Come here.” I shuffled forward; Mia immediately hooked her arm through mine and dug her fingernails into my bicep. “Yes, Grandma Hildegard?” “Those people on the tyres there,” she gestured vaguely towards the eBay extras, “who are they? I don’t recognise anyone from the family.”
Malte, the “sad uncle”, sensed his moment. He stood up, placed a hand on his heart and said in a trembling voice, “We are the witnesses of silence, gracious lady. We are Finn’s… uh… old friends from times of hardship.” Hildegard raised an eyebrow. “Hardship? Did you work in a mine together, or why are you all wearing turtlenecks at fifteen degrees indoor temperature?”
“It’s a statement against consumerist terror!” shouted an extra in the background, who was really just there for the free beer. Hildegard did not laugh. She didn’t even smile. She walked to the gift table, nudged Lohmeyer the swan two centimetres to the left with the tip of her walking stick, and looked Mia straight in the eyes. “Mia, my child. You know I used to find the smallest irregularities in customs paperwork. And this whole event here…”—she made a sweeping gesture—“…has more irregularities than a shipment of counterfeit watches from overseas.”
Mia swallowed. “Grandma, I—” “But,” Hildegard interrupted her, “your mother is crying with happiness, and the swan is finally standing in a place just as dead as he is. So for now, I will pretend to believe you. But if this Dr Vogelstein uses the word ‘narrative’ even once during the vows, I will shut this celebration down.”
She turned and marched towards the exit. “Lukas! Bring me a glass of that champagne substitute. If I’m going to be lied to, I at least want to be drunk while it happens.”
We stood there like statues of oil and dust. “That was close,” I whispered. “Too close,” Mia said, letting go of my arm. “We need to reprogramme Basti. And someone has to stop Karl-Friedrich from gnawing on Lohmeyer’s feathers.”
But our biggest problem was still ahead of us: the actual ceremony was scheduled for tomorrow—and Hildegard had only just started digging.