by Irmgard Keun
I’ll start to feel better now, she thinks, as Fräulein Täschler closes the door from the outside. The stink and the close air, they were what I couldn’t stand. When they reach the street, she breathes in deeply. That doesn’t help. She coughs, twice—there’s something in her chest she can’t shift. And there are vapors before her eyes, she can’t see properly, maybe she’s asleep, and it’s all just a bad dream.
Then they’re sitting in the bar on the corner. Fräulein Täschler has a small light ale and an open sandwich on the table in front of her. She’s eating like a very elegant lady, with a knife and fork. Gilgi is drinking a double shot. Eating is impossible, she can’t stop thinking about the cold, sticky remainder of the fried potatoes in the room up there, and she can’t stop feeling that a chunk of those fried potatoes is in her mouth. Another shot! She downs it in one gulp. She shudders, but she still wants to retch. She has the sensation of having become completely removed from herself. There you are, on first-name terms with reality, and suddenly it’s a stranger to you and you don’t know how to approach it … but that doesn’t suit us, that doesn’t suit us at all.
Gilgi drinks another shot, and another. She has absolutely no cause to shudder now, the stuff is going down like water. Usually she’s not interested in alcohol, or even avoids it, but now she’s pleasantly surprised that, just by spending four lots of fifteen pfennigs, you can conjure up such a nice bright red to replace the crappy black before your eyes. Good for you! Right, now she’ll just get to the bottom of this, of how everything was and how it developed. What’s there to be afraid of? She’s holding her life firmly in her hands, and it’ll take a lot more than this business to make her lose her grip. And we’ll put a stop to all the soppy emotionalism we’ve been indulging in recently while we’re at it.
“Wow, Frollein, when I see you tossing ’em down like that, I feel quite drunk myself. An’ such rough liquor too!” Fräulein Täschler orders herself a cherry brandy, and everything about her is so elegant that the Minister of Culture or President Hindenburg or Frau von Kardorff and her political salon … there’s no point of comparison, because Germany simply hasn’t seen such fearful elegance since it abolished the monarchy in 1918.
“Didn’t you have a child once?” Gilgi asks.
She’s drunk five shots now, and they’ve removed any desire for a roundabout approach. And I can tell you straightaway that the tearful reunion scene between mother and child, with or without embraces, is off.
Fräulein Täschler has had a face for the last half-hour, and now she has eyes, too, tiny, glittering little points. “What d’you mean, Frollein?”
Gilgi shrugs her shoulders. Answering a question with a question, that’s just what she wants to hear. “Well, you had a child once, didn’t you?”
“I?? Had a child?? You’re quite mistaken.” There are hostile lines around Fräulein Täschler’s nose and mouth.
“Maybe you forgot,” Gilgi suggests helpfully.
“I got a very good memory, Frollein, an’ when you’ve always been a decent woman, it’s easy to remember.”
“Well, why not drink another cherry brandy, Fräulein Täschler!”
And now the words gush out of her like a waterfall, and she tosses the cherry brandy down as she goes, and overall she becomes just a tiny bit less elegant than Frau von Kardorff.
“I mean, Frollein, if you say standards’re bad now’days, well, what I say is, there’ve always been all kinds, and our sort’ve always kept themselves decent, but the high-class people, well, I could tell you an in-ter-est-ing story if I wanted to.” She pauses, and sighs: “Yerse, one is much too decen’!” The sigh unmistakably expresses regret.
Gilgi drinks another shot and decides that this can’t go on. Is she supposed to sit here all night with Fräulein Ladies’ Dressmaker Ring Twice, discussing problems of ethics? “Go on, drink another cherry brandy, Fräulein Täschler!” This business of looking for your mother runs into money! But now she wants to straighten it out, now she goes for broke.
“I thought you had a child, because I know a girl, she was adopted by a family—what’s their name again? Kron—and she’s twenty-one now …”
Whereupon Täschler leaps up, screeching, and a plate falls to the floor. So she’s on the right track after all! It’s only now that Gilgi notices how hard she’s been hoping that the whole thing was a mistake, or a misunderstanding, or something—but whatever it was, not true.
“You’re the child!” Täschler shouts as understanding dawns, and she subsides back onto her chair. Gilgi tries to work out if that was the voice of their common blood that just spoke. For the voice of their common blood to speak now would be in accordance with the rules. My blood is deaf and dumb, I should make an appointment with the doctor, or maybe I’ve just had too much to drink.
“Nah, nah, nah, I knew right away there was somethin’ wrong about you. So you’re the child!”
In Gilgi’s head a fan is whirring, her hands are lying limply and tiredly in her lap. “So why did you say at first that you didn’t have a child, it doesn’t matter, it’s not immoral.” That makes Täschler laugh, a shrill, tinny sound, with her head wobbling from one side to the other, it’s embarrassing to hear her, and even more embarrassing to watch her. And she laughs and giggles and sways back and forth on her chair. “Well, Frollein, we should have another little drink on the stren’th of it.” Her laughter ends in a dry cough, saliva shines on her chin, her chunky nose is dotted with blackheads like a peewit’s egg. Why did you turn into that! Whose fault is it, whose? Yours, no doubt about it, but not yours alone. Gilgi sees jagged red letters in a gray fog: What are you doing with your life? She doesn’t move, she doesn’t speak—what is there left to say?—she’s not waiting for anything. She’s an exclamation mark at the end of some red letters: What are you letting happen to your life!
Täschler tells her story. Her arms are spread out across the table. Gilgi listens.
“It’s twenny-one years ago now, when I was sewin’ in high-class homes. Always makin’ old clothes into new ones, which a more expensive dressmaker wouldn’t’ve done. An’ I can tell you, Frollein, I was a good-lookin’ girl. So I was workin’ in this house, a mother an’ daughter, name of Kreil. Frollein, gimme your hand!” Gilgi gives it to her. “Swear to me, Frollein, that you’ll never tell anyone else what I’m goin’ to tell you.”
“I swear to you,” Gilgi says.
“Maybe we’ll both make somethin’ from it yet!” Täschler has glittering little dots of eyes. “Right, the Kreils, it was jus’ the mother an’ daughter, the old guy was dead. They had tons of money, tons, I’m tellin’ you! An’ the daughter was a nice girl, an’ when she was about twenny, she got involved with a guy, he was nothin’ an’ had nothin’, an’ the old girl was against him, ’cos she wanted the daughter to marry someone with a title, Count or Doctor or somethin’ like that. Anyway, the guy disappeared after a while, an’ everythin’ would’ve been alright, but suddenly it turns out that she’s five months gone. You should’ve seen the old girl, the way she kept her chin up an’ got to work. Then one fine day she came to me—I was livin’ all by myself in a room in Weyerstrasse. I didn’ have any relatives, an’ she knew that, an’ it suited her jus’ fine. So she said that there was this problem with her daughter, an’ it had to be fixed, her future’d be ruined if anyone found out, an’ it wouldn’ matter so much with me, the men of our class didn’ care if a girl had a child. An’ she’d manage things so that afterwards the child’d be mine, an’ I was to get ten thousand marks. Think of that—ten thousand marks, Frollein! An’ she’d arrange everythin’. Well, I’d’ve done lots of things for a hundred marks, though not everythin’, not by a long way, but for ten thousand marks! When I heard that, I couldn’ believe my ears. An’ then the old girl arranged everythin’. She rented an apartment in Bayenthal, in a really out-of-the-way part, an’ the Frollein an’ I lived there for the last three months. An’ the Frollein had to stay indoors all the time, she was neve
r ever allowed to go outside. I could go out sometimes, but then the old girl made me stuff a sofa cushion up the front of my dress, so that the people in the place’d all think I was havin’ a little visitor soon. The old girl’d thought of everythin’. An’ the Frollein, she said nothin’ at all, she was jus’ lyin’ real quiet on the cheese lounge and not sayin’ Boo, it’s like she was stunned, she jus’ did whatever the old girl wanted. An’ when the time came, there was jus’ a doctor there an’ the old girl, no-one else. An’ the doctor, he probably knew there was somethin’ fishy, but of course he would’ve got money, too, and once he took that he had to button his lip forever, ’cos he could’ve got into real bad trouble himself. An’ it all went well, and the Frollein spent the next week in bed, an’ I had to stay in bed too jus’ in case. An’ the kid was with me, such a sickly thing, fed with the bottle. The Frollein was never ever allowed to see the kid, an’ the old girl wanted me to get used to it. It was such a sickly thing, we thought it’d die, that would’ve been best, ’cos then I would’ve had the ten thousand marks all to myself an’ not had to spend it looking after the kid. An’ after a week, well, they took the Frollein home to her villa in Lindenthal, an’ I took a room in a nice suburb, an’ moved in with the kid. But they didn’ want me, because of the kid, so I came here to Thieboldstrasse. An’ the old girl said that if anyone found out I could go to jail, so I should jus’ keep my mouth shut, an’ not confess it to the priest, either. An’ then I went back to my customers an’ told everyone that I’d had a baby, that’s why I’d been away for three months, an’ lots of them didn’ want anythin’ to do with me anymore. An’ then I went to Frau Kron, too, to see if she had any work for me again. She’d just had a baby, an’ it was dead, an’ Herr Kron was there an’ was very unhappy, ’cos his wife’d wanted a baby so much, an’ after this difficult birth she could never have another one. An’ then we spoke about me an’ my baby, an’ Herr Kron pricked up his ears, an’ asked what I wanted with a child, ’cos it’d only be a burden to me, an’ he was quite right, an’ then they adopted the baby, an’ it hadn’ been baptized yet, either, I mean it was only two weeks old, an’ I hadn’ sorted much out yet. An’ they organized all that, an’ from one day to the next the kid was gone. An’ suddenly I had a whole lot of money, which I never would’ve got by being legit. So I went back to the good suburb an’ had a good time, an’ I got engaged, too, but nothin’ came of it. He drank like a fish, an’ when he’d got a thousand marks out of me, bit by bit, then I thought, that’s not love, an’ broke it off. An’ when I only had five thousand or so left, then I came back to Thieboldstrasse an’ did dressmakin’ again an’ thought, you can save that money for your old age. But it all disappeared in the hipper—the hyperinflation, an’ I was as poor as before. Then I remembered the old girl, Frau Kreil, an’ asked around, but she’s been dead for ages, an’ the Frollein got married, just a year after the baby, to a very rich man, an’ they have a classy apartment in Kaiser Wilhelm Crescent. An’ that’s your mother, Frollein—Magdalene Greif is her name now. An’ if you go to see her sometime, make sure the husband doesn’ see you, an’ maybe she’ll give you some money, an’ then you should think of me, ’cos I told you everythin’ about it, an’ because I’m jus’ a poor old woman now, but don’ say anythin’ to her about me …” Gilgi is rushing through the streets, she has to get to Pit, to tell him what’s happening, to talk to him. Couldn’t Täschler be helped a little? She’s a pitiable creature, no doubt—and probably there’s not much more that can be done for her. Gilgi crosses the New Market with long strides. The great clock is showing eleven, Pit won’t be at home anymore, he’ll be playing piano in a thirteenth-rate bar in one of those little streets near the Rhine by now. You can go there and wait till he’s finished.
Gilgi has reached the Haymarket, with the Rhine in front of her. She swings right into the side-streets. Swell area. Little alley-ways, narrow, precarious houses. Now she’s at the Old Market, with a magical little piece of the Middle Ages in front of her, but Gilgi has no particular love for the Middle Ages, today or any other day. She turns into an alley-way which leads down to the Rhine. Lintstrasse. This must be where Pit’s playing. She hardly knows this area. The alley-way narrows as it approaches the Rhine. If you stretched your arms out, you could touch the houses on both sides with your fingertips. A policeman is patrolling somewhere, a woman with peroxided hair is waving from a window, some youths are strolling up and down, clearly feeling at home. Gilgi runs to the end of the alley-way, confused, she must have missed the bar—Breakfast Room—that can’t be it. She turns around. Moves faster when a youth calls out something obscene to her. There it is—Wine Bar! She pushes the door open. Thank God—Pit’s red mop of hair is the first thing she sees.
The marabou-bird said / The wise old marabou … she taps him on the shoulder with her index finger: “I’d like to talk to you, I’ll wait till you’ve finished.” Pit’s face betrays neither surprise nor pleasure … My dear girl, when you kiss / He does not need to look at … “might be two o’clock,” he grunts, without taking his fingers from the keys for so much as a second … The marabou-bird said / The … Gilgi sits down at a corner table.
What a depressing joint! Red-and-white paper streamers are hanging down from the ceiling, a few lanterns with red paper shades are swaying back and forth over the piano. A fat bald man is stretched out at the bar, two traveling salesmen are sitting in the corner opposite to Gilgi, one with a girl on his lap … The marabou-bird … Both the traveling salesmen are shouting with laughter, probably because that’s part of the experience, and because tomorrow they’ll want to tell themselves and everyone else what a great time they had. Two battered sample-cases are lying neglected beneath the table.
A girl comes out from behind the bar, and asks Gilgi more or less pleasantly what she’d like. “Cup of coffee.” They don’t serve it. The cheapest thing she can order is port wine. Fine, port wine. It’s terrible how much money she’s spending today! She starts to feel uneasy, what’s she supposed to do here while she’s waiting? Three more hours! She digs some sandwiches out of her bag and starts to eat, less from hunger than from boredom. Pit’s playing the Song of the Pigeon … How did you, pigeon, pigeon, pigeon … the two traveling salesmen are singing along, the waitress is singing too. One of the lanterns expires from enthusiasm, a breath of hometown pride wafts through the room.
You should be in your loft / Our kitchen’s not for you: Get lost! / Take off! Take off! Take off!… Gilgi is writing in a little notebook. Income—Expenditures. You have to be orderly. Especially in financial matters. “Like a sweet little shopkeeper!” Olga says on those occasions when Gilgi ponders for a half-hour about a fifty-pfennig purchase she can’t remember. Olga never has a clue what she’s spent her money on. She has no system, and no ability to organize one. Whenever Gilgi thinks of Olga’s finances, she feels faint. And whenever she hears Olga talking about money, she feels downright seasick. Income—Expenditures.
Maria, Maria, listen—do!
That Engelbert’s not the man for you …
Bang! The door is thrown open, a multi-colored being sweeps in, alights next to Gilgi’s table: “You don’ mind, do you, Frollein?” and calls over to the bar: “Gimme a schnapps and five Ova cigarettes!”
The multi-colored being looks depressed. Gilgi offers it a cigarette. She packs her notebook away in her bag, chews on her sandwich and looks over the bright little hooker. Who sighs: “Nothin’ happenin’,” and Gilgi doesn’t quite know if that means in general, or only in the bar.
“How did you end up here?” Gilgi doesn’t answer. The hooker is wearing a coral necklace, her knitted jacket is mended neatly at the elbows—could she have done it herself?—she’s put lots of polish on her broad, grubby fingernails, and she has no face, just as Fräulein Täschler had no face.
Maria, Maria, listen—do … What are these people to me, Gilgi thinks. Everyone is in the place where they belong. If their lives end up in the crapper, it’s thei
r own fault. “God, I almos’ forgot again,” the hooker laughs, “I was goin’ to put my elbow on the table again, but that always ruins the mend in my jacket.” She places her arms carefully on the table, like a well-behaved child in Sunday School. “ ’S cold outside,” she says.
Gilgi nods. “D’you want a sandwich?” she asks, friendly but uncertain, and points to the packet in front of her.
“God, if you’ve got enough of ’em.” The hooker takes one, and Gilgi puts the next one in front of her, too, the hooker touched it with her finger, and Gilgi can’t bear that. A girl as pretty as you / Deserves a real Prince Charm-ing too …
The hooker chews, which she can only do on the left side, she has a big hole in a molar on her right. “Haven’ been able to get it done yet, yeah, it’s a lousy job I’ve got.”
“So why’d you choose it?” Gilgi asks.
“I didn’ actually choose it.”
“So find a better one now.” Gilgi feels vaguely that a girl who mends her knitted jacket neatly doesn’t have to earn her living on the street. The hooker shrugs her shoulders: “God, I’m in it now, what’m I supposed to do?” Gilgi can’t find an answer to that. Just don’t stick your nose so high in the air, just don’t always think it’s so completely your own doing if you’re something better. Say the Krons hadn’t adopted her, say she’d been brought up by Täschler, back there in Thieboldstrasse, say she—better not to think about it at all — — —
