“You do. A lovely voice. Do you know what that song is about?” When I shrugged, he said, “It’s ‘Das Lila Lied,’ The Lavender Song. A homosexual anthem.”
“Oh?” Of course I knew. I’d seen homosexuals in the cafés—lithe boys in skintight sailor pants and perky caps, sashaying with precision. I’d grown curious as they sidled past me, eyeing each other at the bar and sometimes disappearing into the alley behind the café, until I finally dragged Bertha outside with me, ignoring her protest.
We stood in the shadows, watching one boy lean against a wall while the other slipped to his knees before him. Right there, under peeling posters announcing Henny Porten’s latest flicker and defiant slogans of sickles and fists, the kneeling boy took the other in his mouth. As he gulped, the standing boy slid his eyes at us. He winked. Bertha gasped, pulling from me to race back into the café. I stayed until they finished, the kneeling boy rubbing himself as his companion spilled. I found myself aroused by their random carnality; it made me think about the vagaries of desire in our new order, epitomized by boys who not only felt at liberty to do this but apparently enjoyed performing before an audience. It wasn’t Mutti’s Germany anymore. When decorum frayed, primal nature took hold.
“They have their own anthem?” I said. “That’s original.”
“Only you would say that. To everyone else, it’s yet another sign of our descent into depravity.” He reached for his robe. He’d already slipped into his underdrawers; he retreated into them as soon as we finished, a shapeless white sack that reached almost to his knees and always reminded me of Oma gasping, What is that hideous thing?
Recalling the boys in the side alley, I let the sheet slide down to expose my breasts. “Come here. Come suckle me, Daddy.”
He liked being called Daddy in the midst of it; he liked calling me his Liebling, but not out of bed. His face shuttered. “It’s late,” he muttered. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to the boardinghouse before Frau Arnoldi has something to say?”
I yawned. “She always has something to say. But my rent is paid every month, so she won’t say much.” I almost added that he got paid as well, though I knew what he implied. He never let me stay the night, lest the maid who came in the morning to clean might see me. The maid or the neighbors or a passing stranger: We could pull down the blinds to stain his bed, but we could not hide in daylight if I walked out his front door.
He tied his robe about his waist.
“So, what do you think?” I leaped out of bed, setting my hands on his bony shoulders. Again, my need to needle him took over. “You could come with me,” I whispered in his ear. “You told me you gave up music and always regretted it. You can play again. We can move to Berlin, take new names, start a new—”
He stepped away. “That is enough.” The granite in his tone brought me to a halt. “I never said I regretted it. I said I had surrendered to it.”
I frowned. “Isn’t it the same thing?”
“Perhaps it was. Not now. Berlin.” He laughed. “To live among immigrants, Jews, and deviants. And at my age, with you of all people—it’s preposterous.”
He infuriated me. I snatched up my dress. As I shoved my feet into my shoes and prepared to march past him, he murmured, “Don’t be angry. I didn’t mean it would be preposterous to be with you, only—”
“Only what?” I glared at him. “Am I not sophisticated enough? Talented enough?”
“Oh, you are. You are not the girl I first met. But I have no interest in uprooting my existence to do—well, whatever it is you think you should do in Berlin.”
It was the first time he’d spoken about where we stood, and as soon as he did, I realized how preposterous I truly was. I hadn’t actually thought he would ever join me, but to hear him say it so flatly, as if I were a silly naive girl—it locked up something inside my heart.
“What you really mean is, you have no interest in leaving your wife,” I said, and I saw his expression dim. Though he did not answer, he didn’t have to. I had found his melancholy attractive. Not anymore. Suddenly, he disgusted me with his sad eyes and resignation.
“I’m not the first, am I?” I said abruptly.
He flinched. “Why do you say that?”
“Just a feeling. You were so mortified, so willing to resign your position. But now I think you weren’t so guilty after all. It was well played.” I smiled. “I think you missed your calling. You should have been an actor.”
“Marlene, how could I resist? How could any man? Those eyes of yours, the way you don’t seem to care who desires you . . . I was helpless.”
“I don’t think your wife would agree. Nor anyone on the faculty.”
He moved quickly, grabbing me by my wrist. “Do not threaten me now. You are bored. There’s an entire world out there, so why stay? I expected it. I knew this would happen. But you don’t want me to abandon my home, my wife and children, to move with you to Berlin. If I said I loved you, would you believe me?”
“Not now,” I replied. “But I would have liked to hear you say it anyway.”
“Why? So you can torment me more than you already do, when I know—when you know—it cannot last? You are so young; you have no understanding of what love is.”
I looked down at his hand. He removed it.
“You are wrong,” I said. “I do understand. Perfectly.”
Before he could speak, I walked out of his bedroom and out of his house.
I did not look back.
I wanted to cry. I thought it was what a girl should do. Henny Porten would have cried; she would have rent her breast and railed at her fate. But that was the flickers. This was real life.
I had slept with a married man, convinced myself that I loved him, but I’d confused love with something ephemeral, not meant to last. It hurt now but it would pass, because I really didn’t want him. He had his wife and circumscribed life, where I would never fit. He’d grow old teaching violin and seducing less gifted students. I had always known he was weak. I had known and ignored it, because I’d longed for someone or something to call my own. But he had never been mine. How could I cry over a delusion?
And yet as I walked to the boardinghouse, I felt the tears smarting behind my eyes.
AFTER THE END OF MY AFFAIR WITH REITZ, I plunged into gaiety. I neglected all my classes, as the clamor in the streets seeped past the conservatory’s gates and students marched down the halls, crying out for socialist equality. Weimar exploded with rebellion. Police shot tear gas at protestors as the price of everything rose to extremes. A loaf of bread now cost more than perfume, and newspapers blared headlines about how all over Germany workers raced with their savings heaped in wheelbarrows to purchase a single head of soggy lettuce. It was the death of a nation, and no one knew what would arise in its place.
I paid no heed. I danced, smoked, and let more boys rummage under my blouse, and do other things. I purchased my own prophylactics from the pharmacy, ladling out my marks before the pharmacist’s outraged wife, and I used them whenever a boy could hold it in long enough, though most gushed onto my stomach. I slept around and I did not care. I tasted as many as I could, to rinse the sour dregs of Reitz from my tongue.
But I knew what was coming; Bertha warned me. One night after I staggered into our room to fling myself onto my bed with my underpants missing, she hissed, “Marlene, you’re insane. You missed all your classes this month! Your instructors sent warnings that you’ll be suspended. Frau Arnoldi is fit to be tied. She says you are a disgrace and she’ll tell your mother.”
“She should be tied,” I slurred. “Tied and muzzled.” I’d had too much beer. I didn’t like to drink, because it always went to my head, but I drank anyway, as much as I could. It blurred the rough edges, made the boys seem less like farmhands as they rummaged up my skirt. And it made me more willing.
I passed out, missing my morning classes again. I slept till noon, until a sharp rapping at the door woke me. Before I could wipe the drool from my chin, the door shot o
pen to reveal Mutti in her coat and hat, Frau Arnoldi gloating behind her.
“See?” said Frau Arnoldi. “Drunk and truant. It’s a dishonor, Frau von Losch.”
My mother’s voice was impassive. “I do see,” she said. She directed her next words at me like bullets: “Pack your belongings. You are coming home. Now.”
SCENE THREE
SCREEN TEST
1922–1929
“I SIMPLY WASN’T AMBITIOUS, NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN.”
I
Mutti did not speak during the train ride home. I didn’t, either, wondering if besides my delinquency, Frau Arnoldi had reported her suspicions about me and Professor Reitz. But once we reached Berlin, I discovered that even if she had, Mutti’s decision to remove me from the conservatory had been spurred by more than my behavior.
Mutti was now working in various homes as a housekeeper, Liesel told me, to support my education and hers. My sister was finishing her credentials and seeking part-time employment in a local school. The behest left by Oma was gone. Inflation was such, it was all Uncle Willi could do to keep open the store on Unter den Linden. He was diversifying the merchandise to attract new clientele. Shortage of money, rather than lax morals, had ended my time at the conservatory, for my mother was proud and would never see me get behind on my rent.
Still, it wasn’t long before she made her displeasure known.
“You will contribute to this household,” she informed me after breakfast. “There is no place here for idle hands.”
“Then I shall,” I said sourly. “I’ll clean the flat.” After a week of her disapproving silence, and Liesel tiptoeing about as if the floor might crack open, they’d managed to make me feel as if I were a criminal. I had waited for Mutti to lash out, to heap her horror and disbelief on my head, but her icy silence had prevailed—until now.
“Indeed you will.” She buttoned up her coat. “Clean, that is. I’ve found you a new music professor. He’s agreed to teach you in exchange for housekeeping.” She paused. “He’s Austrian and over seventy, but renowned in his field. I trust you still remember how to wax a floor?”
“You—you want me to be his maid?” I was aghast. “But surely I can do something else.”
Liesel, sitting beside me, shrank into her chair, her gaze fixed on her dish of lumpy porridge. She’d grown even more diffident, if possible, during the time I’d been away.
“Oh?” said Mutti. “What else do you think you can do?”
“Play my violin.” My indignation erupted. “I’ve had three years of training at the conservatory! You sent me there to learn music,” I added defiantly. “And so I did.”
She sniffed. “I’m well aware of what you learned. I daresay, so is all of Weimar. I regret that I did not know sooner. Indeed, I should have listened to you and had you enrolled in a music academy here in Berlin, where I could keep a closer eye on you.”
I clenched my teeth. I couldn’t deny her accusation and I refused to try. I was tired of being treated as if I must do penance. Yes, I had done wrong and wasted her tuition. Yes, I had taken a lover, but the only person who’d ended up hurt by it was me. And that was over now; I was done with the conservatory. I had lost my head, and other things; but I had the training and some talent, and I would not be some old man’s drudge.
“I’m twenty years old,” I said. “There must be a hundred girls in Berlin who can wax the Austrian professor’s floor. Let me talk to Uncle Willi. He must know of—”
“He has no openings at the store,” Mutti said, “if that’s what you’re thinking. Indeed, he has enough on his plate without you going to him to beg for charity.”
I had wondered why she and my sister remained in this rented flat when the family residence had plenty of room. But when I asked Liesel, she only said, “He has a guest”—a cryptic remark that piqued my curiosity. After my experiences in Weimar, I wondered if my uncle, with his stylish clothes, love of the theater, and perfect mustachios, might be homosexual. He had never married, though he was in his midfifties. I had never heard of a girlfriend or mistress, so I wanted to meet this mysterious guest of his. But Mutti refused to arrange a visit, prohibiting me from setting foot anywhere near the family house or the store.
“I don’t want to work in the shop,” I replied. “He knows people in the theater. Theaters need musicians for their orchestras and I could—”
“Out of the question. While you live here, under my roof, you will abide by my rules. Is that understood? No daughter of mine will work in a theater. It is not a profession; it’s not even a respectable occupation. I’ll not tolerate you making a spectacle of yourself. You will do as I say, when I say it. It is high time you understand how to behave in the proper way.”
I wanted to reply that perhaps I should start looking for another living arrangement. I felt smothered; I might not miss the conservatory but I longed for the freedom of Weimar. How could she scold me like a child beholden to her mandates, when the rules she clung to had ceased to exist? Did she not see the demonstrations, the hunger and rage all around us, the bare larders in her own home that obliged her to work for a pittance? But I curbed my temper. Without money or any prospects, I’d end up on the streets, as Frau Arnoldi had assured me I would. No matter what, I had to prove myself. I wouldn’t let my mother or anyone else make me feel useless. Reitz had taken my confidence in music from me, and now I had to get it back.
“Liesel.” Mutti gestured to my sister. “Finish your porridge. You’ll be late for class.”
“Yes, Mutti,” my sister mumbled.
Mutti returned her stare to me. “You will do the laundry today and practice your violin. Tomorrow, I’ll take you to meet your professor.” Without waiting for my response, she marched from the house. She’d be gone until nightfall, doing other people’s laundry.
I growled. “Gott in Himmel. She’s a dragon.”
Liesel took up her dish. “What do you expect? You couldn’t possibly think she’d ever condone what you’ve done. She was beside herself when she finally heard of those goings-on in Weimar. Whatever were you thinking? We were not raised like that. How could you be so . . . ?”
“So what?” I retorted. “What was I doing that is such a crime?”
“That professor,” Liesel said, and I held my breath, expecting the worst, until she added, “Mutti sent him a payment for your private lessons and he returned it. He wrote that you were no longer studying with him, though you had promise. If you were no longer studying with him and not going to classes in the conservatory, Lena, what on earth were you doing?”
“Whatever I liked,” I said angrily, though I was grateful that somehow my affair with Reitz had not reached my sister’s ears. “I can still play the violin. I haven’t forgotten how, if that’s what concerns you.”
Liesel lowered her eyes. “Mutti is right. I don’t know who you are anymore.”
She went into the kitchen. Moments later, I heard her slip on her coat and leave. She was working as a substitute teacher, filling in when someone on the faculty fell ill, retired, or dropped dead.
I looked around me at the peeling wallpaper, the mildew stains on the ceiling, the always impeccably clean but chipped and faded furnishings hauled from Schöneberg.
A wail coiled inside me.
No matter what, I had to escape.
II
Uncle Willi embraced me with joy when I entered the store. Times might be hard, but he looked fit and well, and he showed me all the items he’d added to the stock, augmenting our traditional watches and clocks with enamel frames and imitation Fabergé eggs, gilded perfume bottles like those I’d seen in Oma’s room, and painted porcelain dishes. He’d dedicated an entire section on the mezzanine to jewelry—bracelets, pendants, earrings, brooches, and necklaces arrayed on blue velvet. I couldn’t help but wonder why my mother, when she owned a share in the business, seemed barely to survive. But I did not ask. Instead, when I admired a cabochon emerald necklace, he removed it for me to try on before the mirro
r, sparking frozen green fire about my throat.
“My Jolie designed some of these pieces,” he said. “Aren’t they exquisite? And so popular. We’re having some success with them. Women love them for the evening.”
I fingered the stones. “Aren’t they terribly expensive?” I had no idea what emeralds cost but I imagined they must be beyond the reach of everyone but the very rich, and how many people were very rich in Germany these days?
“Those are.” He leaned to my ear. “Don’t tell anyone,” he whispered, “but with the exception of that piece and a few others, which are mostly for show, these others are fake. My Jolie is so clever. She says it’s the current rage in Paris, using paste stones instead of real ones. No one can tell the difference; and in this economy, no one can afford to.”
I would never have known. I had no eye for what was real or not, but it was the second time he’d mentioned his Jolie. “Liesel tells me you have a guest living with you? Is it Jolie?”
“Yes.” He beamed. “She is my wife.”
Before I could react to this momentous news, he went on, “You must meet her. Oh, she’ll adore you. She reminds me so much of our dear Oma—so elegant and refined. She’s done miracles to revive your tired old uncle and his business.”
I had timed my visit to perfection. “I would very much like to meet her,” I said, reluctantly unclasping the necklace to return it to him.
As he set it into the case, he sighed. “I’d have invited you over as soon as you came back from Weimar but Josephine wouldn’t hear of it.”
Marlene: A Novel Page 7
