The Artificial Silk Girl (11 page)

“Light gray suits really make dark men look like demons. Red ties make them look funny — my eyes are all worn out — you, you, you — ”

“What else, what else?”

“The women in Berlin are beautiful and well groomed and in debt.

“I’m dancing, yes, I’m dancing — I’m choking — there’s a Russian inside of me — he’s an emigrant — the way he’s talking — his words stumble rough and softly like the wheel of a Mercedes rolling over cobblestone pavement — he has no hair, his eyes are young and hard. And he’s slender. And the woman with her white face and her strawberry mouth is pulling her badger over her left shoulder in a way — and with her left hand she says to my Russian: ‘You, monkey, are none of my business really, but I wanted to — I like the way you look!’ — and she says it with elegant disdain. I’m thinking, you bitch! — ‘Interesting woman,’ says the Russian. ‘But crooked legs,’ I say in a cold voice. ‘How do you know?’ ‘Because of the timid way she holds on to her glass and wants to go to the bathroom, but doesn’t dare to go.’ Believe me, whenever a woman wants to take a guy away from me, I have an elegant way of badmouthing her, I don’t really know how I do it, but somehow I become intelligent all of a sudden. And we kiss while we’re dancing — in a bar — the cocktails are colorful — the color of a bleached brimstone butterfly — you get a headache after — ”

The wooden armoire is creaking, and Brenner puts his head on my legs: “I know you, I don’t have to see you.”

I think about what he said even though I don’t really have time to think about words — I have a lot of love that
I’m willing to share, but you have to give me enough time so I want to. Tilli is crying because her husband has been unfaithful — because it could have been just any woman for him. All I say to Tilli is: “You should know that it could have been any other woman instead of you too. It’s no different. And love is when you’re drunk together and you want to do it and everything else is nonsense.”

“Love is more than that,” says Brenner.

“Love is a lot of different things,” I say.

“Love is not business,” he says.

“Pretty girls are business,” I say, “and that has nothing to do with love. I know, I know — love so well — but I don’t want to know it, I don’t want to.”

“But I have a longing in me,” says Brenner. Why is it that his eyes are turning even more dead than before? I’m going to kiss him.

I love you, my brown madonna
— Virgin Mary, please pray for us — those dead eyes are telling me: “Doris, the time has come. The day after tomorrow I’m going to go into a nursing home.” The wife can’t handle it any more and wants it this way. But now she’s sorry, because this is the end of her majestic rule since she has no more subjects. No one can be emperor all by himself.

   All three of us are sitting in the kitchen. He’s propped up on the chair, the wife is near the stove, and I’m in front of the bed — we’re all standing there — “Frau Brenner,
your husband wants to spend one evening just walking around the streets — I’m going to lead him — because he’s going to the home, and there he’s not going to see anything anymore,” I say. He doesn’t say a word, but earlier he was begging me. I have a bouquet of violets pinned to my lapel — it was given to me by a suitor yesterday — and it’s breathing all blue in the kitchen. She’s standing there, his wife — long and thin and with greedy teeth: “I’m going with him.”

Her voice knocks out my violets. “He’s going with me. I’m his wife.”

“I’m going to go with him. I can show him a lot.”

And he’s not saying a word. The battle was going on above his head. All men are cowards. Then his wife starts to scream about all that she’s done for him.

What use is it? He can’t see us — but she smells old and I smell young. I don’t love him, but I’m fighting for our evening because he wants it, I can feel it in my knees. Perhaps because it’s the greatest gift for a woman to be allowed to be good to a man. And nothing else. And so I thank him for allowing me to be good to him, because usually they only love the nasty ones. And it’s much more exhausting to be nasty. That kitchen voice is killing my violets, they are dying right into my skin. And here I’m fighting for his wishes, because he’s tired. “My child.” My voice is trembling: “Dear Frau, whatever belongs to you — just for one evening — one night off — we’ll come back, I beg you.”
“What nonsense to be begging! Her kind knows only to scream every cent she’s earned through her yellow teeth. But I know what I want — my child, I’m not afraid — I still have some money. We can go anywhere we want.”

“It’s your choice,” screams the Yellow Teeth. Poor men, they always have to choose — Hindenburg — women — communists — women. “Listen Frau, just one evening and only for three hours — there’ll be enough hours left for you — so many.” Her hands with their rusty skin are dangling in front of me. “Yes,” she says.

So let’s go — we leave — crisscrossing Berlin — we take taxis — his skin smells like black and white birch trees, that’s how happy he is — because those don’t smell — you can only see them, but he can’t — that’s why he smells like them.

“It’s hard carrying a dead thing around with you,” he says. True. My uncle once had to carry a dead body up from the river at night and he told me: “Dead bodies are heavy.” Is everything a dead body? Let’s get off and keep walking — with music in the background — and he was young and drowned in a kayak and with a white sweater. And he had a girl. And the moon was shining, the sun had borrowed it — let’s move on.

We drink vodka in a Russian restaurant. They have schnapps here that tastes like a meadow — “and you know, the wallpaper, it’s covered with flowers that are laughing their heads off” — I love you because I’m good to you.

And we keep going — there’s a hard wind blowing and voices and streets — “Can you smell it if it’s getting dark?” Something inside me dissolves in so much calmness — I’m holding his hand and he trusts me, when I guide him — I must not become this way. How am I ever going to get anywhere? Let’s eat something.

We enter a restaurant on
Wittenbergplatz
. We’re sitting by the window. He has to talk to me, or else I won’t know that he’s having a good time, because his eyes are mute and his mouth is bitter and all he’s got left is his voice and a light. And through the slit in the dark forest green curtains, one can see the shimmer of red neon lights from afar. “Are you happy?” Sure I am. Beer is good when you’re thirsty. “Does it taste blonde?”

Let’s move on — I’m afraid that he’s no longer happy, but there’s a feeling of trust emanating from his arm. I’m his salvation at every intersection.

He’s sucking in the air and asks me: “Are there any stars?”

I look for them.

“Yes, there are stars,” I lie and I give them to him — there are no stars — but there must be some behind the clouds and they must be shining inside-out tonight. I love stars, but I hardly ever notice them. I guess when you’re blind, you realize how much you forgot to see.

And then we go to a café — I give my heart to you, only to you — the violinist has a way of singing! We have
something sweet that tastes pink — be happy — I want to, want to so badly. That let me get drunk.

“Doris — a forest,” he says.

A forest? — but we’re in Berlin. I’m not looking at anybody — I’m living only for you — that guy over there — live your own life, something from Sunday school which I used to skip and would go dancing instead — what do I care about God, while I’m still wondering where babies really come from — but you find out soon enough.

If only he would talk! We need to move on — occasionally there’s half a star coming out but it can’t compete with the neon lights and all that buzz around us. Sometimes I close my eyes for a moment when we get to a bus stop — strange how all those sounds enter you — it’s getting quieter and quieter — let’s go to the
Vaterland
. They’ve got to still be awake there. And we get on the bus and the bus skips across the pavement with us, even though it’s so big and fat — oops — and it’s so crowded and all the people are breathing into each oth-er’s faces — and the upholstery exudes a strange smell. Berlin. It’s Berlin I’m showing him.

The
Vaterland
has spectacularly elegant staircases like a castle with countesses in stride, and landscapes and foreign countries and Turkish and Vienna and summer homes of grapevine and that incredible Rhine valley with natural scenarios that produce thunder. We are sitting there and it’s getting so hot that the ceiling is coming down
— the wine makes us heavy — “Isn’t it beautiful here and wonderful?” It is beautiful and wonderful. What other city has this much to offer, rooms and rooms bordering on each other, forming a palatial suite? All the people are in a hurry — and sometimes they look pale under those lights, then the girls’ dresses look like they’re not paid off yet and the men can’t really afford the wine — is nobody really happy? Now it’s all getting dark. Where is my shiny Berlin? If only he weren’t getting quieter by the minute.

Let’s go. In the
Westend
, I know something wonderful — it’s expensive — but I think I can still swing it. It’s an elegant restaurant — I once went there with the intellectual elite — they have wine directly from Italy and people get wonderfully drunk and there are incredibly interesting women there and elegant people and everything is mysterious with low ceilings — and nobody has to feel ashamed for being different from the way they are during the day.

And I ask him: “Are you tired?”

“No, I’m not tired. I really want to thank you — do you think the home is going to have a garden?”

“Yes,” I tell him. “There’s going to be a garden.”

All I want to do is cry. Let’s go — everything looks different all of a sudden — in front of the
Vaterland
, someone is beating a poor girl — she’s screaming — and a police officer arrives — a lot of people are standing around, not knowing where to go, and there’s no glamour and nobody
there — only dead tombstones — and if someone looks at you it’s because he wants something from you — but why doesn’t he want anything good? His leg movements are heavy and I can feel the pressure coming from him and now his heaviness is in me as well.

We’re at the Italian place — they must not notice that he can’t see. That would make them angry, because it disrupts the happy atmosphere. “It’s nice here, isn’t it?” Mosaic lanterns and quiet corners, but not the sleazy kind, much more elegant and in a deep red — the music is singing and there’s an interesting buffet with oranges that look like leftover suns.

A St. Pauli girl, a girl from the
Reeperbahn
. “Oh my God! That’s so zippy!” That’s what Therese would say, because that’s what her man used to say all the time — and that’s the only sentence of his that she can remember. I’m going to start crying any minute now — and I’m telling jokes — my voice flickers like a fire that’s about to die. He forces himself to laugh and says: “It’s wonderful.” But I don’t believe him.

So he’s not in love with me. That would salvage everything — but this way we’re caught in this cold circle that only our heads can meet in and nothing else — and sometimes I have a feeling as if he were flying away from me on a heap of white cold snow — and then I’m freezing to death with loneliness — he’s got to help me for a change — and when he’s at the home and I don’t see him anymore,
he should have three good thoughts for me every day — that would really make a difference to me. I would find that very comforting — but maybe that’s already too much to ask.

It’s possible that I did love him a little bit — it’s just that I don’t want to and I’m fighting it because of my career and because it would only be trouble. But what can you do. You always notice too late that you’re getting that stupid pain deep down in your stomach — he really could take my hand now.

“The city isn’t good and the city isn’t happy and the city is sick,” he says — “but you are good and I thank you for that.”

I don’t want him to thank me. I just want him to like my Berlin. And now everything looks so different to me — I’m drunk and I’m dreaming with my eyes open — a St. Pauli girl, a girl from the
Reeperbahn
 … and the band would much rather go home — a
Reeperbahn
girl really is much too sad a creature that she should constantly be cheering. And sometimes somebody is laughing — and that laugh is stuffing all of yesterday’s and today’s anger back into the mouth that it’s oozing from. And I close my eyes — there’s all that talk coming from so many mouths. They’re flowing into each other like a river full of dead bodies. It’s their funny words that have already been drowned in booze before they’ve had a chance to arrive at the next person’s ear — and my uncle once carried one,
with a white sweater and the moon was shining — why did we have to think of him earlier?

It was in St. Pauli near Altona that I was abandoned … I love those songs — and at the table next to us, two men and a lady are introducing each other and are looking each other up and down with a friendly mistrust in their eyes and at first they want to believe only the bad things.

I’m talking to him and I finally want to find a word that makes me be with him — God, I can’t stand it any more — let’s go — What’s wrong with me? — I want to kill that feeling inside of me. You have to be drunk to sleep with men, to have a lot of money — that’s what you have to want and never think of anything else. How else are you going to stand it — What’s wrong with this world?

And outside there’re still no stars in the sky. We’re leaving — I think the Memorial Church is telling a lie, saying it’s a church — because if it were one, you should be able to go there and stay there right now. Where can I find love and something that doesn’t fall apart right away? I’m so drunk, but I have to watch him — such a strange arm — back to his wife — back to the kitchen.

“The air is good now. It’s lonely,” he says — at
Kurfürstendamm
it’s getting full again. At the corner, there are the voices of four young men. They have a musical instrument and the four of them are singing with a lot of hope in their voices: that’s youth — that’s love … and we
understand, and we listen, because a movement of his arm signals me to stop — and then they collect money and they’re boys with happy faces, because they’re not going to let themselves be broken and they’re not afraid and they’re walking with a secure step. And then they sing again, and everything in their voices is young — but I’m not old yet either, am I?