The Artificial Silk Girl

by Irmgard Keun

  And the table smells from cold ordinary cigarette ashes and Maggi’s seasoning and a restroom attendant gave me a meat sandwich that tasted like hygiene, which is the medical word for health. I know that because Rose Krall told me, who was also sitting at Jaedike’s and whose boyfriend is a doctor. You can always tell the profession of a girl’s last boyfriend, because they talk the language of his occupation.

  My God, I’m so tired. And I don’t feel like doing anything. It’s all the same. The only thing that emerges from my fatigue is my curiosity about how things might continue — hello there, bring me another pint, will you? — why is there so much musical ado about the Rhine around here? There’s someone playing the harmonica next door with his forehead as crumpled up as his life. And yesterday I was with a man who came on to me and took me for something that I’m not — that I’m not, even now. But there are whores standing around everywhere at night — so many of them around the Alex, so many, along the Kurfürstendamm and Joachimsthaler Strasse and at the Friedrichstrasse Station and everywhere. And they don’t always look the part at all either, they walk in such a hesitant way. It’s not always the face that makes a whore — I am looking into my mirror — it’s the way they walk, as if their heart had gone to sleep.

  So I was slowly walking past the Memorial Church, down the Tauentzien, walking farther and farther with an attitude of indifference in the backs of my knees and thus my walking was a kind of staying in place between wanting to walk further and a desire to walk back again, in that I really didn’t want to do either. And then my body came to a stop at the corner, because corners create in one’s back such a longing for contact with the sharp edge that is called a corner, and you want to lean up against them just once and feel them intensely. And you let the light that is coming from several streets illumine a face for you and you look at other faces and you wait. It’s like a sport and full of tension.

  I kept walking and walking, the whores were standing at corners plying their trade, and there was a sort of mechanism in me that duplicated precisely their walking and standing still. And then a man spoke to me, someone who thought himself my better, and I said, “I am not ‘my child’ to you, I am a lady.”

  And we talked to each other at a restaurant and I was supposed to order wine and I would much rather have had something to eat. But that’s just like them — they don’t mind paying large sums for something to drink, but as soon as they have to pay just a small amount for something to eat they feel taken advantage of, because food is a necessity, but having a drink is superfluous and therefore elegant. He had a dueling scar on his face and was looking for the Berlin underworld. Because he was an out-of-towner wanting to have some danger, so he could show courage.

  So I took the Scarface to a basement behind Nollendorfplatz — and it was completely empty in there. And in the middle there was room to dance and a dreary flame plus that mirror of a foggy moon reflected in a puddle in the backyard. And it had high ceilings and was cold and cheap. On the walls were pictures of people in the old days doing immoral things. Some of the tables had tablecloths on them like a caretaker would do on Sundays. Hookers were wearing dresses that were fashionable five years ago or longer. Completely out of style and dead Middle Ages, like in those novels. And a band. It was a one-man show and he gets one mark per night. He had been in jail and before that he had been an actor. He looked like those young heroes at my old theater, with their blond hair and their faces a color that made them look like babies under the stage lighting and like those sick old men at the hospital during the day. He had also written for newspapers. So now he’s standing in the middle of the empty gray space holding a bag made from newspaper. And he sticks it on his nose and lights the tip of it. Boom-boom makes the band and then the lights go off, which only makes you realize that they had been on in the first place. He kneels down with the newspaper bag burning like a flame on his nose — and he bends over backwards — he’s wearing those Tyrolean pants.

  “What do you want to drink?” the Scarface asks. “There’s nothing happening here.”

  The hooker with the red face claps and an echo of hers claps too. The bag is very large, it’s burning slowly. The actor is shaking the flames off his face — O Donna Clara plays the band and the dark light comes back on. His name is Herbert, I know him. Three years ago he was still one of the elite. And then he puts on a tiny idiotic hat and makes faces.

  “Give him one mark,” I tell the Scarface.

  “A penny is plenty,” he says, and throws Herbert a nickel.

  “Too bad you didn’t have anything smaller,” I say.

  Then conversation. It’s always about sex. You really get tired of it. Jokes about sex, stories about sexual conquests, lectures on serious science about sex, which is supposed to sound like an expert discussion which is why it tends to get even more disgusting. But you’re not supposed to show your disgust, because if you do, the Scarface will give you this condescending smile: pooh-pooh, I thought you were a woman who’s above that, but women always have a dirty mind.

  So last night I slept a few hours in a cab. The cabdriver didn’t ask for money. “I have to stay here anyway,” he said, “make yourself comfortable. If I have to drive someone, I’ll wake you. But there won’t be anyone, with the way business is these days.”

  I curled up and slept, and he left me alone. Until there were stars in the sky, but it was morning already, but still at night. And the light oozed from the earth like silken white fog, and my tired head wondered how it was possible that it could come out of such hard pavement. The sky didn’t have any light in it. My back hurt.

  “Thank you,” I said to the cabdriver and I held my hand out to him which was all warm and sticky and prickly from lying on the upholstery.

  “Morning,” he says, and doesn’t touch it.

  So I left. He was all closed up and there was no room for a thank-you in him. And it was then that I knew what it means to be lucky — lucky to have met a person during those three minutes of the day that he’s good. Because I have a lot of time on my hands — you can imagine that that adds up. There are 24 hours in a day, and half of that is night. That leaves you with 12. And that’s 12 times 60 minutes, that is, 720 minutes minus three minutes of goodness still leaves you with 717 minutes worth of nasty ordinary person. You have to be aware of that if you don’t want to let it get you down. Everybody has a right to be nasty, after all. I would love to have my hair washed, then I would have hair like an Indian. “You hair is like the eternal forest,” someone said to me once — who was that? Forests. That makes me think of blueberries and small metal buckets. They used to have red cabbage in them. Oh, here’s Karl.

  I just had an interesting conversation, thanks to Karl. He’s a character. Planting lettuce and radishes and making small pipes out of wood and little dolls. And he’s living in a cottage colony and he’s a real Berliner with his cheeky dialect and brassy ash-blond hair and always in a good mood. He used to work as a fitter, but now he’s out of work and still young. And he makes a lot of odd little things that he carries around with him on a vendor’s tray and radishes and stuff like that, and he says he’s a Woolworth on legs, rain or shine. And he sells his stuff in the Westend and sometimes he has a quick beer at the Bahnhof Zoo waiting room.

  “Hi there, Siberian girl,” he calls out to me. “Why that fur coat? Come with me, help me a little, work with me.”

  His mouth is damn hungry for a woman.

  “What should I work with you on, Karl?” I ask.

  “There are two small rooms in my cottage,” he says, “and there’s a goat you can milk. You can make our bed, wash the windows, clean, sew eyes onto colorful little dolls — come on girl, you have such a cute face and all the rest — do you want to become a hooker? Believe me, there’s a hell of a lot of competition among those who want to work. But there’s even more competition among those who don’t want to work, among whores and those who want to be somebody without any effort and hard work — why would you want t
o be where the competition is worst?”

  Albert’s been arrested for burglary. Tilli for helping him. He was drinking at a bar. And bragging. And the silver fork sticking out of his pocket. And there’s a police officer in the back of the room. I can only look down on so much stupidity. Are these real criminals? No, they’re not.

  Gay Gustav is sitting at my table looking like a piece of pukey shit. He’s sitting there sleeping. And then come the police. I take off. They take Gustav with them to the police station. His head is still asleep while he walks. I hide with the restroom attendant.

  “Frau Molle,” I say, “I’ll make it up to you some day.”

  “I don’t believe that someone can get back on his feet once he’s started to slide,” she says and just stares at me.

  I force myself to make conversation with her. All I want is talk, talk, talk — she has a small space heater. “It’s warm in here, Frau Molle.” There are small lacquered tiles that are like a mirror for my voice.

  “This winter hasn’t been cold at all,” she says.

  “Yes,” I say.

  And then I sit down again and continue writing, all befuddled. Gustav is back. The police let him go. So he walked back and sank down in the corner and is asleep again. And he’s so tired that he forgets to be gay. When you’re that hungry and tired, you become normal again.

  “You’re still sitting here,” says Karl and orders me a beer and some wieners. “Will you come with me?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “I have ambition” — with those wieners in my stomach, I’m ambitious again.

  “What do you mean, ambition? That’s nonsense,” he says rolling his voice. “You think I’m still ambitious? Food, drink, sleep, a nice girl, a good mood — that’s my ambition. And if I can get that through honest work and honest effort, I’m fine. And if I can’t, I steal, I get something for myself to eat and I have only a guilty conscience, if I’m stupid enough to get caught.”

  And so he tells me about socialism. “I don’t think it’ll be beautiful, but perhaps we’ll have real air to breathe, and it’s at least a start — right now, all we have is a big mess. Will you come with me? Well then, don’t — you can kiss my ass with your ambition.”

  “Your butt isn’t too bad either,” I say. “And thanks for the wieners.”

  “Do you want to come to the club with me?” asks that little Schanewsky.

  So I go to the club behind Alexanderplatz. He pays for my ticket. Just happens to have work. It’s a proletarian club. Only little Schanewsky and four girls are there that night. Two rooms on the fourth floor, lots of books, and those topsy-turvy letters on the walls in a Jewish language.

  I’m talking to the girl who is a worker. She’s called Else and has delicate skin.

  I rest my head on her shoulder. They are talking to each other and I understand nothing, nothing at all. There are enormous things going on in the world, and I have no idea. It’s stupid. But their voices are like a sleepy hum to me, Else’s shoulder smells like mother, there’s white paper on the tables and the light is that of a kitchen. I’m starting to doze off. Schanewsky offers me a dish made from chopped liver and onions — I’m sleeping and dreaming that I eat. And the voices are humming and I’m thinking that I have to tell them that I’m not into politics — you always have to be something. And it’s always about politics. And always something else.

  There are round oranges and cheese and meat on the buffet.

  And then Else’s shoulder slides away from under me and there’s noise — shoes, lots of shoes were coming — the girls were screaming and throwing the windows open. Schanewsky’s eyes were looking softly at me from the corner — the room burst with ten blond windbreakers — they are their enemies and again it’s got something to do with politics. And they threw themselves at the buffet and under that kitchen lighting they looked pale and starved and they threw the oranges on the floor and ate all the sausages. And made a tired ruckus. And stuffed down all the sausages. And then they left. What was that all about?

  Every day is really the start of a new year, but today a New Year is beginning in a special way, because it’s New Year’s Eve. You drink punch and watch the fireworks. It’s complete rubbish, but nonetheless my heart is heavy because I’m without anything colorful and without warmth and all that. Bars are out. I’m going to go around to several restaurants to sell flowers tomorrow. Okay, I’m going to let someone talk to me and whatever else and take the money. Just once, and never again. I would just love to go to the movies again.

  “Do you want to come with me?”

  “Yes.”

  And his voice is like dark green moss. But what does that really mean? How would I know how a sex killer talks, do I know how those, whose name I won’t put on paper, talk? A huge creature of a bus was running past us with streamers hanging down from it. I was curious to look into the eyes of the Green Moss — it was New Year’s Eve and the ground was all slippery. And for the past three minutes it had been 1932.

  And that’s the main thing about a new year: at the office, you have to type a new date on the letters, which is easy to forget during the first four weeks.

  “Poor gigolo, beautiful gigolo,” the Green Moss was singing.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “My wife left me.”

  “Berlin is a big city where lots of things are happening,” I say, because you have to say something when men confide in you, even though you usually say the wrong thing, which is why it doesn’t matter what you say. So now I’m sitting in the shelter of an apartment.

  “Your wife will come back,” I say — with my kind of luck.

  We go out into the street. I can see the Moss’s eyes — nice blue color, colorfast.

  “Yes, I’ll come with you.” Ten marks — I’m going to ask him for ten marks. And his lower lip looks like that of a sensual crybaby. God, those guys move you so quickly.

  “You’re just passing through town?” he asks. Stupid ass. Okay, so I’m just passing through. I am carrying a suitcase — genuine vulcanized fiber — a suitcase with my Bemberg shirts and stuff, with my hard-earned Berlin things. If he takes off with my suitcase, I’ll bite his head off.

  “I’m so lonely,” he says. They all are. So what?

  “I don’t know where to go,” I say to him on the Tauentzien and my knees caved in a little, because I was so hungry and on purpose.

  “Hey, hey, hey, so you’ll come with me!” Okay, Green Moss. And we get on the bus — not even a taxi?

  “Poor little girl,” he says. On the bus, I get overwhelmed by pity, and I cry my eyes out. Damn. “Where are we going?”

  “To my place.”

  There’s a scale in the bathroom. I weigh 97 pounds. My ribs are sticking out — if fuller figures become fashionable again, I’m in real trouble. I had such a stupid scratching in my throat. I was coughing, too. And it was the apartment of summer for me.

  It’s always such a strange feeling to stand in front of a door when someone else opens it and in a strange apartment building. The marble smells so cold and doesn’t like me. And the rightful tenant turns on the light, knowing exactly where it is — that gives him the upper hand. Then you go up in a small room that is an elevator — with such God-awful mirrors on each side — am I really that ugly? And you’re embarrassed because you’re never elegant enough — but I almost didn’t care anymore. He was wearing a coat made from a thick gray material called Ulster. Ulster is always gray. I’m thinking, sex killers always wear windbreakers. Then the elevator comes to a stop and almost makes you throw up. And then one has respect for a person who has a key chain that makes a clinking sound and is such a mystery of many keys, only one person knows it. And there you stand, powerless. He wears his hair parted in the middle. He’s blond and neat in a completely uninteresting way.

  “Please,” he says. And I go in before he does. Everything is very modern. Not this heavy oak you find at the industrialists.

  “I’m very glad you’re here. I mean, I’m
glad anyone is here. What I have experienced is funny for others, but it’s not at all funny to me. That’s what separates me from others.”

  “Yes, yes,” I say.

  Would you like to stay a little while, Miss —?”

  “Doris,” I say.

  “Miss Doris,” says he.

  So he has an apartment with cork flooring, three rooms and a bath, a rubber-tree plant, and a divan, so wide, with a silk cover and fine steel dentist office lamps — he has everything and yet he howls and moans about some woman who’s taken off. But there are so many of them. He has a lacquer bed, so smooth, and little night tables like Japanese hay boxes and rings around his eyes because of a woman. And there are hordes of us walking from Alexanderplatz to the Memorial Church and from the Tauentzien to Friedrichstrasse. And there are pretty ones, and elegant ones. Young ones too. And there are hordes of men running around — should I be worried about why I’m getting that one and not the other one, if I have something to eat? It’s all the same in the end — I’m making an exception for oddballs, like extremely deaf and dumb ones, cripples or sadists. Mister, you idiot, whatever one of them has, the other one has too. And I was allowed to eat three giant oranges.

  What a wet rag — “Cold hands?” Well, how the hell should they get warm? No, please, I want him to let go of my hands — it disgusts me. This moss-like voice and this soft ado about my hands.

  “Tired, tired girl — tired, poor little woman. You must have been through a lot, haven’t you? Well, don’t be sad any more — do you want to tell me? How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.” Tell him? I don’t want to tell him. Not a word.