It’s a most exciting day. Anna and little sister Renate are going downtown to each buy a new dress for the fall. With Mother.
Anna is beside herself at the prospect of choosing her own clothes, now that she has turned eight. And Renate is beside herself at the prospect of receiving a new dress, not a hand-me-down. It will be green, that’s a given. If and when she does get new clothes, they’re always green. Mother has very set opinions about what colours ought to be worn with a certain shade of hair — Renate is a ‘wheat blonde’, hence the green. Anna’s hair has morphed from a reddish sandy when she was a toddler to a chestnut brown and, according to Mother’s law, this means red clothes. Fire engine red, lipstick red, red currant red, — and for this reason, ever since she graduated from toddler-pink Anna has hated her clothes.
Out here in the suburbs the S-Bahn runs above ground and doesn’t stop for five to eight minutes between stations, and it hurtles along at high speed. The girls sit glued to the window, Anna’s arm protectively around Renate’s shoulder, watching gardens with swings, little flower beds, sand boxes, intersections with double decker buses driving along cobblestone streets, peering at people coming out of bakeries and green grocers, carrying their purchases in jute bags or those large loop beige netted ones that let you see precisely what your neighbour will cook for dinner today. Next, they move closer to industrial parts of the city, noticing factory chimneys and grey loading ramps and parking lots. Some other families have joined them at the last station. Twin boys with their dad and a baby in a stroller, a pacifier in her mouth.
“Are you going shopping?” asks Renate. “I’m going to Hertie to get a new dress!”
The boys can’t seem to relate to the news. Both draw their lips inside their mouth and just stare.
“A green one,” Renate adds for emphasis.
“That’ll be very lovely then,” says the dad. “Look good on you.”
“Yes, it will,” Renate agrees and shakes her braids in anticipation.
Mother does not as a rule approve of conversations with strangers, but she is looking lovingly at the adorable baby in the stroller. She really likes them before they can talk and disagree with her, Dad suggested the other day, smiling.
The S-Bahn has entered the tunnel and become an Underground as they reach the city proper.
“First we go to AWAG,” says Mother, “we’ll get out at Potsdamer Platz.”
“That used to be Wertheim,” whispers a woman behind them as they step out on the platform.
What a lot of traffic out in the large square. They wait a long time to cross with the green light.
Renate is almost six but when she sees all the wonderful new things on display, and the many people who surround them to look properly, she sticks her thumb in her mouth, her other hand in Mother’s hand. They go up in the elevator! Mother knows where girls’ clothing is being sold.
When they get out on the floor Mother’s eyes wander to a rack with red little tops sporting white polka dots.
“Those are for four-year-olds,” Anna points out, “and Dad promised that I could choose my own this time, and you agreed.”
“So I did,” says Mother and stands back. There are many racks with a great variety of dresses, jumpers and skirts as well as tables with folded garments, Pinafores! and even slacks for sports, ‘training suits’ they call them.
Anna feels a little overwhelmed by all the choices and disappointed with some of the dresses she sees. She was hoping for something with a lot of blue in it. It’s her favourite colour.
Mother waits with little sister, having removed the thumb from Renate’s mouth. She looks at herself in a long mirror and adjusts her hat.
Just then Anna spots the dress. It is the most glorious, daring thing. The patterned material shows a variety of light and dark grey squares, overlaid here and there with a dusty orange one, with a belt in that same colour. But best of all, the severe cut is surprisingly crowned with a small, light pink, frilly collar. There is only one dress on the rack, and it fits perfectly.
“That’s a terrible combination,” says Mother. “You don’t choose orange with pink.”
“I love it!!!!” says Anna. The sales lady smiles.
“It’s extremely expensive,” says Mother. The saleslady frowns a little.
Anna’s eyes shine. The entire process has taken rather a long time.
But the dress is hers, and she carries it herself in an AWAG bag.
Renate has spotted a forest green velvet dress with smock work at the top and little white cuffs, runs towards the rack and embraces it — just like that.
“This one,” she says. And Mother totally agrees.
Back to the fitting room, and it is perfect in every way.
A sigh of relief, and now they are off to find a little Café for the promised sherbet on a waffle. The Italians make the best. Everybody knows that.
They find a large crowd on the platform when they get downstairs to board their S-Bahn for home.
I’ll wear the new dress for dinner, Anna thinks. I’ll surprise them and Dad will absolutely love it. I just know he will.