Chapter Text
WOLFGANG AND SOPHIE
" we’ve been on a few dates and my child just asked us when we are getting married"
None of it would ever have happened had Felix not asked him to go to karaoke.
“C’mon, man,” he said, and Wolfgang pointedly ignored him, and continued cleaning the vice. “When was the last time we went out? What happened to the brotherhood , Wolfie?”
Wolfgang said nothing.
“It’s one night,” Felix insisted, “It’ll be fun, there'll be drinking and dancing and damsels -”
Because chasing after damsels had turned out so well for Wolfgang in the past.
“I can’t,” he said flatly, “Who’d watch Sophie?”
Felix shrugged. “I dunno - your aunt?”
“No.”
“Isn't there some old lady in your building who could look after her?”
There probably was. But Sophie didn't like strangers, and neither did Wolfgang. And more than that, he knew the kind of people who lived in his building - an interfering, gossipy old woman nosing around their apartment sounded like a nightmare.
“Or,” Felix said slowly, “she could always watch herself?”
Wolfgang dropped his cloth and - finally - looked at Felix.
“She's six,” he said.
“Didn't we look after ourselves at that age?”
When Wolfgang was six his mother had still been around, and they had looked after each other. Sophie, on the other hand, only had him. If he fell short, there wasn't anyone else to pick up the slack. It was terrifying.
“There’s karaoke,” Felix pressed, and Wolfgang shook his head.
“You go.”
“Not without you, man.”
Felix came over for dinner without asking, which happened so often it felt almost like tradition. It would've been wrong if Felix had asked, or if Wolfgang invited him.
“Tell your dad,” Felix said through mouthfuls of pasta, “to come out on Saturday night.”
Sophie blinked twice and said nothing.
“You won't even know he's gone,” Felix continued, “he'll put you to bed and he'll be back by the time you wake up, and a nice old lady who lives upstairs will -”
“Felix,” Wolfgang said sharply, “shut up, man.”
Sophie blinked again, blue eyes wide, and took a long sip of juice.
“She doesn't mind,” Felix insisted. Wolfgang shook his head.
“Yeah, but I do.”
Later, after Felix had gone home - even though he spent so much time in Wolfgang’s apartment, it pretty much was his home - Sophie, duvet drawn to her chin, asked him if he wanted to go to the karaoke bar.
“Not really,” Wolfgang told her, which wasn't strictly true. Felix was right - he couldn't remember the last time he’d gone out. But the fact was, going out meant leaving Sophie with a stranger, and he couldn’t do that. He barely trusted himself to look after her, let alone some old biddy who could remember the Weimar Republic.
“You like karaoke,” Sophie said, “you did it at my birthday party.”
He had, that was true. And he’d slept with one of the mothers of her friends, a woman named Anja who he avoided at the school gates now. But Sophie didn't know that.
“I think you should go,” she said solemnly.
“You do?”
“Mhmm. I've been thinking about it and it doesn't really seem fair that I go to parties all the time without you, like last week when I went to Elizabeth’s birthday party and you were at work, and you never get to go out without me.”
He laughed.
“In that case, I’ll go.”
Sophie watched him with her large serious eyes, like she was trying to figure out whether he was being sincere.
“I’ll go,” he said again, and she smiled, just for a second.
Mrs Weiss from upstairs took little convincing to watch Sophie for four hours on a Saturday night.
“Of course I’ll keep an eye on her,” she said when Wolfgang asked her in the lobby on the Friday afternoon, “she's such a sweet girl, and so strong, especially after everything that happened with her mother.”
If Mrs Weiss thought she was going to get any information about what happened to Sophie’s mother from Wolfgang, she was sorely mistaken.
“She won't be any trouble,” he said, and Mrs Weiss laughed.
“Of course not! We’ll have a marvellous time.”
The club was heaving, there were so many people he could hardly see - Felix kept giving him shots, and it almost, almost felt like it did before, save for the constant hum of worry in his chest. Sophie had lived with him for two years and he hadn't left her once.
“Relax, bro,” Felix said, “Have another drink, let's find some chicks to dance with, it's fine! You need to loosen up!"
He did three shots of vodka, one after the other, and then he saw her.
She was probably the most beautiful woman Wolfgang had ever seen. She was about to take to the karaoke stage, and she was laughing. She brushed her hair out of her face, and Wolfgang wondered what it would be like to touch her hair. To make her laugh. Something in him, a part of himself he’d silenced even before Sophie came to live with him, wanted and wondered and - yearned.
One of the girls she was with grabbed the microphone from her hand and shouted “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WITH WHAT’S UP BY 4 NON BLONDES, MISS KALA DANDEKAR!”
Felix grabbed his arm. “Oh shit, dude,” he said, “that girl’s doing your song!”
Wolfgang shrugged. “I don't mind.”
Felix watched him watch Kala for a moment, and then a look of dawning realisation crossed his face.
“Oh shit,” he crowed, “Didn't I tell you tonight would be worth it? Didn't I?”
As Kala sung with joyous abandon, throwing her arms out and closing her eyes, Wolfgang had to admit that Felix was right.
He lost sight of her initially after she left the stage, and declined Felix’s offer of duetting to Springsteen’s Born to Run.
“That's shit,” he said, although at this point in the night his words were slightly slurred, “We do 99 Red Balloons or we don't do anything.”
“I don't wanna do 99 Red Balloons ," Felix complained, “I wanna do Bruce!”
“Go on,” Wolfgang laughed, “Go and find a girl to do Bruce with.”
Felix grinned. “I love you, man.”
He stumbled from his stool, and Wolfgang laughed again (when was the last time he’d laughed this much?). He turned round to face the bar and - oh. There she was.
Kala was stood right next to him - she smelt of jasmine. Her elbow was on the bar and she was resting in her chin in her hand, and with her other hand, she tapped her purse on the countertop restlessly, like she was waiting for something.
He wasn't really sure what to say.
“You stole my song.”
“Sorry?”
He laughed. “You did What's Up . I normally do What's Up. ”
She nodded slowly. “Do you? Because my sister and I have been coming to this night for quite a few weeks now and I've never seen you before.”
Recently, of course, he’d only been singing What’s Up to Sophie whilst she brushed her teeth, but it was a little early to tell Kala this.
“I've been busy.”
She nodded again. “What song will you do instead?”
“I won't.”
99 Red Balloons was a joint effort, and Felix, the bastard, had chosen Springsteen over him.
She narrowed her eyes at him, which made him laugh again.
“You'll come to a karaoke night and not do any karaoke? What a waste!”
“It's not a waste,” he said, before he could stop himself.
“Why not?”
Well. He may as well be honest now. “Because I met you.”
She blushed slightly. “You don't even know me.”
“No,” he agreed, “but I’d like to.”
“Does that line always work?”
“It wasn't a line!”
“It sounded like a line,” she said firmly. The waiter brought her drink over - it was pink and looked like it had too much sugar in it. She sipped it, and looked at him thoughtfully.
“You’re really not going to sing tonight?” she asked. He laughed.
“That really bothers you, huh?”
She nodded. “Yes, what's the point of a karaoke night if no one sings?”
“People are singing,” he pointed out, “just not me.”
She took another sip of her drink.
“Are you embarrassed? Is that it? Because -”
“No, I don't get embarrassed.” This was true. Kala wrinkled her nose.
“Then what is it?”
He shrugged.
“I already told you. You did my song.”
He didn't sing that night, although Felix did - he did Born to Run with a red headed girl he wound up going home with.
Wolfgang watched the taxi containing the two of them disappear into the night.
He glanced over to Kala, who for some reason had stuck with him the whole evening. She seemed genuinely interested in what he said, and he had found himself hanging on her every word. She was from Bombay, originally, and she and her sister Daya had come to Berlin to work for a pharmaceutical company. He suspected, from the controlled casualness of her tone, there was something a little more to it than that, but he didn't want to push it. The last person he’d actually, properly, been able to talk to was - well, it had been a while, was all.
He looked at his watch. It was two in the morning, which was a whole two hours later than he told Mrs Weiss he’d be home.
“So.” Kala said. Wolfgang nodded.
“So.”
“Here we are.”
“Here we are.”
She laughed. “Are you just going to repeat everything I say?”
He shook his head, and she took his hand. The warmth of her, in the cold night, made him shiver.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
Ah.
“Not far,” he said. He couldn't take her home with him, as much as he wanted to. It wasn't the thought of Mrs Weiss that frightened him - she and her old lady friends could say whatever the hell they wanted about him at their bridge club - but Sophie.
He didn't want to kick Kala out of his bed and he also didn't want to introduce Sophie to someone who was just going to leave again, in a few weeks or a few months or whenever it was that Kala realised that she could do far better than him. The poor kid had had enough to deal with in her life already.
“We can't….” he began, and Kala’s face fell.
“Why? Did I do something wrong?”
He shook his head vehemently.
“No, it's - it's not you.”
Kala did not let go of his hand. “Tell me,” she said, very quietly.
The words felt too heavy on his tongue, and so he pulled out his phone - the lock screen was of him and Sophie last summer, eating ice cream in the park. They were both squinting in the sunlight. The family resemblance was, more in this image than any other that had been taken of the two of them together, startlingly clear.
“Oh,” said Kala.
“Her name’s Sophie,” he said shortly, and shoved his phone back into his pocket, “and she's six.”
He looked up at the moon, and waited for her grip on his hand to loosen, for her to say it was nice to meet you but - and get into a taxi. But nothing happened.
“I see,” she said after a while, “I see. I guess - in that case then, I’ll just walk you home.”
He snorted. “You'll walk me? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?”
She shrugged. “I'm a modern woman. I’ll call Daya and she’ll get the taxi to come and pick me up when she goes home.”
Daya was still inside the club, having bumped into some girls she and Kala worked with. Last time Wolfgang had seen her, she was singing Taylor Swift songs whilst stood on a table.
“So,” Kala said, and he realised she was smiling, “which way is it?”
Mrs Weiss was asleep on the sofa, knitting in her hands and an old movie on the TV. Her mouth was open and she was snoring.
Wolfgang and Kala watched her for a moment, hovering in the doorway, before they both began to giggle. Mrs Weiss snorted. Kala shoved her fist in her mouth to stop herself from cackling with laughter and they shushed each other, like they were kids preparing to play a prank.
With as much gentleness as he could muster, Wolfgang shook Mrs Weiss awake. She spluttered as she woke.
Wolfgang forced himself not to look at Kala because he knew if he did, they would both burst out laughing.
“Mrs Weiss,” he whispered as not to wake Sophie, “Thank you for your time.”
He dug out his wallet, and Mrs Weiss shook her head.
“Don't be ridiculous, young man,” she said, and Wolfgang winced at the volume of her voice, “It was the least I could do for that poor motherless child.”
She patted his hand in a there, there sort of way, despite the fact he hadn't shown any reaction to her declaration of his daughter’s motherlessness.
It was only when she stood that Mrs Weiss noticed Kala.
“Oh," she said, “hello.”
“Hullo,” Kala said, and waved, a little awkwardly, like she didn’t know what to do with her hands.
“Kala, Mrs Weiss. Mrs Weiss, Kala.”
Mrs Weiss looked from Wolfgang, to Kala and then back again.
“I see,” she sniffed, and Kala began to giggle again, “I’ll leave you to it then. Good night, Mr Bogdanow.”
She shuffled out of the apartment in the way that old ladies do, heavy footed and breathing deeply. Kala’s eyes were filling with tears from trying so hard not to laugh, and the moment the front door slammed shut it burst from the both of them, giggles and hiccups of mirth.
“Mr Bogdanow,” Kala snorted, and that made Wolfgang laugh harder.
“Sophie is asleep,” he reminded her as they both giggled, Kala clinging to his arm like the weight of her laughter was too much to bear. She nodded, and stood up straight. She pressed her lips together tightly, smothering the laugh, and Wolfgang thought there was nothing he’d like more in the world than to kiss her.
“Yes,” Kala whispered, “Sophie is asleep.”
They were inches away from each other now, he could feel her breath on his cheeks.
“I’m not going to kiss you,” she murmured, “because I feel like if I do, I won't be able to stop.”
She stepped back, and Wolfgang inhaled sharply. He felt - he felt dizzy, from being so close to her. He hadn't felt like that since he was a teenager. Why was it so easy for him to fall into bed with the single mothers whose children went to the same school as his daughter, and so difficult for him to merely stand next to Kala?
“When can I see you again?” he asked, like it was a damn romance novel. Kala smiled as she rummaged in her handbag for her phone.
“Call me tomorrow.”
“Today is tomorrow.”
She looked up, beamed at him. “Well then call me later.”
He nodded.
She pressed the phone to her ear, and then nodded towards the TV, which was still on the old movie Mrs Weiss had been watching.
“It Happened One Night,” she said, “I love that movie - hi Daya, are you in a taxi?”
The moment, so fragile between them, was gone. He let her out of the front door, and watched her clamber into the cab her sister had sent for her. And after she’d gone, for what felt like an incredibly long time, he stood in the doorway of his home.
It happened one night. Sounded about right.
He and Sophie ate breakfast in silence, which used to frighten him but was now a comfort. Neither of them felt like being people much before eleven, and a hangover loomed over him, making his temples throb and his stomach ache.
Felix called around noon, eager to relay the details of his night with the red headed girl.
“And what about you, man?” Felix asked, “You and that chick - what was her name?”
“Kala,” Wolfgang mumbled. Felix whooped.
“Yes! Kala! What happened with that, did you-?”
“Nothing.”
Sophie was sat cross legged in front of the television, but her eyes were on her father. On the other end of the phone, Felix swore.
“Nothing? Really? You’re losing your touch, Wolfie!”
He remembered the way Kala had looked when she’d whispered she wasn't going to kiss him. The tenderness of it all. He didn't feel like he’d lost anything.
“I’m calling her later.”
“Oh yeah? Calling is not the same as getting laid, my friend.”
Wolfgang laughed. “I’ll speak to you later.”
“I told you it’d be a night to remember, didn't I? I’m never wrong, Wolfie!”
The phone rang three times before Kala picked it up. Before she said hello, she hissed something in Hindi at her sister.
“I was beginning to think you weren't going to call,” she said.
There was a laugh in her voice. Of course he called. He was always going to.
“I was busy with the kid.”
“Ah, yes,” Kala laughed, “how is she?”
Sophie was, at that moment, lying on her stomach across the rug, and intently colouring in a Disney princess colouring book Wolfgang’s aunt got her for her fifth birthday. When she heard him say the kid, she looked up. To everyone else, her eyes were unreadable, but her eyes were Wolfgang’s eyes, and so he knew: she was curious, and a little frightened, but mostly she loved him and knew that whatever came out of his mouth next wouldn't be I fucking hate that kid, or whatever bullshit she had to hear before she lived with him.
“She's okay,” he told Kala. Sophie smiled.
“Do you two have plans today?” Kala asked. The tremble in her voice betrayed her tone of casualness.
“No. Do you?”
“No, Daya’s getting a late lunch with some friends, and I - it's a beautiful day, do you wanna get a coffee and go to a park or something?”
Sophie still hadn't returned to her colouring book. She shuffled up into a sitting position. Wolfgang didn't know about the weather - he never left the house with a hangover, and Sophie was always perfectly happy with TV and colouring on a Sunday. But he could see it, in the part of his brain that yearned, the three of them wandering around, hand in hand - Kala pushing Sophie on the swings.
“The three of us?” he asked Kala.
“I mean, only if it's okay with you,” she said quickly, “I know - I know you've both been through a lot and we barely know each other but - but I feel very strongly about you, Wolfgang, and somehow, somehow I know you feel the same.”
“Hold on,” he rested the phone against his shoulder, “Sophie - do you want to go to the park?”
She scrunched up her face for a second, like she was thinking (it was one of the only things she did that reminded him of her mother) and then nodded, sharply.
He pressed the phone to his ear again.
“Yes.”
It was warm enough that you didn't need a coat - which Wolfgang was grateful for because Sophie hated putting a coat on, and he hated trying to make her wear one - but cool enough that it wasn't uncomfortable.
They sat on a park bench, the two adults clutching cups of coffee and Sophie earnestly sipping an apple juice. She hadn't said a word since Kala had arrived. Wolfgang had spoken for her, answering Kala’s questions about school and her friends and which princesses she’d been colouring in. If he’d made an important point - that her favourite thing to do at school was paint, and her best friend’s name was Amy and that she didn't have a favourite princess, but she liked Merida because Merida had hair like Sophie’s mother - she’d nod forcefully.
“So do you like movies, Sophie?” Kala asked, and sipped her coffee. Sophie nodded.
“I love movies. Do you like movies with dancing in them?”
Sophie scrunched up her nose, and then shook her head.
“No? Well what's your favourite movie?”
Wolfgang fully expected Sophie to look at him, to ask him - with her eyes, the mirror of his own - to answer the question for her. But she didn't.
“Conan," she grinned.
Kala laughed. “Conan? The barbarian?”
She looked at Wolfgang and raised her eyebrows. Seriously dude?
“All that matters is that two stood against many,” he quoted, and shrugged. “It's Felix’s favourite movie.”
“It’s Dad’s favourite too,” Sophie said, “what's your favourite movie, Kala?”
“Oh goodness,” Kala sighed dreamily, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, “well, I love any movie that's got any kind of dancing in it - Singing in the Rain, have you seen Singing in the Rain?”
Sophie shook her head.
“Oh my, we’ll have to watch Singing in the Rain ! Oh, and Pakeezah, that's one of my favourites too, and - well, it's too hard to just choose one.”
Sophie’s scrunched up nose smoothed out, and she tilted her head slightly like she was seriously considering Kala for the first time.
“You ever seen Conan?" she asked.
Kala shook her head. “No, I’m afraid I haven't.”
“We’ll watch Pakeezah with you if you watch Conan with us,” Sophie said, “It’s only fair.”
Kala smiled, and turned to look at Wolfgang. Is that alright, her eyes seemed to say. He nodded. It was more than alright.
Sophie looked from Kala, to her father, and then back again. She smiled.
On the Tuesday after the karaoke night, Felix got called out to fix an old lady’s front door because her key broke in the lock, and so Wolfgang took Sophie straight from school to the shop, to man it until the end of the day. He brought her an ice cream as a consolation.
They had so few customers that day that he had taken it upon himself to clean every tool they owned, and Sophie sat on the table while he worked, swinging her legs and eating her ice cream and pointing out when he’d missed a spot.
“Did you speak to Kala today?” she asked.
He nodded.
“When is she going to watch Conan with us?”
Wolfgang shrugged.
“When is she going to come to our house for dinner?”
He shrugged again. “You’re full of questions today, aren't you?”
Sophie nodded, her face covered in chocolate and her eyes twinkling with what Wolfgang thought looked like happiness.
“My teacher says I’m inquisitive. What does that mean?”
“It means you’re nosey - pass me that cloth, please.”
She did so.
“I like knowing things,” she said.
He nodded. “It's good to know things.”
“Yeah. Like, do you know when you're going to marry Kala?”
He almost laughed, but her face was deadly serious.
“When am I going to marry Kala?”
Sophie nodded. “Mhmm. I think you should.”
Well. That settled it then, didn't it?