The American Fiancee

by Eric Dupont

  “What are these French words doing all over the house?”

  “They’re for Mademoiselle Jacques.”

  Mama had a good sense of humor. She cut out a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and put it on my head: die Gans. The goose! When she wasn’t feeling poorly, Mama could be very funny. Because of Mademoiselle Jacques—or thanks to her, I’m not sure which—I quickly became the hardest-working student in French class. You see, Kapriel, French to me was not a language that was spoken by real people. Sure, I knew it was spoken in France, but France was a distant, abstract idea. French was the language Mademoiselle Jacques spoke. If she had taught Sanskrit, I’d have learned Sanskrit. But Mademoiselle Jacques was only the beginning of my “emotional” problems. Much worse was to come.

  When she realized my infatuation with the French language, Mama imagined I might also have a talent for music. At last I was beginning to take an interest in things proper young girls should enjoy. In her mind, I should work on my gifts. In December 1934, Mama told me she had come to a decision.

  “Have you noticed, Magda, that nearly all the girls in your class play an instrument?”

  “No.”

  Which was true. I hadn’t noticed. Did Mademoiselle Jacques play an instrument? That was the question she should have asked.

  “They do, Magda. They all take piano lessons.”

  “I don’t like the piano.”

  “I know, darling. But you’ll have to either choose another instrument or learn to sing. I don’t want you to get left behind. Music is good for a girl: it shows her feminine side. And Papa can well afford it.”

  “Can you sing in French?”

  “Ah! It’s clearly an obsession with you! Of course! It’s more difficult than in German, but there are songs in French, lots of them. Wait a moment . . . What’s he called? I’ve forgotten his name, but I still have the book in the piano bench . . .”

  “Will you teach me to sing?”

  “No, no. We’ll find you a nice singing teacher right here in Charlottenburg, and you’ll learn all about singing. It will change your life, believe me!”

  “Change my life how?”

  “You’ll see the world differently. And the world will see you differently too. People adore people who can sing. Everyone knows that. It’s so easy to fall in love with a beautiful voice that hits all the right notes.”

  She didn’t need to say another word.

  “Can we go now? Before lunch?”

  Mama laughed. Back in 1934, she still laughed a little. Much less than in Königsberg, but still every now and then, whenever I said something like that. She hadn’t started to hide herself away in her bedroom yet.

  She began looking for a singing teacher there and then. It wasn’t hard. Papa was an important man at KdF, and KdF was an extraordinary outlet for artists, musicians especially. One of the things my father did was manage all the shows put on by KdF. They didn’t just organize trips, oh no! They put on operas and sold cut-price concert tickets to Germans. So all he had to do was ask at the opera. Three days later, Mama came to pick me up outside Sophie-Charlotte-Schule. I was still woozy after French class.

  “I found you a singing teacher! We’re going right away! You’ll see. She’s very nice. I met her this morning.”

  We had to take the subway from the Deutsches Opernhaus to Nollendorfplatz. I’d never taken the subway before. The train went in and out of the ground, showing me flashes of Berlin, fascinating places I was about to discover. Remember that at that age I wasn’t allowed to walk around as I pleased. Mama would never have agreed. Plus, I would have been scared to, and with good reason. Berlin wasn’t safe.

  Bülowstraße. That’s where my singing teacher lived. As I rode the subway, my mind was filled with daydreams, nothing unusual for a fourteen-year-old girl. They came in three main flavors, with the occasional variation. But they were always more or less the same. Those images haunted me in my sleep and in my every waking moment too.

  First dream: I’m walking with Mademoiselle Jacques at Königsberg Zoo. We’re the only visitors. I bribe the zookeeper to get my hands on the key to the zebra pen. Mademoiselle Jacques and I walk up to the animals and they’re not at all frightened. Mademoiselle Jacques is astounded to see what a talented animal trainer I am. I whisper into a zebra’s ear. After a few minutes, it lets Mademoiselle Jacques climb onto its back. The two prance about, Mademoiselle Jacques’s laughter echoing around the zebra pen. Later she and I gallop through the streets of Königsberg as people wave at us. End of the first dream.

  Second dream: A concert hall. Mama is on stage, sitting at a piano. I’m in a blue dress, standing before the audience. Mama launches into the opening bars. The French words flow out of my mouth like caresses, straight into the third row, where Mademoiselle Jacques sits smiling up at me blissfully. The finale is grandiose, ethereal. Before Mama even gets to the final bars, the applause brings the house down. Mademoiselle Jacques is crying with joy. End of the second dream.

  Third dream: A boat. Mademoiselle Jacques and I are sailing silently along the Curonian Spit. An elk watches us from the shore. She talks about Goethe and explains the subjunctive to me. I reply by citing an excerpt from Werther: “A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart.” Mademoiselle Jacques looks delighted and shields her eyes from the sun as it sets over the Baltic Sea. End of the third dream.

  What I didn’t know that afternoon, as Mama told me to hurry along Bülowstraße, was that two new characters were about to join the cast of my daydreams.

  “Here it is!” Mama announced, pointing to a big door. “Her name is Terese Bleibtreu!”

  (Michel, Bleibtreu means “stay true”—a funny name for a singing teacher.)

  We went up three floors. Mama was out of breath. Behind the door, we could hear someone playing the piano, then a boy singing Semplicetta tortorella, the Nicolai Vaccai ariettas. No one came to open the door, so we walked on in. There was a long hallway with a few chairs obviously set out for visitors. The boy’s voice now reached us more clearly. “I think he’s a baritone. Nice, isn’t it, Magda?”

  “Yes, very nice.”

  It’s difficult to describe a voice, Kapriel; it’s easier to explain the impact it has, the images it evokes within us. The boy’s voice entered my head right at the moment the image of the zebra at Königsberg Zoo was passing through for the thousandth time. It was a well-rounded sound, big as the sea, but as fragile as the breeze. The boy was only a beginner, even I could tell. We heard Frau Bleibtreu interrupt him: “Watch the note, Ludwig!” His name was Ludwig. Mama smiled a little. To Prussians like us, the name “Ludwig” is a little . . . how should I put this? Bavarian. He started singing again. A very simple arietta about a turtledove, Mama explained. “Tante Clara used to sing it too, in the early days.” Ludwig’s disembodied voice swept through the hallway.

  “Per fuggir dal crudo artiglio vola in grembo al cacciator . . .”

  Then something strange happened, a phenomenon that I still can’t explain to this day, Kapriel. My mind took flight, at the sound of Ludwig’s voice, from Königsberg Zoo to the concert hall and on to the Curonian Spit, and soon all three scenes were overwhelmed by the warm, round voice of a boy I hadn’t even set eyes on. His voice became a character in my waking dreams, a sonorous entity that permeated every last corner of my conscience. That voice was almost blue in color; it quieted all the other sounds in my dreams. All I could hear now was Ludwig singing Semplicetta tortorella. And the voice enchanted Mademoiselle Jacques every bit as much as the galloping zebra and the sun setting over the Baltic Sea. “How beautiful, Magda,” she said in my dream. “How delightful.”

  Ludwig’s lesson was almost over. Terese Bleibtreu reminded him what he was to prepare for their next lesson, then the door to the studio opened. It was Ludwig who saw us first.

  “Heil Hitler!” he simpered, giving the Führer’s salute.

  Mama r
olled her eyes. “Heil Hitler,” she replied. Mama never said “Heil Hitler.” She repeated it if someone said it to her, but she never said it first. Ludwig was out in the hallway now. Terese made the introductions.

  Ludwig was a . . . how should I put this? A very ethereal boy. If he hadn’t been wearing his Hitler Youth uniform and his hair had been longer, I might have taken him for a girl.

  “Ludwig Bleibtreu,” he said by way of introduction.

  He was her little brother! I’m not sure I could have put up with my own sister as a music teacher, but Ludwig and Terese seemed to get on like the very best of friends. My God, such Catholic names they both had now that I think about it. Not Berlin names at all! She must have been ten or twelve years older than he was. You know, Kapriel, even if I’d met Ludwig on the sidewalk on my way out of the building, I’d still have known he was Terese’s brother. The boy was an exact, only slightly more masculine, version of his older sister. The world had just shifted beneath me. The boat Mademoiselle Jacques was sitting in began to take on water and sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea. After his Hitler salute, he walked forward and peered at me hard, as though he thought he recognized me. Terese sensed her brother’s uneasiness.

  “Ludwig is very tired. He didn’t hear you come in,” she said in a sing-song voice. Ludwig excused himself and left. Mama left me alone with the teacher and took her seat again in the hallway. Terese sat down at her grand piano. The room was a timeless place. The window looked out onto Bülowstraße, with distant conversations, the sound of traffic, and children’s cries occasionally drifting up. There were photographs on the walls of Terese on stage, in roles I didn’t recognize. In one corner, a mannequin dressed in feathers and a little bird, a real one this time, in a cage. Perhaps it had been caught by the man wearing the Papageno outfit, who knows?

  “That’s Amadeus,” she said.

  “What type of bird is it?”

  “A Gouldian finch.”

  “Where does it come from?”

  “Australia. Queensland, I think. I can’t remember,” she tittered.

  Terese Bleibtreu knew the provinces of Australia and the birds that lived in them. I was beginning to find her a bit odd. The exotic bird and the outdated surroundings created the impression that nothing was quite real. I remember wondering if you could travel to Australia with KdF. Probably. No doubt. I’d have to ask Papa. But why that look, Kapriel! Plenty of people used to have birds in their Berlin apartments. In fact . . . oh yes, I remember now.

  “I have a bird!” Terese said, catching me staring at it. “But only a little one. Don’t worry, Magda . . .”

  Don’t you find that funny, Kapriel? In German, when you say, “She has a bird” that means “She’s crazy.” That’s why it was funny. She meant she was only a little crazy. And soon I’d have proof.

  Ludwig, the boy who had just left, was also a new student, she explained.

  He’d only been coming for three weeks.

  “Ludwig is my little brother. He’s very talented! Perhaps you could sing a duet together.”

  For the first lesson, Terese had me reproduce the notes she played on the piano, just to make sure I wasn’t tone-deaf. “Sehr gut!” she said each time. Then she had me lie on the floor to show me where the sound a singer produces comes from: the muscles down there that do all the work. She had me spend fifteen minutes doing arpeggios. She would sing a series of notes and I had to repeat them as accurately as possible. Sometimes she’d say “Nein! Hören Sie genau zu!” or “Jaaaaa! Genau!” depending on whether I managed it or not. Standing up, sitting down. A real workout. She touched me a lot, too. After an hour of that I was exhausted. Then Terese had Mama come in.

  “I think we’ll be able to work together. She has an ear. Although, of course, we are starting from scratch, so . . .”

  I stared at the Australian bird while Terese and Mama ironed out the details of my musical education. They decided on an hour’s singing lesson every Tuesday after school.

  “But she can come and practice whenever she likes. My door is always open!”

  I asked if I could have my lesson with Terese right after her brother Ludwig’s.

  “Of course, but why, darling?” she asked. (She always called me darling.)

  “Because I want to hear him sing before I start my lesson.”

  Mama and Terese were tickled by my ingenuousness. They couldn’t begin to imagine the effect Ludwig’s voice had had on me. They didn’t realize I was still reeling from its timbre, and from the blue color it seemed to give off. From that moment on, Ludwig Bleibtreu invited himself into my daydreams. A dejected Mademoiselle Jacques upped and left for someone else’s. Ludwig took her place on the back of the Königsberg zebra. It was he who rowed the boat across the Baltic Sea, who waved to the elk watching us from the shore. Onstage, it was the two of us who faced the audience side by side.

  Mademoiselle Jacques stormed out in a jealous rage and slammed the door behind her. Ludwig’s voice was the soundtrack to my every reverie.

  Mama decided to walk home since we were in no rush. She was in fine form.

  “And you’ve made such a nice little friend! You’ll have to start going to the opera. Papa will find us tickets. You’ll be able to sing Schubert with Tante Clara. She adores Schubert! Ach! Magda! You’ll also be able to sign up to . . .”

  She was practically hysterisch now. She even insisted on taking me for tea on the Ku’Damm. It was December and cold after all. There were stars of David painted white on some of the store windows. I remember asking Mama about them.

  “They’re all mad, Magda. But don’t repeat that to anyone. Papa could get into trouble.”

  Until that moment, Kapriel, I hadn’t the faintest idea what was happening to Germany. I hadn’t paid much attention to it. But I’ve run out of Riesling. Hold on a second, there’s some in the kitchen.

  (At this point, Michel, she got up to look for another bottle of Riesling in the kitchen. I think I heard her sobbing, but I’m not sure. It might have been the faucet or the plumbing. She came back with an open bottle of Riesling.)

  Ach! There were some very nice people in Berlin, let me tell you, Kapriel. The following Tuesday I took the subway by myself to my music lesson, running the rest of the way so as to be sure I’d hear Ludwig singing as I waited in the hallway. Memory does a poor job of recording voices. We forget their pitch, their color. Words we remember, but memory never manages to bring a voice back to life. A voice needs to be there for us to pick it out among others. Voices are as tricky to describe as the taste of nutmeg or the feel of sand between your toes. All I can say is that that desire to hear Ludwig Bleibtreu’s voice again made every hour at Sophie-Charlotte-Schule interminable. Worried that he might finish early, I’d tear down the stairs at the Nollendorfplatz subway station and run flat out along Bülowstraße. You’ll never know Ludwig Bleibtreu’s voice, Kapriel. That is your misfortune, your tragedy, Kapriel.

  I must have arrived an hour early. I didn’t want to miss a thing. I raced up the stairs to Terese Bleibtreu’s four at a time, on the tips of my toes so they wouldn’t hear me, frightened he’d stop singing at the sound of my footsteps. In my mind, I sung the arietta I’d practiced with Mama. “Semplicetta tortorella, che non vede il suo periglio . . .” Poor turtledove doesn’t see the danger . . . Truer words were never spoken!

  I walked silently into Terese Bleibtreu’s hallway, hearing only Terese explaining something about the diaphragm. Then he sang, something different that time, another of Vaccai’s ariettas, the one they use to teach intervals of a fourth. “Lascia il lido, e il mare infido . . .” I closed my eyes and let Ludwig’s voice awaken dreams of being on a zebra’s back, in a rowboat, in a concert hall. Then Terese and Ludwig began laughing. I didn’t dare budge in case they realized I was there. I was an only child, you see. I didn’t know what having a brother or sister was like. To me, listening to Ludwig and Terese Bleibtreu giggling after singing class was akin to voyeurism. I hung on their every word.
They were looking for a score. They sang a completely moronic song I didn’t know. Marlene Dietrich once sang it as a duet with a singer by the name of Claire Waldoff, Wenn die beste Freundin. They sang in unison; the words were very funny. Then Terese opened the door to find me there, waiting in the hallway.

  “Whatever are you doing there? Why didn’t you knock?”

  Terese was a little annoyed, as though I’d caught them red-handed. She reminded me I wasn’t to go around listening at doors. She even asked what I’d overheard. I didn’t know she’d been singing what the Nazis called “degenerate” music. I promised not to tell a soul, not so much to reassure her as to bring the three of us closer together. The pair of them fascinated me. I wanted to belong to them, to be their sister. And what can I say? Ludwig made me laugh! He was wearing his Hitler Youth uniform again.

  Terese said good-bye to him and invited me in. Like the week before, he gave me the Hitler salute and stared hard at me. He didn’t say much. Then my lesson started.

  “Magda, darling, let’s go!”

  Terese was dangerously on form. After the warm-up, she asked me to sing Semplicetta tortorella at least fifteen times. Like all singing teachers, Terese was never satisfied. “Your tongue should be doing all the work, not your jaw!” and she held my jaw while I sang. It wasn’t easy. Then she had me say the Italian words with a cork between my teeth. Like this! Phew! At any rate . . .

  “You’re as big as a barrel, Magda. You’re getting bigger like a toad. You’re a Zeppelin over Berlin. Big as the Reichstag! Ja . . . There you go.”

  Then she suddenly stopped playing.

  “What do you like to eat, Magda? What’s your favorite dish?”

  “Caramel pudding!”

  “Ach! The Führer loves that too! When you’re singing, think of caramel pudding. You’re a caramel pudding, Magda! Come on! And stop wagging your jaw, for heaven’s sake!”