WH 3’s Hope and Rejection

This thread traces WH 3’s movement from social isolation through an intense schoolboy infatuation to the painful collapse of his imagined future with Petra.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Body Under Scrutiny

A Body Under Scrutiny Visible difference WH 3 lives with Noonan syndrome, acne, and features that draw notice before he can speak. He is intelligent, but his intelligence does not shield him from humiliation or from the conviction that his appearance has closed off ordinary affection. His sexual desire intensifies the pain of exclusion. He longs for intimacy while assuming that no girl could want him, a contradiction that makes hope feel both irresistible and dangerous. The encounter with Flamingo On an exceptionally hot last day of school, WH 3 finds Flamingo overwhelmed by flies. He carries the suffering dog away from the swarm and spends his own strength trying to help it. Petra sees the act and approaches him. Her attention begins as an ordinary conversation, but for WH 3 it becomes the first time a girl has addressed him with apparent interest.

Learning to Be Seen

Learning to Be Seen Small acts of imitation During the summer, WH 3 tries to prepare himself for further contact with Petra. He learns to smoke, buys his first pair of blue jeans, and practices standing, looking, and speaking with greater confidence. These changes are not a transformation into someone else so much as an attempt to become less ashamed in her presence. He treats each ordinary social skill as a step toward becoming worthy of attention. A friendship takes shape In the new school year, Petra regularly spends time with him during breaks and walks with him toward her bus stop. She sometimes touches his hand, and he reads these small gestures as evidence that their connection may become more intimate. The narrative leaves room for a simpler interpretation: Petra is friendly and considerate, while WH 3 builds a private future from that kindness. His hope grows more quickly than the relationship itself.

The Tavern as Initiation

The Tavern as Initiation A dangerous experiment Wanting to impress Petra, WH 3 secretly visits St. Pauli and enters The Golden Glove Tavern. He is overwhelmed by the people, violence, and grotesque performances around him, but he also feels that he has crossed into a more adult world. Soldaten-Norbert talks at him about death, suffering, and the people who sit in the tavern waiting for love and luck. WH 3 cannot fully process the speech, yet the encounter makes the place seem like a school of hard experience. A borrowed identity WH 3 leaves feeling newly hardened and imagines that his visit will impress Petra. The confidence is largely theatrical: he has not escaped his vulnerability, but he has found a story about himself that feels more powerful than his usual self-image. The tavern becomes a measure of his desire to perform adulthood. It also exposes him to a world where cruelty and humiliation are ordinary, preparing the ground for the more painful test to come.

The Promised Evening

The Promised Evening Expectation of a turning point WH 3 is excited when Petra agrees to meet him in the evening rather than only at school. He treats the change as a sign that their friendship may finally become romance, and he rehearses possibilities for where the night might lead. They drink and move between venues, including Top Ten Nightclub and Jahnkes Ballhaus. For a time, WH 3 believes the evening has been arranged around him and that his closeness with Petra is becoming mutual. A hope built on gestures At Jahnkes Ballhaus, Petra dances with another boy but rejects his attempt to pull her close. WH 3 interprets her smile toward him as proof that she has chosen him, and his relief becomes another step in his imagined courtship. He remains unable to ask directly what she feels. Instead, he reads each movement as a promise, leaving his hopes vulnerable to a reality he has never tested.

The Night of Estrangement

The Night of Estrangement An unspoken boundary Petra suggests a final stop at The Golden Glove Tavern. WH 3 is anxious about the place but follows her, unable to risk disappointing her or to explain how much the evening means to him. When he goes downstairs to the restroom, he is humiliated by men who urinate on him. The incident turns the ordinary delay of a bathroom visit into a fresh encounter with the public degradation he has spent his life fearing. Two incompatible understandings Petra waits upstairs, grows impatient, and eventually leaves. She understands the evening as a friendship in which she has repeatedly evaded signs of sexual expectation; WH 3 understands it as the loss of a relationship he believed was on the verge of becoming romantic. He emerges to find her gone and spirals into despair and rage. Their estrangement is not caused by a single misunderstanding alone: it exposes the distance between his private fantasy of mutual love and Petra’s right to define the relationship for herself.

At seventeen, during the summer before his final school year

The summer after the first conversation with Petra

A Tuesday night shortly after WH 3 begins exploring St. Pauli

The evening of WH 1’s eightieth birthday

Near dawn, after Petra and WH 3 enter The Golden Glove Tavern