The Artificial Silk Girl

by Irmgard Keun

  “Why such big sad eyes?” Always a voice like moss, like a delicate plant — my God, no — if he continues to care that much about me, I’m going to kick his shin. He turns me off. It’s disgusting to me that he’s so good to me. I’m feeling this strong urge to say something nasty.

  “Let’s go to bed.”

  Okay, let’s go to bed. I go to the bathroom. I take my clothes off. There’s a large mirror. Is that me? Yes, it’s me all right. My left leg is wider than my right one. There’s no meat on my bones and my skin is yellow and incredibly tired. I look like a starved goat. My face is the size of a small cup and all squooshed and I have a pimple on my chin — something like this wants to become a star — something like this — what a joke. I bit into the bathtub, that’s how angry I was. Greasy hair, all messed up — one, two, three ribs — hip bones sticking out — God, that’s what a skeleton looks like — that teaches you, that teaches you, gentlemen. And under circumstances that you’re supposed to be sensual. I want to throw up. He has to give me ten marks, I’ll take him only once. He disgusts me so much, I don’t want him — ten marks, and then I’ll go sell flowers, then — I’ll also buy myself some cold cream for my face — I — if I keep looking at myself in the mirror, I’m going to go down in price. Enough. Where’s my Bemberg silk nightgown? Ten marks.

  “I made your bed on the sofa.”

  I guess that’s okay, too. Bed or sofa, who cares. And perhaps I won’t have to leave right after and can stay here until tomorrow morning — but I can’t look at him, I don’t want him next to me afterward — you disgusting, soft froglike creature. He strokes my head — please don’t, please don’t, I can’t, I don’t want to — ten marks! — and there’s a scream at the bottom of my throat. “Please stop stroking my hair. I can’t have that” — to want to be good to me now, that’s really too much.

  “I’m so tired,” I say. A bed. To lie in for a long time.

  “Good night,” he says, “sleep tight.”

  And he’s gone! And is not coming back. At first I’m surprised, then I’m ashamed. Then I’m thinking, who knows what particularly disgusting strategy this is. But it’s fine by me. Then I fall asleep. Had interesting dreams, but can’t remember them unfortunately. And today I did almost nothing but sleep and hardly ate anything, only slept. And I don’t remember much of the words that happened, I only remember my sleep.

  “I made coffee for you,” he says this morning at eight o’clock. “I’m going to the office now. You just sleep in. I’ll be back at six o’clock. Are you still going to be here?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s food in the pantry. You can take whatever you want.”

  “Yes.”

  Yes, I’m going to be here. Where else should I be? But I’m so mad — you stupid Moss, I’m gonna figure you out.

  “Could you leave some cigarettes for me?” I ask.

  “I’ll leave the box on the coffee table.” Wow, he’s smoking those at six marks — well, all right. If he can afford it. And by noon, I’ve smoked all of them.

  So I ask him: “Listen, you don’t know me at all, but you let me stay here all day long. I could trash your place or carry everything out.”

  He looks at me like: “First of all, I wouldn’t care. And secondly, you wouldn’t do it anyway.” Of course I wouldn’t — but why not care?

  “I guess you don’t really have to work for it, do you?”

  “Sure.”

  “What do you do?”

  He’s in advertising. And leaves the house at eight in the morning and comes home at six or seven o’clock. His face is wrinkled and leathery and under the eyes his skin is a grayish blue. And he’s 37. That’s still pretty young for a guy.

  I’m still tired and sleeping all the time and still not enough. My arms are just hanging down at my sides and I don’t feel like doing anything at all. And I don’t have any desire — for nothing, not money, not my mother, not Therese. I get out of bed and there’s the coffee. He put a coffee warmer over it that’s colorful and crocheted and has “good family” written all over it. It’s twelve noon and the coffee is lukewarm. And there are rolls and good butter and sticky honey. I eat only a little. Sometimes my eyes wake up and it’s eight in the morning, and then he walks back and forth and sits at the coffee table across from me. “Just keep sleeping,” he says.

  So I continue to sleep. And then it’s twelve noon and I bathe, but not to be elegant but because I can’t lie in bed all the time, and so the hot tub becomes my next bed. And then I move my feet to the room with the desk and I sit there and write a little and then I lie down on the chaise longue and all of a sudden I’m lying down again and I’m asleep again. And then he comes home. And he straightens up the apartment and says nothing — perhaps I should be doing that, but I don’t care if he kicks me out. I’ll just lie on the street and continue to sleep. Then we sit down and there’s food on the table and bread and ham. And he has a glass of cognac. I don’t want any.

  “Why do you let me stay here?” I ask him.

  “Because I’m afraid to come home and there’s nobody there who breathes — please stay.”

  This is complete craziness — now he’s begging me to stay.

  Last night he starts asking questions about me. What can I tell him? Right now, I don’t know any words about myself.

  It just seemed too ominous. I’m having three cognacs and then I turn on the radio — there’s strange Rome and music. And on the wall across from me is a black and white picture, a profile. And the wall is painted yellow like an afternoon in August. The picture is moving. The flooring is cork and there’s a small balcony. You freeze immediately, the moment you step on the balcony and it’s winter — and such a joy to be warm in a summery apartment.

  “Don’t you want to go for a walk? Don’t you want to go to the movies sometimes? What do you do all day long?”

  “Sleep.”

  “You’re still tired, Miss Doris?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “No.”

  “You have to eat more. You have to get some fresh air!”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you never laugh? Are you grieving? Did somebody do something terrible to you?” The picture is moving.

  “Mister,” I say, getting up, “you let me just sleep here. You let me eat and you put a crocheted hat over the coffeepot every morning, and a box of cigarettes at six — I owe you — if you, if you want something from me — well then” — Is he saying anything? “I mean, I have to pay you somehow.”

  “Well, if you like, Miss Doris, you can make the beds and straighten up a bit tomorrow.”

  Maybe I’m so ugly he doesn’t want me?

  Going for a walk all by yourself is terribly boring. But now I’m hungry. And I did the dishes and set the table. But I’m not making his bed. That’s disgusting. His bedroom turns me off.

  He puts ten marks next to the coffee cup. Does he want me to leave? Is that what this means? He doesn’t say a word, just puts it there. I just don’t get it with him. It grosses me out, to walk so softly and speak so softly and never be reasonable. So I’m just going to go out and buy pork chops. I’ll fry them up for tonight with Brussels sprouts, so he’ll get a warm meal for a change.

  “You’re a man,” I’m going to tell him, “you have to eat meat. You have to sink your teeth into it. Right now you’re a silly plant. That’s what happens if you don’t eat meat.”

  Now he’s messing around in his room next door. For crying out loud, why don’t you just take the bone with your hands, I want to tell him — since it’s just the two of us. It’s all nice and well to be a cavalier, but you’re like a plant.

  “Dear little Doris, I thank you.”

  For what, you stupid asparagus? You — please stop talking like that. And he should just pick up that bone. He really should. He always has such clean white hands — hands have to be dirty sometimes. I would just love to break one of his nails.

  “P
lease,” I say, “I can type. You can dictate your letters to me,” I tell him, and so he dictates.

  I put flowers on the table, because it looks nice. But now he’s going to say again: “Oh dear little Doris,” and behave like overcooked asparagus. It’s better to throw the flowers out of the window.

  Yesterday he tells me: “Little Doris, you ran away from home, I think — let’s write to your parents. I’m sure they’re worried — you silly girl, didn’t you know what could have happened to you here in Berlin?”

  “Do you have any idea what has already happened to me!” say my guts, but not my mouth. So he thinks I’m innocent. Which explains a lot. Because at first Hubert hadn’t wanted to either — because of the responsibility. Does it really make such a difference?

  So he’s drinking his cognac and says: “Women like to run away, don’t they? Women just can’t stand it anymore, can they? My wife — “and he tells me about his wife. And that tells me he really considers me innocent and coming from a good family. I do speak very little and in an educated manner. “I’m tired,” I say — and what education would let you say that any differently? “Thank you,” I say, “please,” I say — what education would make a difference when saying those words? And so he makes me into something incredible, or else he wouldn’t be talking to me like that about his wife. That’s the kind he is. A plant. And he shows me her picture. It kills me that she’s pretty. What do you mean blonde? He’s blond himself, so he should be more interested in the dark type.

  “She has a cute face.”

  “How old is she?” I ask.

  “Twenty-seven.” What an old cow. “Can you imagine, Miss Doris, that she had a brain like a real strong woman’s body? She was so honest — and it was as if she were taking her clothes off, and you just had to love her for that. And her lies were like light sheer colorful fabric and you could see her body right through it — her lies were so honest that you had to love them too.…”

  Why didn’t that bitch wear an undershirt under those light clothes, I think to myself — he’s talking like those novels of the elite. It really doesn’t make a difference whether a man is writing novels or whether he’s in love.

  “You see, I’m away all day, and she’s waiting for me — she used to be a dancer — there was so much imagination in her movements. So she goes out in the afternoon and I say: “Just go, do anything you enjoy, go dancing, my darling, here’s some money, go to the teas.” And there’s a young poor gigolo, a beautiful gigolo, which he hadn’t always been. He came. Used to be an actor. Before that an engineer. And she’s artistic too. And very ambitious. And he treats her badly.”

  “That’s it,” I say, “this soft way of not wanting to, and to treat her well on top of that. That’s too much for a woman.”

  He always tried to spare her, he says. Can you show me a woman who can take that kind of consideration for months on end? It’s making me sick. “I would have run away from you too,” I tell him.

  “Really,” he says and looks at me with his questioning blue eyes — “and I don’t know anything about women, I — ”

  That moved me again, much against my own will. His elbows on the table, his hair blond, ash blond the way men are, not really blond. And music from Rome and leathery skin and two toothbrushes dyed black — those are his eyebrows. And in front of him porcelain dishes with mandarin oranges, those are simple oranges — not as sour and easier to peel. Of course he has mandarin oranges. He likes to keep things simple.

  “You should eat oranges,” I shout at him. But mandarin oranges are easier. Music from the radio. Is he sleeping now? I’m sure he wears striped flannel pajamas. So she ran away.

  “I always did my duty,” he says. As if that were enough. He’s big and tall. Does he have a skinny back? He should be eating lard, lard from a goose.

  I happened to know a joke that wasn’t obscene. Why don’t you laugh for a change, Green Moss, everyone has to laugh sometimes!

  “You have a talent for storytelling,” he says.

  “I was on my way to the stage,” I say.

  “My wife wanted to dance at Charell’s,” he says.

  “I know him personally,” I say. Later on I remember it’s not true.

  “Please give me some money.” He gives it to me.

  “Do you need velvet? My wife used to wear blue velvet — ”

  I bought a goose.

  “Are you sure it’s fresh? It doesn’t smell?” I ask.

  “If you always smell as good as that beast, you can consider yourself lucky,” complains the market vendor who wears a black scarf around her neck.

  “Let’s not talk about my smell, let’s talk business,” I’m quick to let her know.

  And I fried him a goose. On Sunday and with my own hands. And goose lard is good for the nerves in your back, my mother used to say.

  “May I?” he says elegantly and he takes a drumstick in his hands.

  “I hope you like it,” I say.

  I had a little bit of breast too. And we have enough for the next few days. I think he liked it. So he starts up again: about his wife and that she had such long legs and you always had to be worried about her. So what? I bought a measuring tape. How long do legs have to be? His name is Ernst. What a joke. Ernst. Can you imagine.… “Why do you smile, Mona Lisa?”

  “Nice song, isn’t it?” I ask, in an effort to continue our elegant conversation after dinner.

  “My wife loved Tchaikovsky,” he says.

  “Really — I used to know a guy called Rannovsky, you know, he had a hook where ‘kovsky’ ends — and there was a Hulla — ”

  “What do you know about life,” he says. Enough. You imagine your answers, but you don’t say them. It’s all the same. Nobody would understand anyway.

  “See that cushion over there? My wife embroidered it.”

  Yes, I can see the cushion, when you buy cigarettes at four, you get these embroidered flowers in each package — if you smoke, you don’t have to embroider, do you? And he tells me all those strange things and always talks about his wife and what times we have nowadays. Everything is being torn up and destroyed and if you want to be honest, you have to admit that you can’t figure things out anymore. And particularly an educated man can’t build anything for himself anymore, and everything is uncertain. The whole world is uncertain and life and the future and what we used to believe in and what we believe in now, and work isn’t fun anymore, because you always have a bad conscience because there are so many people who don’t have any. And so a man has nothing but his wife and he’s very dependent on her because he wants to be able to believe in something, and that’s the love for his wife — and then she doesn’t want all that love and that way you’re not worth anything at all anymore. And because you’re nothing but a burden on humanity these days — that’s why you need that special someone so badly to whom you can be a joy. And then all of a sudden you’re no joy anymore. And true elegance is disappearing in this day and age and in times like that, women are the first ones to slide, and men are held by the law and they hold women too — and once all the laws of humanity have disappeared, man has nothing more to hold onto, but you can’t tell, because he never did in a moral sense — and what falls first in a way to be noticed by everyone, that’s always the woman.

  And I try to remember everything he says and I want to think about it, but I don’t have a real understanding. At first, I wanted to do a symbol from time to time, like at home, but then all I said was: “Yes, there are a lot of whores around these days,” but I don’t really know if there are more of them than there used to be and why everyone is always talking about our times. When you’re a small child and you’re just beginning to understand, all you hear about are those terrible times and what is going to happen. And when I think of time, all I can think of is that I’m going to be old and ugly and all shriveled up, but I can’t believe that — but that’s the only horrible thing about time for me.

  And: “My wife was able to sing with a l
ight high-pitched voice.”

  “So I sing — Das ist die Liebe der Matrosen — the most wonderful song there is.”

  “Schubert,” he says. Why? “She used to sing like Schubert composed.” Das ist die Liebe der Matrosen — that’s some piece of shit of a song, isn’t it? What about Schubert, what does that mean? Das ist die Lie — straight from life, as my mother used to say about a good movie.

  And I did make his bed.

  On his night table that looks like a Japanese haybox are books. Baudelaire. I’m sure that’s French. But in German. Lesbos, island of withering nights. That tells you everything. I know what they’re talking about here — that’s almost obscene. Withering nights! Lesbos! That gives you some insight into men and into Berlin as well.

  There are bars with women wearing shirts with stiff necks and ties and they are terribly proud to be perverts, as if that weren’t something nobody can do anything about. I always used to say to Therese: “I’m happy that I have such large eyes but they were given to me, that’s why I can’t be proud of them.” But those perverts, they’re proud of it. There’s one of those bars in Marburger Strasse. Some men seem to like it. Is he that kind? And I didn’t want to read that Van de Velde either when Therese gave me the book. When you write these things down, they become obscene.

  Lesbos, island of — thank God there are no pictures.

  There’s a bottle of lavender on his bedside table. His sheets are straight and quiet. Doesn’t he move in his sleep? And his towels are so clean and his toothpaste. How disgusting could it be to brush your teeth with his toothbrush?

  What am I going to cook today? There’s still that leftover goose. We’ve got to get our money’s worth. You have to economize. There’ll be baked apples for dessert and a bouillion for starters. The spoons for the soup are for real-they’re stamped.

  I run the vacuum cleaner — sssss, I’m a thunderstorm. It just so happens I break the wife’s picture. They had so many words in common, he says — there are these small tender memories that are seemingly uneventful. Me: “She’s gone and you have to start directing your thoughts elsewhere.”