Jahnkes Ballhaus

Jahnkes Ballhaus is the Davidstraße nightclub where WH 3 and Petra spend a pivotal stretch of a Saturday night together. The venue’s conversational music and relatively sparse crowd make it possible for them to talk and stand close, but the scene’s decisive movement comes from WH 3’s interpretations: he turns ordinary gestures into signs that Petra is choosing him, then watches those assumptions tested on the dance floor.

Setting and Arrival

After several stops, Petra and WH 3 arrive at Jahnkes Ballhaus. He does not know the place, yet finds it immediately suited to the evening: even on Saturday it is not especially crowded, and the music is loud enough to establish a nightclub atmosphere without preventing conversation. For WH 3, these conditions seem almost arranged for him. He imagines the night as if it had been choreographed around their meeting and takes the ease of being together as evidence that something romantic is developing.

The club is presented less as a landmark than as a social space whose small details acquire disproportionate meaning. The crowd around them consists of worn, dishevelled figures; beside them, as WH 3 sees it, stands Petra, whom he idealizes as entirely fresh and beautiful. This contrast belongs to his perception, not to any declaration by Petra. The room gives his fantasy a stage, but the certainty he feels is his own.

Closeness and Projection

Standing close together, WH 3 presses his leg against Petra’s, and she returns the pressure. He feels the warmth of her skin through their clothes and imagines that the people around them can see that she belongs with him. Although he has been drinking heavily, he is alert to every possible sign of intimacy. He wants to kiss her, but prolongs what he takes to be a charged pause, convinced that the moment will be even better if he waits.

His attention narrows to physical details. His hands are sweaty, so he dries them on his trousers before touching her; he does not want to reach for her with clammy hands. When Petra rests her head on his shoulder, he experiences several seconds of intense happiness. Yet the scene does not establish that she shares the future he has already begun to imagine. His longing makes a brief, affectionate gesture feel conclusive, while Petra’s next movement changes the emotional temperature of the room.

The Dance-Floor Reversal

Petra moves toward the dance floor without asking WH 3 to follow or otherwise signalling that he should come with her. His happiness gives way to panic. He tries to reassure himself that she only wants to dance for a few minutes and will return if she is serious about him, revealing how quickly he has made her independent action into a test of their relationship.

A young man, only slightly older than WH 3, dances with Petra. WH 3 notices the stranger’s relaxed manner, full mouth and wheat-blond hair, and compares them with his own split, coarse hair. The comparison feeds his conviction that he cannot compete. He imagines Petra longing to kiss the other man and rehearses the possibility of her choosing a brief encounter over the friendship he believes they have built. His jealousy is therefore driven not by anything Petra has said, but by a story he constructs as he watches.

The situation turns when the dancer puts his hands on Petra’s waist and tries to pull her toward him. Petra returns her hands to their proper place, then looks toward WH 3 and smiles warmly. WH 3 reads her response as a rebuke to the other man and as reassurance for himself. The rival soon tries his luck with someone else, but the brief episode has already exposed how much WH 3’s confidence depends on interpreting Petra’s gestures in his favour. Her refusal of the dancer’s advance is observable; the larger romantic certainty WH 3 draws from it remains his inference.

The Shared Glass and the Night’s Limit

After the dance, Petra and WH 3 share a glass of white wine. She takes only an occasional sip and hands it back to him each time; he places it to his lips where she has just drunk and imagines that he can taste her saliva. What is, for Petra, a shared drink becomes for WH 3 an almost overwhelming form of intimacy. The moment echoes the earlier pattern: a small act of closeness is real, but its meaning expands in his imagination far beyond what the act alone can confirm.

By then it is four o’clock, and WH 3 knows that even the last bar will eventually close. Petra goes to the toilet. He badly needs to go as well, but is afraid that something might happen to his disadvantage if he leaves her alone. The scene ends with his attention fixed on the precarious arrangements around him and on the possibility that the evening could shift without warning. Jahnkes Ballhaus thus holds both genuine contact and anxious misreading: a shoulder, a dance, a smile and a shared glass sustain WH 3’s hope, but the narration keeps visible the gap between his imagined certainty and what Petra has actually promised.