Florentiner 73 (1972)

Berlin native Brigitte Platz is expecting a child, but does not want to marry the future father, even though he feels obligated to marry her. Since the beginning of her pregnancy, she has realized that he thinks only of himself. This leads to such a serious argument with her mother that Brigitte decides to look for a furnished room of her own as a subtenant. But that is not so easy in East Berlin in the 1970s. While shopping at a department store, she studies the ads in the Berliner Zeitung and, once again, finds nothing. A customer suggests she try the cigar shop around the corner, whose owner also puts up advertisements. Brigitte goes straight there, and after she waves a banknote, the owner immediately finds an offer for a sunny room in a Berlin apartment, in the side wing of an old building at Florentiner Straße 73. It belongs to Frau Klucke and rents for 35 marks a month. As Brigitte sets off for the place, the shopkeeper’s wife comes out of the back rooms and scolds her husband for arranging the room for such a nice young woman when he knows the problems it comes with. At first glance, Frau Klucke seems willing to rent the room to Brigitte, but says she cannot show it to her right away because it still needs to be tidied up. So Brigitte first goes home to collect her things, getting into another argument with her mother, in which she again insists that her former boyfriend is selfish and does not want the child—a fact she unfortunately realized far too late. When she returns to Frau Klucke’s, she sees the room for the first time and is horrified to discover that it is a through-room. Although Frau Klucke apologizes for not telling her sooner, Brigitte decides to move out again as soon as possible and immediately places an ad in the cigar shop. When she comes home from work the next day—she is a secretary to the director at a foreign-trade company that exports railways—she notices that her landlady has made the room a little more comfortable with the help of her neighbor, Frau Knatter. The neighbor then comes by to introduce herself and pities Brigitte, saying that having a through-room must make it hard to have any privacy. Klucke replies that Knatter’s privacy is called Hugo, and he comes to visit every weekend. After the two women leave, Brigitte can finally get changed. As she does, she hears someone walking through the room: Wolfgang, a student and the son of Frau Engel, who also lives in the building. He only wants to take a package of clean laundry into the room beyond, prompting Brigitte to remark that this is no room but a railway shunting yard. Later, as she is already in bed and Frau Klucke looks in again to tell her there will be no more interruptions, the doorbell rings once more. It is Fräulein Marina Maass, looking for someone to look after her children the following Sunday. Brigitte comes out in her dressing gown and is invited to Maass’s apartment for a glass of vermouth. There she sees again the three children who caught her eye in the hallway on her first day in the building, though they are now asleep. They are Jeannott, Lars, and Abi; none of them has a German father, which is Maass’s contribution to international understanding, something one can see in practice when one is a translator. Back in bed, Brigitte is disturbed once more by Frau Klucke, who is only on her way to the toilet. Naturally, Brigitte agrees to look after the three children and takes them to Bürgerpark Pankow. When she sits on a bench to close her eyes for a moment, the children seize the opportunity to disappear, and she searches for them all over half of Pankow. Back at her building, Wolfgang tells her where the little ones are. She finds Jeannott with Herr and Frau Regler, who lovingly care for him because they have no children of their own. She then goes on to the Hartmanns, where Lars is staying and where she is invited to dinner. As so often, they are having fried plaice, prepared by Frau Hartmann, who rules the family with an iron hand: neither her husband nor their 42-year-old son has any say. Sohni has been engaged for six years to Helga Richert, a saleswoman at the bakery, but is still under his mother’s thumb. Helga dislikes this, but loves him all the same. Brigitte finds Abi at her landlady’s, who also has her neighbor over with her Hugo. The women who have been looking after the children then put them to bed, much to the surprise of their mother when she returns. In this way, Brigitte gets to know more of the people in the building. A few days later, she is in the courtyard beating a runner rug against the carpet beater when Wolfgang comes to empty a garbage bin. They get talking, and he helps her clean the rug. When they finish, Wolfgang invites her to the medical students’ ball at the Zenner restaurant, and she gladly accepts. She has a lovely evening until the two of them kiss on the terrace. Suddenly, she runs off, reproaching herself for letting things go so far when she is expecting a child, and takes the S-Bahn home alone. Over the next few days, they deliberately avoid each other. One day, Brigitte comes from a pregnancy counseling appointment and meets Fräulein Richert outside. She tells her about the pregnancy, which has about four months to go. As they walk home through Volkspark Friedrichshain, Brigitte also says she is a little afraid to tell Frau Klucke, who has come to treat her like her own daughter. But she cannot live in the through-room with the baby she is expecting, so she will probably have to move out. Before they part, Brigitte asks Helga not to tell anyone about their conversation, and Helga promises. At the meal that follows at Frau Hartmann’s, Brigitte does not want any plaice, so Helga accidentally lets slip that it must be because Brigitte is pregnant. As a result, Brigitte is served fricassee instead. The Hartmann family also promises to keep quiet about it. Her director at work hears about the pregnancy too and promises to find her a place at a nursery if she stays on as his secretary. On her way home, she overhears in the stairwell that the Reglers now know as well. While she is hanging up her laundry in the courtyard, Fräulein Maass comes over; of course, she already knows too. Suddenly, Frau Knatter comes through the courtyard gate with her slightly tipsy Hugo, who is celebrating his 75th birthday. She has been in a weekend relationship with him for 18 years. Now he decides the time has come to ask Frau Knatter to marry him, threatening to find someone younger if she refuses. His birthday brings the whole community of tenants together in the courtyard to celebrate. Before long, tables are set, Herr Regler brings a keg of beer, and Wolfgang provides the music. When Wolfgang asks Brigitte to dance, her pregnancy comes up, and in his drunken state he makes a disparaging remark about her. Frau Klucke, the last resident of the building to hear about the expected child, finds out too. But it is not the pregnancy that makes her sad; it is that she has had to hear about it this way. She feels left out. A subsequent conversation between her and Brigitte in the apartment clears things up, ending with the two of them swapping rooms. Hugo has to be buried sooner than expected, and all the tenants of the building attend his funeral. On the ride back, Wolfgang tries to apologize to Brigitte, but does not quite manage it. On Christmas Eve, several of the residents come to Brigitte’s for the gift-giving and bring plenty of news: Herr and Frau Regler now have a child staying with them on weekends, and Sohni and Helga have finally married. In the middle of all the commotion, Brigitte goes into labor. All the women in the building gather in her room to give her advice. Naturally, in the excitement, they have forgotten to call an ambulance, but Wolfgang quickly finds a taxi. He is allowed to accompany her and to visit her after the delivery.