The Artificial Silk Girl (8 page)

I was negotiating with a traffic cop about how to get to
Friedenau
, which is where I needed to go, to Therese’s old friend Margretchen Weissbach. I found her in a one-bedroom apartment where she was living with her unemployed husband. She was no Margretchen, but a real Margrete with a face that doesn’t take life easily. And she was about to have her first baby. We said hello and immediately said “du,” since we knew without exchanging
a word that what had happened to one of us could just as easily have happened to the other. She’s over thirty, but giving birth was easy nonetheless.

I had to call the midwife, since all her husband was capable of was smoking cigarettes at three pfennig apiece. I gave the midwife ten marks and told her to hurry up and that she should come to me for the rest of the money. And so I’ve been in Berlin for less than three hours and I already owe money to a midwife, which hopefully is not a bad omen. I sat next to Margrete while she was in labor. That’s when you’re ashamed not to be in pain yourself.

It was a girl. We called her Doris, because I was the only one there — besides the midwife of course, but her name was Eusebia. I spent one night on a mattress in case she needed someone after all. Next to me was the baby in a wooden box that she had filled with cushions and soft blankets with pink roses embroidered on them. On the other side of the baby slept her husband. His breath was hollow with happiness, because Margrete was okay — you could tell, even though he was all hard and grumpy. Margrete was asleep and he was saying things like: what were they going to do with a child, that already they didn’t know what to do, and it would be better if the child had never been born. But during the night, I saw him bend over the wooden box, kissing the embroidered pink roses. I turned white with fear, because if he had known that I
had seen him, he probably would have killed me. There are men like that. And Margrete thinks she can get another job at the office, now that it’s all over.

In the morning, the baby was screaming like an alarm clock and we all woke up. The air felt like a round dumpling and you couldn’t swallow it. The baby weighs eight pounds and is healthy. Margrete is breastfeeding, and she’s well. Her husband was making coffee and milk. I made the beds. The man was black and angry. He was too ashamed to say nice things to Margrete, but we could tell that they were in him. Then he went out to look for work, but without any hope.

Margrete says that when he comes back, he will get mad at her and reproach her, and that’s because he doesn’t believe in what they call God. Because what a man like him really needs is a God whom he can blame and whom he can get mad at when things go wrong. This way he’s got nobody who can be the target of his anger and hatred and that’s why he blames his wife, but she minds — and the one who is called God doesn’t mind — and that’s why he should have a religion, or he should get political, because then he could also make a ruckus.

So I said goodbye to her, since I really couldn’t stay there. Margrete gave me Tilli Scherer’s address, a former colleague of hers who is also married, but her husband is frequently out of town. So I bought three diapers and I plan to have a green branch embroidered in the corner
for good luck. And I will have them sent to the Weissbachs, since the child has been named after me.

And then I went to Tilli Scherer. She agreed to take me in. She too wants to become a star. And she won’t take money from me. But every other morning, I will loan her my fur coat to wear at the film agency. I don’t like to do that — not because I’m stingy, but because I don’t like it to smell from anybody else. I’ve also tried film, but there’s not much opportunity there.

   Things are looking up. I have five undershirts made of Bemberg silk with hand-sewn seams, a handbag made of cowhide with some crocodile appliqué, a small gray felt hat, and a pair of shoes with lizard toes. But my red dress that I’m wearing day and night is starting to tear under the arms. But I’ve started to make contacts with a textile firm, which, however, isn’t doing so well at the moment.

Overall, I can’t complain. It all started on
Kurfürstendamm
. I was standing in front of a shoe store, where I saw such adorable shoes, when I had an idea. I went in with the assertiveness of a grand lady — helped by my fur coat — and tore off one of my heels and started to limp into the shop. And I handed my broken heel to the salesman.

And he calls me “Madam.”

I say: “What a pity. I wanted to go dancing and I don’t have time to go home and don’t have enough money on me.”

Needless to say, I left the store with lizard toes and that night I went to a cabaret with the salesman. I told him I was one of Reinhardt’s new actresses. We both lied to each other tremendously and believed each other just to be nice. He’s not stupid and he’s a gentleman. He has a stiff knee and falls in love with women because he feels self-conscious about it.

At the Jockey Bar I met the Red Moon — his wife is on vacation, because times are bad and seaside resorts are cheaper in October than in July. He happened to be at the Jockey Bar by coincidence, as he’s traditional and he’s disgusted by the new times because of their lax morals and politics. He wants the Kaiser back and is writing novels and is well-known from the past. He also says that he has esprit. And his principle is: men can, women cannot. So I’m asking myself: How can men do it without women? What an idiot!

So he says to me: “Little woman” — and puffs himself up because he feels so superior to me. When he was 50, all the newspapers were in awe of him. And he had readers. He also has a degree and a cultural foundation. And he counts for something. He comes to the Jockey Bar to study. He’s studying me too. He’s written many novels for the German people, and now those little Jews are writing their decadent stuff. He’s not going to play along with that.

So the Red Moon has written a novel,
Meadow in May
, that has been reissued hundreds of times, and he
just keeps on writing and right now he’s writing
The Blonde Officer
. And he invited me too. He has a beautiful apartment — full of books and so forth and a provocative chaise longue. I was drinking coffee and liqueur and eating a lot. The Red Moon was sweating and started to get heart palpitations, because we weren’t drinking decaf. I didn’t like it — the coffee or the Red Moon. But we had
Danziger Goldwasser
, which glitters in the small glass like a pond full of tiny gold pieces — they are swimming in it and you can’t catch them, and it’s highly uneducated to even try, and if you
do
try, then you scratch holes into your fingers and you still won’t find anything — so what’s the point of behaving in an uneducated way in the first place. But it’s nice to know that you’re drinking gold that tastes sweet and makes you drunk — it’s like a violin and tango in a glass. I love you, my brown madonna … wouldn’t it be wonderful to be with someone you like. Like, like, like. And he should have a voice as shiny as his hair — and his hands should be shaped so they could fit around my face and his mouth should be waiting for me. I wonder if there are men who can wait until you want to. There’s always that moment when you want to — but they want to just a minute too soon, and that ruins everything.

Me — and my fur coat who is with me — my skin gets all tense with the desire that someone find me attractive in my fur, and I find him attractive as well. I’m in a café — violins are playing, sending a waft of weepy clouds
into my head — something’s crying in me — I want to bury my face in my hands to make it less sad. It has to work so hard, because I’m trying to become a star. And there are women all over the place, whose faces are also trying hard.

But it’s a good thing that I’m unhappy, because if you’re happy you don’t get ahead. I learned that from Lorchen Grünlich, who married the accountant at Grobwind Brothers and is happy with him and her shabby tweed coat and one bedroom apartment and flower pots with cuttings and
Gugelhupf
on Sundays and stamped paper which is all the accountant allows her to use, just to sleep with him at night and have a ring.

And there is ermine and women with Parisian scents and cars and shops with nightgowns that cost more than 100 marks and theaters with velvet, and they sit in them — and everything bows down to them, and crowns come out of their mouths when they exhale. Salespeople fall all over themselves when they come into the store and still don’t buy anything. And they smile when they mispronounce foreign words, if they do mispronounce them. And with their georgette adorned bosoms and their cleavage they sway in such a way that they don’t need to know anything. Waiters let their napkins trail on the floor when they leave a restaurant. And they can leave expensive rump steaks and à la Meyers with asparagus on their plates without feeling bad and wishing that they could pack them
up and take them home. And they hand the bathroom attendant thirty pfennigs without looking at her face to find out if her way makes you want to give her more than necessary. And they are their own entourage and turn themselves on like light bulbs. No one can get near them because of the rays they’re sending out. When they sleep with a man, they breathe on pillows with genuine orchids, which are phenomenal flowers. And foreign diplomats admire them and they kiss their manicured feet in fur slippers and don’t really concentrate, but no one cares. And so many chauffeurs with brass buttons take their cars to garages — it’s an elegant world — and then you take the train to the Riviera in a bed to go on vacation and you speak French and you have pig leather suitcases with stickers on them, and the
Adlon
bows down to you — and rooms with a full bath, which are called a suite.

I want it, I want it so badly — and only if you’re unhappy do you get ahead. That’s why I’m glad that I’m unhappy.

   Dear Mom, in my mind I’m sending my love to you and Therese. I miss you, but Tilli is good to me. But she’s new to me and what’s new can’t replace the old for me — and the old is not the new. There’s a void in me from your absence, and there are words and words piling up in my throat that I can’t say to you — that instills so much love in me that I feel like I’ve been put through a meat grinder.
With you, I had familiar streets with pavement that said hello to my feet when I stepped on it. And there was the streetlight with the cracked glass and the scratched-up lamppost: Auguste is stupid. I scratched that in there eight years ago on my way home, and it’s still there. And whenever I think of the streetlight, I’m thinking of you. I have a changed name and I’m always nervous and I’m not allowed to write to you because of the police — until grass grows over the whole thing. But I’m sending thoughts and love your way.

   I went over to the Red Moon’s house. So after the
Danziger Goldwasser
I got the tour of the apartment, which naturally always ends in the bedroom. There were two beds and one of them was covered with lots of newspaper because of the moths, and there was no atmosphere whatsoever. And the Red Moon turned on a hanging lamp and I saw five undershirts made from Bemberg silk that his wife at the spa had left behind, and the Red Moon was supposed to send them to her. So I immediately point out the stylish embroidery. I’ll take one of them with me, I say, and am going to have it copied. So the Red Moon says, fine — and approaches me like a hurricane. The best thing to do in cases like that is to start talking about their profession, because that’s as important to them as sex. So I stop his attack and ask him: “So what about that published meadow?” — and I put lots of interest in my eyes.
And he immediately goes for the bait and asks me if he should read to me. And I say yes with the enthusiasm of little kids if you ask them if they want to go to the zoo, and I sit down on the newspaper-covered bed. The Red Moon sits down on the other bed and starts to read — and goes on and on and on.

At first I was planning to listen — there was nothing but vineyards and girls dancing and braids coming loose, and then more vineyards without end. So I got bored — the braided maiden was feeding chickens, which she didn’t have to do because she was financially secure — and the Red Moon made “putt putt putt” sounds in a high-pitched voice. So I think to myself, that’s too much to ask, hours and hours of vineyards for nothing — and I take another shirt and stuff it into my dress. And every three pages he tells me that it’s going to get more refined — and every five pages I take another shirt from the bedside table, until they’re all gone. And then I get up and say: “I’ve heard the churchbells strike and I need peace and quiet to think about the vineyards.” And I make off with a bust that would rival that of a first-class wet nurse.

   And so I was taking care of obnoxious kids of a high-society onyx family, the incognito children of a former general’s daughter. Tilli had arranged it — she used to watch the onyx kids. They live at the riverbend and they are knowingly insolent, like grownups. The husband has
onyx and stocks and white hair that stands straight up, finding itself attractive. And he’s tall and stately looking. The wife is young and lazy and doesn’t know from anything.

If a young woman from money marries an old man because of money and nothing else and makes love to him for hours and has this pious look on her face, she’s called a German mother and a decent woman. If a young woman without money sleeps with a man with no money because he has smooth skin and she likes him, she’s a whore and a bitch.

Dear mother, you had a beautiful face, you have eyes that look like you desire something, you were poor as I am poor, you slept with men because you liked them or because you needed money — I do that too. Whenever anyone calls me names, they call you names as well — I hate everyone, I hate them, I hate them — to hell with the world, mother, to hell with it.

So there comes the White Onyx and says “Mademoiselle.” And makes eyes at me and I was ready. The elegant noblewoman had gone to the theater and I was home with him, and he offered me an apartment and money — this was my opportunity to achieve glamour. It’s easy with old men, when you’re young — they pretend it’s your fault as if you were the one who started it. And I wanted to, I really wanted to. He had the voice of a bowling ball that made my blood run cold, but I wanted to — he had this slimy look in his eyes, but I wanted to — I was thinking, I’ll grit
my teeth and think of fabulous ermine, and I’ll be okay And I said yes.