The squeak of the flat door sounded in my ears like the trumpets of the Last Judgement. I spun around, pan with half-frozen Maultaschen in hand. Meanwhile, Mia was trying to stuff her mountain of tulle under the kitchen table in a way that made it look less like a bride and more like a very bulky leftover carpet.
Grandma Hildegard entered the kitchen. Her hat brushed the doorframe, and her gaze scanned the room with X-ray precision. She stopped, raised her nose, and sniffed. “Lavender?” she asked coolly. “Has someone tried to cover the smell of a guilty conscience with a perfumery explosion?”
“That’s Finn’s new shower gel, Grandma!” Mia blurted out a little too loudly. “He loves it. He says it reminds him of… of our shared future on a field in Provence.”
Hildegard looked at me. I was still wearing the jacket whose back seam was now held together only by three safety pins and the sheer willpower of duct tape. “So in Provence one cooks in shredded confirmation suits?” she asked, sitting down at our wobbly kitchen table. “Sit. I want to talk about the future. And about Liechtenstein.”
Mia and I sank into our chairs. The Maultaschen in the pan began to sizzle, but I didn’t dare get up. “Dr von Vogelstein was very… forthcoming,” Hildegard continued. “After his fifth glass of sparkling wine, he confessed to having a deep connection to penguins. He called it a ‘spiritual kinship through cold and fish fingers’.”
“I see,” Hildegard went on, leaning forward. “And the fifty guests, all wearing black turtlenecks and not knowing each other—was that also a metaphor?”
At that moment, there was a crash in the stairwell. Something heavy banged against the walls, accompanied by muffled swearing that unmistakably belonged to Lukas. The kitchen door flew open and Lukas stumbled in. He was clearly drunk, his hair sticking out in all directions, and tucked under his right arm was the stuffed swan, Lohmeyer.
“PEOPLE!” he yelled. “The party’s over, but the swan lives! Uncle Herbert wanted to use him as a bowling ball, but I saved him!” Lukas froze when he spotted Grandma Hildegard at the table. He looked at the swan, then at Hildegard, then back at the swan. “Oh. Hello… Mrs Senior Customs Officer. We just… uh… brought Lohmeyer along for the wedding night. He’s family.”
Hildegard rose slowly. “A rat in the dress, a penguin at the altar, and now a swan in the kitchen.” She stepped towards Lukas, who held the swan up like a shield. “Young man, do you know what we used to do in customs with people who smuggled this badly?”
Lukas swallowed. “Award them… a medal for artistic performance?”
“No,” Hildegard said, picking up her handbag. “We waited until they exposed themselves. Mia, Finn-Alexander… the Maultaschen are burning.” She headed for the door, then paused. “I expect you tomorrow at ten o’clock for the official gift review. Bring the accounts. And Lukas—don’t drop the bird. It’s the only thing in this room that’s lying less than all of you put together.”
When she was gone, we all collapsed. The kitchen filled with the smell of burnt Maultaschen and the unblinking stare of the swan. “She knows,” Lukas whispered, setting Lohmeyer down on the hob. “She knows everything. We’re finished.”
“Not quite,” Mia said, fishing a cash envelope out of her tulle. “We have the money. We just have to survive one more night without the police or the tax authorities turning up.”