"Well, for one thing, younger men tend to be lieutenants and captains- you're an exception, of course, Peter. And they don't seem to be able to afford drinking at the Hotel am Zoo, much less to take on the responsibility of a wife with expensive tastes."
"And Werner can, I gather?"
"I don't think he really could," Inge said. "Now, of course, it's different."
"How?" Peter asked.
There came another knock at the door.
"Ah, the champagne," Inge said, "that was quick."
She jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom. Peter went to the door, took the champagne in its cooler and two glasses from the waiter, and signed for it, without letting the waiter into the room.
Inge came out of the bathroom as he was unwinding the wire around the cork.
"The champagne's not bad here," she said. "The wine's very nice. And the food is marvelous!"
"I've noticed," Peter said.
He worked the cork out with his thumb, and poured champagne into the glasses.
"I would have preferred to marry someone like you," she said. "But you weren't available, were you?"
"No, I wasn't."
"You were my first failure," she said. "Perhaps that's why I was-am-so fascinated with you."
"How a failure?"
"You didn't fall in love with me, and beg me to be faithful to you when you went back to the war."
"Everybody else did?"
"Everybody else I took to the Hotel am Wansee did," she said. "I saved the Wansee for special people."
"I thought I took you to the Hotel am Wansee," he said.
"You usually took girls from the Hotel am Zoo to the Hotel am Wansee?"
"Only special girls," Peter said. "From the am Zoo and the Adlon."
"Was I special for you?"
"Of course."
"No, I mean, really special?"
"Of course really special."
"Tell me the truth, Peter. Was that why you loaned me the money? Because I was special?"
What money? I loaned her money? I don't remember that.
"I'm going to pay you back," Inge said. "That's the first thing I thought when I saw you. No. The second thing. The first thing was, 'Ach du lieber Gott, that's Peter. And he's alive. And here.' The second thing was, `I can repay the loan.'"
"I don't remember a loan, Inge," Peter said. "Truthfully, I don't."
"You probably thought of it as a payment," she said. "I showed you a good time, and then I asked for a loan, and you 'loaned it' to me."