'The whole city could be destroyed within a month,' says Rakanaspya in that husky voice of his. The anarchist has been placed under a sort of house-arrest by the police. Frau Schmetterling had agreed to his staying'so long as he behaves himself,' she said. 'We want no morbid subjects discussed here'. He wipes his lips and beard with his napkin. 'All those poor people dead while kings and princes play at diplomacy!' Frau Schmetterling catches his eye and utters a small cough. He sighs. Caroline Vacarescu, beside him, is sympathetic. She, too, is on sufferance, having been released from custody four days ago. She is dressed magnificently as usual. She has no intention, she assures us, of lowering her standards. Her face is heavily made-up. Mueller was tried by military tribunal last week and executed for espionage. The papers have been emphatic: his fate was an example to others. Some of us are a little uneasy in her defiant, knowing presence. Count Belozerski, the eminent Russian novelist and the most recent arrival, leans his handsome face over the table and murmurs in French: 'I have never seen so many dead soldiers.' He was turned back from the walls while trying to leave Mirenburg. He alone has witnessed the reality outside and is allowed to say more than anyone on the subject. Frau Schmetterling indulges him because she admires, she says, his mind. But she is also impressed by his connections and his beauty. His pale blond hair, together with his slightly Oriental cast of features, give him a striking and dominating appearance. He is tall and slender and his military stance is tempered by a natural grace which serves to soften the first impression of a distant and somewhat menacing figure. Count Belozerski is proud, he says, of his Tartar forebears. He sometimes refers romantically to his 'Siberian blood'. He is in all important respects a gentlemanly European. 'Of the best type,' says Frau Schmetterling. Caroline Vacarescu also dotes on him, but Belozerski has confided to me that he is determined to have nothing to do with her. 'Her selfishness,' he told me last night, 'is mitigated only by her recklessness. Of course both qualities are alarming to a man like myself. One should be in love with such women in one's youth. To take up with the likes of Caroline Vacarescu in middle-life is to risk too much. My cousin was, short while, involved with her. She almost ruined him. She is the most extravagant creature I have ever known and I Prefer to admire her from a distance.' I, of course, feel friendly towards her, but that could be because I have nothing that she would want. It is my belief Count Belozerski is attracted to her. He is a little inclined to overstate his case. He adds: 'One is dealing, as a novelist, all day with ambiguities, with problems of human character. One does not need any more ambiguities in one's life.' Perhaps he is right. I am not a novelist. I tell him I thrive on ambiguity. For me a woman must always have it or she is not attractive to me. He laughs. 'But then for you life is a novel, eh? Thank God not everyone is the same, or I should have no readers.'
'The hospitals cannot cope with the wounded.' Egon Wilke sits immediately to the left of Frau Schmetterling, across from Belozerski. He is a stocky fellow, with the body and bearing of an artisan. His hands are huge and his large head has brown hair, cropped close to the skull. He wears a sort of dark pea-jacket and a white cravat. He is an old friend of Frau Schmetterling's, apparently from the days when she ran a house of an altogether different character in Odessa, where criminals had gathered. These acquaintances from her past are usually discouraged from visiting Rosenstrasse, but Wilke, who has been introduced to the company as a jewel merchant, is the exception. Frau Schmetterling is evidently very fond of him. He saved her, it is rumoured, from ruin (perhaps prison) in the old days and lent her the money to start the Rosenstrasse house. He always stays with her when visiting Mirenburg and, like me, is treated as a favoured client. He behaves impeccably, never bringing his business to her house, though he is almost certainly still a successful thief. He chews his food thoughtfully, takes a sip of wine and continues: 'They are requisitioning convents, private houses, even restaurants, I have heard. These Mirenburger soldiers, poor devils, aren't used to fighting.'
Frau Schmetterling says firmly: 'We know how hellish it is a( the defences, and I am sure we sympathise, but this is scarcely appropriate conversation for luncheon.' Wilke looks almost surprised, then smiles to himself and continues to eat. There is not much else to talk about. We have no real information
Holzhammer has made a grandiose declaration in which he has praised his own sense of humanity and love of beauty in stopping the bombardment'to give Prince Badehoff-Krasny time to reconsider his foolish and unpatriotic decision which is causing misery to so many'. He claims that most of Waldenstein is now his. The newspapers on the other hand are continuing to report failing morale and shortage of supplies amongst the rebels. The peasants and landowners have all deserted Holzhammer, they say, and he is entirely reliant on his 'Bulgarian butchers', his Austrian cannon. Prince Badehoff-Krasny took his State Carriage into the streets during the bombardment and rode the length of Mirenburg, from the Cesny Gate to the Mirov Gate, waving to cheering crowds. Deputations of citizens have signed oaths of undying loyalty to the Crown and the Mayor has sworn to take a sword, if necessary, and personally drive Holzhammer from the battlements, should he try to enter the city. Holzhammer has probably decided to attempt to starve Mirenburg into submission, saving his troops and his ammunition for a final attack. The blockade is total. The river is guarded on both sides and water-gates have been installed under the bridges on the outskirts so that no citizen can leave by that route or bring supplies in; while a huge barricade has been thrown up around the city, making it impossible for anyone to come or go either by road or rail. Belozerski has reported seeing corpses left to rot in trenches, or half-buried by their comrades as they fell back towards the walls. Field-guns, too, have been abandoned. He observed one trench which was 'a single, fluttering mass of carrion crows'. Private citizens are no longer allowed on the walls. We are under martial law. Yesterday, at lunch, Belozerski said: 'God knows what appalling treachery led to 'his situation. It was a massacre out there.' And then he became embarrassed, since Caroline Vacarescu could probably have answered his rhetorical question, at least in part. She had continued to eat as if she had not heard him. We are all as tactful as possible, even Rakanaspya who sometimes fumes like °ne of his own anarchist bombs but never explodes. It is only in private, in the company of one or another of our fellow guests, that we express strong opinions. Last night I sat with Clara in her sitting-room while Alexandra giggled in bed with Aimee, who comes from my native Saxony. Clara is in a better position than many to hear what is actually going on. Her regular clients seem to make up half the Mirenburg Civil Service and she sometimes has a General come to see her. She is discreet, in the main, but she believes that the situation might be worse than most of us imagine. ' A military train is believed to have arrived from Vienna. If the Austrians give Holzhammer direct aid then Germany must either begin another war, which she does not presently want, or turn a blind eye to what is going on here. I think she will turn a blind eye.' I found this difficult to believe: 'With so many of her citizens still here?' Clara had looked at me knowingly. 'How many, Ricky? And how many German soldiers would die in a war with Austria-Hungary?' Then Alexandra had called to me and I had gone in to smile. She had tied one of Clara's dildoes onto her in some way and was inexpertly fucking Aimee who was helpless with laughter. 'Help me, Ricky, darling!' There is an ache in my back today. Papadakis says I am not resting enough. He says I should set these memoirs aside. 'You will kill yourself.' I tell him that it does not matter. 'Can't you see I am living again? Can't you see that?' He wets his red lips. 'You are mad. The doctor told me to expect something like this. Let me bring him up.' I set my pen on the pages, across the words. I am patient. 'I am more purely rational,' 1 tell him,'than I have been for two years. And I should point out that there is hardly any pain. It is quite evident that much of what I was suffering was psychosomatic. Haven't you noticed how much better my morale is. You would rather I was ill, eh? You have no power over rne now that I am recovering!' He will not respond to this. He
sits beside the window, staring down towards the sea. His back i to me. I refuse to let him irritate me. Leopold van Geest and stroll in Frau Schmetterling's garden. Most of the flowers are gone. It is a mystery where she continues to find fresh on^s, fill her house. Beyond the walls are the roofs and turrets ot deserted monastery. 'In here,' says van Geest, 'one is permitted the illusion of power. But we know that Frau Schmetterling is the only one who really wields power and that she derives it from her ladies. From the cunt.' He shakes his head and pulls the blanket-jacket more closely to him. 'Yet we have power in the outside world to create a society which needs and permits brothels. Why cannot we exploit that power directly? Why do we feel the need to come here and be masters when we cannot feel that we are masters in our own homes, over our own women - at least, not sexually. Not really. You can sense the difference.'
'I have very little experience of the domestic life.' Van Geest nods as if I have made a profound observation. He is moody this afternoon. 'Your instincts are good, von Bek. Marriages are based on romantic lies and decent women demand that we maintain those lies at all costs, lest the reality of their situation be brought home to them. Here the whores are paid to lie to us. At home we pay for our domestic security with lies of our own.' He looks up at the sky. 'Do you think it will snow?'
'It's a little early for that.'
He turns to go back inside. 'Well, I shall probably be home for Christmas,' he says.
Clara comes to join me. 'Our Alice has bought herself a thousand new petticoats!' She kisses me on the cheek. Somehow we have taken to calling Alexandra 'Alice', while I use 'Rose' as a nickname for Clara. She, in turn, calls me 'Your Lordship' in English. Alexandra does not know our nicknames. 'She is upstairs, now, trying them on.' Van Geest lifts his cap and enters the house. 'What were you talking about?' She is all rustling velvet in her long winter coat. Marriage, I believe,' I say. 'I'm not altogether sure. Van treest seemed to want to get something off his chest.' Clara is amused by this. 'That's our job. Whores are trained to listen. What was he saying?'
That domestic bliss is founded on a lie.'
The argument is familiar to her. 'Working here, one begins to disbelieve in any great difference between people. The girls in this house have more varied personalities than most clients, and that's saying very little, I should think. You cannot pursue individuality here. There's more realism and virtue, perhaps, in celebrating commonality. There are certain lies, surely, we would all rather believe.' She links her arm in mine. We are almost like husband and wife.
We go to peer in at Frau Schmetterling's little hothouse, at the orchids and the fleshy lilies, and at her aviary where a pair of pink cockatoos, an African Grey parrot and a macaw fidget. 'Frau Schmetterling has no interest in birds,' says Clara. She puts her lips together and makes kissing sounds at the gloomy creatures. 'These were given to her at the same time, I believe, as the peacocks. The peacocks died. She's sentimental enough to want to keep her parrots properly, but they get no attention from her. 'Mister' looks after them. Some of us have asked to keep them in our rooms, but she says it would be vulgar.' I am becoming impatient to see Alexandra, even though I know she will be demanding something of me the moment I walk in to our room. 'Shall you be going to the celebration this evening?' asks Clara. I had forgotten. Frau Schmetterling had mentioned it at lunch. 'To honour the end of the bombardment,' she had said. 'It will cheer us all up.'
'I'll look in for half-an-hour or so,' I say. 'And you?' Clara nods. 'Oh, yes. I think it will be amusing.' Since Alexandra will sulk if I go I have almost made up my mind not to bother. 'They are difficult, these children,' says Clara. 'More trouble than they're worth, sometimes.' I feel a moment's resentment of what I take to be her criticism, but she squeezes my arm and the mood vanishes. I enjoy Clara's company more and more and continue to be impressed by her tolerant intelligence. 'By the way,' she says casually,'did you hear that they had attempted to burn down the synagogue. The Jews are being held to blame, as usual.' I laugh at this. 'Where would we be without them?' But Clara is not pleased with my response. '1 came through the Quarter on the way home. It's miserable. No market, of course, to speak of. Such a terrible sense of fear, Ricky.'
'You must guard against getting too sentimental, Rose my darling, at times like these. It's not like you.' I kiss her cheek She shakes her head and does her best to dismiss her mood. It occurs to me for a second that perhaps she is worried about her own fate. After all, Frau Schmetterling is Jewish, at least by birth. I return to the rooms. Alexandra is wearing a new negligee of chocolate-brown trimmed with cream lace and her little body, now marked with the fading reminders of a dozen violent nights, is pale in the afternoon light which enters through embroidered nets at the windows. Couch, floor and chairs are piled with new chemises and drawers, with white ostrich feathers, with an ermine-trimmed stole, like froth on a river, and she tugs at her curls, peering with ill temper into an oval mirror which hangs on the wall over a lacquered Chinese sideboard. 'Another raid on Falfnersallee,' I say with a smile. She pulls down an eyelid, looking for blood. 'They're almost giving things away, Ricky.' She has bought a selection of new cosmetics, which she has scattered over the sideboard, and begins to try them out, asking me for my opinion of this lip-rouge and that powder. 'You'll destroy your skin,' I say dispassionately. 'You have youth and health, natural beauty; ' She makes a face. 'You are certainly no lover of what is natural, my dear.' I bridle. 'Nonsense. But play at grown-up ladies, if that's what pleases you. Did you buy a paper?' She is distant. 'I forgot.' I am irritated. 'It's not a great deal to ask.' I pick at feathers and linen, becoming even more angry when I think I shall have to ask Frau Schmetterling for more cash. I have given her a blank cheque, to cover our expenses. 'You should have told Clara to remember,' says Alexandra. 'She's always reliable. Anyway, what do you want a paper for? You told me there's nothing in it now but lies.' The negligee has fallen back to reveal her ribs. 'You're not eating properly,' I say. 'You're getting too thin.' She sets down a little pot with a rap. 'Men want everything. A lady has to be thin in society and plump in bed. Yet you complain about the way I lace my stays!'
'I'm concerned for your health. I feel some responsibility.'
'You should not. It is none of your business.'
I want to put an end to this. I embrace her, fondling her shoulders and breasts, but she pulls away. 'You treat me like a child! You spend all your time with other people. Are you fucking the whores while I'm out?'
'You know I'm not. You enjoy Clara's company. You told me so. You're always off on expeditions.'
'In a veil. Like a Turkish concubine! You don't love me. You're bored with me. You refuse to let me be myself. I'm not your daughter. I wanted to get away from that. You sound worse than my father sometimes.'
'Then you should not behave like a little girl.' Such banal exchanges are terrible. I hate listening to the words on my own lips. I have said nothing of this kind since I was eighteen. 'All the interesting people are downstairs,' she says. 'You talk about them. I never see them. Princess Poliakoff, Count Belozerski, Rudolph Stefanik. You and Clara joke about them. I am left out of everything. Why do you want me? You could have a dozen whores and never notice I was missing.'
'I love you,' I say. 'That's the difference.'
She snorts. 'You don't know me.'
'I'm beginning to think there is not very much to know. Perhaps you are entirely my invention.'
'You bastard!' It is the first time she has sworn at me. She repeats the oath, as if to herself. 'You bastard.' She begins to weep. I go to comfort her. She pulls away again. 'What have you made me!'
'Nothing which you were not already, or did not wish to be. I told you at the start: I am the instrument of your pleasure. I put myself at your disposal. And when I have warned you of excess you haven't listened to me. Now you're overtired and self-pitying. And you're blaming me.'
Her weeping becomes more intense. 'I don't know any better. How can I know any better? I want so much to go to the
party tonight. But you're afraid I'll embarrass you. And when I try to look grown-up you complain. You confuse me. You lie tome.'
'How dare you pretend to be so naive,' I say. 'You have no right to demand honesty of me and argue with such patent ingenuity when you know full well what you mean and what you want. It is malice and resentment which motivates you and your methods amount to blackmail. I will not be insulted by you in this way. I will not be silent while you insult yourself. What is it that you want?'
But she refuses to be direct. The rhetoric continues between sobs. 'You have destroyed any will I might have had. Any self-respect. You spend your time with Clara. You laugh at me behind my back.
'Clara is your friend. You told me that you love her.'
'She criticises constantly.'
'Not to me.'
'I know what she's saying. You're a fool if you don't realise what she's up to.'
I light myself a cigarette. 'You are attempting to manufacture a crisis,' I say, 'and I will not be drawn. Tell me what you want.'
'I want respect!'
The Brothel in Rosenstrasse vb-2 Page 12
