The Artificial Silk Girl (13 page)

It’s freezing in here. That crazy Albert! All trouble comes from those dumb jerks. On the other hand, you do need them. It’s disgusting. Well, I could still try film. Then I can sit in the film café from morning till night, all year round. Some day they will discover me as a starved corpse to use as an extra. Dirty pigs.

Five pfennigs extra for a tiny pot of hot water, that Briekow is asking. Very soon she’s going to position herself in the bathroom and take a penny each time. I could try bartending. The other night I was at a bar with the caterpillar. He latched on to me at the
Café des Westens
— plaid suit with a dotted tie, on his head more oil than hair and two cherry brandys and me with my genuine emu leather shoes for 40 marks! Girls were sitting on their barstools like plucked chickens on a ledge, looking as if they would have to go to a spa first before they would ever be able to lay another egg. And in front of them guys — like sensual rabbits sitting up on their hind legs groveling. And the way they talk! You really have to have been there. For a tip of three cents they talk for eight hours in front of a glass of eggnog — all lies of course. Then they tease you — and you have to listen to their jokes, too! If I were a bartender, I wouldn’t laugh unless they gave me one mark. I would have the proper outfits. But unfortunately, I have no elegant evening gown. I’m going to the post office now to call Lippi Wiesel, who loved me back then. He’s one of the intellectual elite
but not that poor, because he’s got a steady job at the newspaper and he’s right where things are happening.

So I call Lippi Wiesel, who looks like one too, by the way. And I had a plan, because I had the reputation of being elegant in that group.

And so I say in a calm voice: “Hi, Lippi — how’s it going — well — tell me, do you know Sweden?”

And he says “Yes.”

Me: “That’s where I had wanted to go at first. Do you know Greece?”

And he says “Yes.”

Me: “I had considered going there too.”

So I’m thinking what other countries are there where that son of a bitch might not have been, because I had my plan and had to impress him. So I ask: “Do you know Bulgaria?”

And he says “No.”

And I’m thinking: Thank God! — and now I start my story: “So I was in Bulgaria. My father has a secret connection with the government there — yes, I just got back a little while ago — no, my father is still there. I had something going with the secretary of acquisitions — very uncomfortable — you know, if you step on a man’s toe down there, it means that you’re serious about him — I had no idea, I did it by mistake. So my father tells me I have to suffer the consequences and leave, or else
I would ruin his business negotiations — and he smelled from rubber, they all do down there — it’s a beautiful country, they have gilded tables in the cafés and waiters dressed in red velvet who immediately ask you:
carabitchi
— that means: your name, please — and you tell them and they bring you a coffee pot with the guest’s initials lit up on it.

That’s the way you get to Lippi Wiesel’s kind, because they need an international impression. I’m meeting him later.

   I’m staying at Lippi Wiesel’s. He believes that my father is with the government because that’s the only sexual attraction I have for him, since his usual politics is blonde, and for men, politics and eroticism often go hand in hand because of race and conviction. I’m just glad that I got away from that Briekow woman. So they have courses teaching you foreign languages and ballroom dancing and etiquette and cooking. But there are no classes to learn how to be by yourself in a furnished room with chipped dishes, or how to be alone in general without any words of concern or familiar sounds.

I don’t really like him all that much, but I’m with him, because every human being is like a stove for my heart that is homesick but not always longing for my parents’ house, but for a real home — those are the
thoughts I’m turning over in my mind. What am I doing wrong?

Perhaps I don’t deserve better.

   It’s Christmas. The snow is making people drunk. Really drunk like wine. To be drunk is the only way not to get too old. So many years are crawling at me.

By way of Tilli, I sent Therese a bar of hazelnut chocolate, and I wish that her lonely wallpaper would develop many lips to give her passionate kisses.

To my mother, I gave a pot warmer via Therese by way of Tilli. For her, I wish that her husband, who is my father, would take her into his arms without being drunk.

I gave Tilli my own purple silk shirt and I wish that her Albert notices when she wears it, and that he finds work.

That Hulla was a whore. Maybe there’s no grave for people like that and sometimes you make life on earth hell for people, and that’s why it’s stupid to be praying for them when they’re finally happily dead. And when there’re no men who pay, there won’t be any Hullas — no man is allowed to say anything bad about that Hulla. I really wish her a heaven that has use for the good in her eyes. And when she’s become an angel, she should have wings without any bandaids on them.

For myself, I so much wish for a voice of a man that’s like a dark blue bell that says to me: Doris, listen to me; I’m telling you the right thing.

To my fur I give a waft of lavender perfume and wish that it won’t lose its hair. And I wish that to everyone.

For Lippi Wiesel, I embroidered three picture frames with different kinds of flowers and I bought a Christmas tree and decorated it and locked it up in the bathroom. And then I’m going to light the candles, and I wish that we would think of each other as people.

   I’m at a restaurant. I did Christmas. Christmas Eve. It’s nothing but bullshit. I lit the candles and decorated the table with branches. And I’m waiting. And that Lippi doesn’t show. Because I’m the kind of woman whose men are invited to a family on holidays, where it’s boring, but they are on the same level and are considered society. And that’s where he’s celebrating, while my kind is waiting. And so I went to bed. There were candles on my tree and one of the branches went up in flames.

A great big red fire — I feel like having that kind of a fire — at school, there was Paul — we made a fire in the summer cottage, potato fire, and then we ate the burnt potato skins — Paul was the black bear, the sky was a steep gray mist — we built a tower out of one of the flames — I was the Indian with a chicken feather behind my ears, which stand out a bit but they hardly do that anymore now.
Besides, there’s hair over them. I want a fire on crinkly hard earth.

“Forgive me, honey.” There he is — that son of a bitch is drunk. “Forgive me, the Brennings wouldn’t let me leave, I brought her fifteen marks-worth of orchids. Do you think that’s enough? Her husband has connections, you know — she got two young Scotch terriers that we’re going to feature in our photo section soon — unfortunately, they’re not housetrained yet — see the stain on my knee — can you wash that out tomorrow?”

“You could at least turn on the radio,” I say.
Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright
— at school I was first soprano — si-hi-lent night —

“My dear girl, unfortunately I didn’t get a gift for you, times are hard y’know, my little bug, they’re cutting back everywhere. I didn’t even get my last paycheck yet — what’s Christmas anyway, all about business — but for you my child, I have a present for you, the most beautiful and the best I can give you — I give you me.” And so he jumps on top of the bed, still wearing his shoes and suspenders.

“Please keep your clothes on, Sir,” I say and I’m ashamed with rage.

“Our German Christmas,” he pants, gasping for air.

“What about a German Christmas!” And I get out of bed — sleep with a drunkard, no way — I get my suitcase — “Just a minute, dear, I’m coming, I’m just looking for something” — keys on the table, thank God, hurry,
hurry
— silent night, holy
— where are the keys
— silent
 … “I’m taking the soap, it’s mine — bye!” — he’s already asleep — be well!

And then I spent a winter night half-asleep in
Tiergarten
on a park bench. You can’t imagine what that’s like unless you’ve experienced it yourself.

I
’m walking around with my suitcase and don’t know what I want or where to go. I’m spending a lot of time at the waiting room at
Bahnhof Zoo
. Why is it that waiters are so full of spite, when you just so happen not to have any money?

I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go to Tilli’s. I don’t want to go go Lippi’s or to any of those other jerks — I don’t want to anymore, I just don’t want to. I don’t want any men that get themselves invited for Christmas. I want — I want — what do I want?

There are waiting rooms and tables. That’s where I sit. I don’t want to pawn the fur. I refuse to — besides, I don’t have any papers. Tilli knows a woman who would buy it.
But I don’t want to sell. Sometimes my head just hits the tabletop in front of me, that’s how heavy it is with fatigue. I continue to write because my hand wants something to do and my notebook with its white lined pages has a kind of readiness to receive my thoughts and my tiredness and to be a bed that my letters can lie in. That way at least part of me has a place to lie down.

And the table smells from cold ordinary cigarette ashes and
Maggi’s
seasoning and a restroom attendant gave me a meat sandwich that tasted like hygiene, which is the medical word for health. I know that because Rose Krall told me, who was also sitting at Jaedike’s and whose boyfriend is a doctor. You can always tell the profession of a girl’s last boyfriend, because they talk the language of his occupation.

My God, I’m so tired. And I don’t feel like doing anything. It’s all the same. The only thing that emerges from my fatigue is my curiosity about how things might continue — hello there, bring me another pint, will you? — why is there so much musical ado about the Rhine around here? There’s someone playing the harmonica next door with his forehead as crumpled up as his life. And yesterday I was with a man who came on to me and took me for something that I’m not — that I’m not, even now. But there are whores standing around everywhere at night — so many of them around the
Alex
, so many, along the
Kurfürstendamm
and
Joachimsthaler Strasse
and at the
Friedrichstrasse
Station
and everywhere. And they don’t always look the part at all either, they walk in such a hesitant way. It’s not always the face that makes a whore — I am looking into my mirror — it’s the way they walk, as if their heart had gone to sleep.

So I was slowly walking past the Memorial Church, down the
Tauentzien
, walking farther and farther with an attitude of indifference in the backs of my knees and thus my walking was a kind of staying in place between wanting to walk further and a desire to walk back again, in that I really didn’t want to do either. And then my body came to a stop at the corner, because corners create in one’s back such a longing for contact with the sharp edge that is called a corner, and you want to lean up against them just once and feel them intensely. And you let the light that is coming from several streets illumine a face for you and you look at other faces and you wait. It’s like a sport and full of tension.

I kept walking and walking, the whores were standing at corners plying their trade, and there was a sort of mechanism in me that duplicated precisely their walking and standing still. And then a man spoke to me, someone who thought himself my better, and I said, “I am not ‘my child’ to you, I am a lady.”

And we talked to each other at a restaurant and I was supposed to order wine and I would much rather have had something to eat. But that’s just like them — they don’t
mind paying large sums for something to drink, but as soon as they have to pay just a small amount for something to eat they feel taken advantage of, because food is a necessity, but having a drink is superfluous and therefore elegant. He had a dueling scar on his face and was looking for the Berlin underworld. Because he was an out-of-towner wanting to have some danger, so he could show courage.

So I took the Scarface to a basement behind
Nollendorfplatz
— and it was completely empty in there. And in the middle there was room to dance and a dreary flame plus that mirror of a foggy moon reflected in a puddle in the backyard. And it had high ceilings and was cold and cheap. On the walls were pictures of people in the old days doing immoral things. Some of the tables had tablecloths on them like a caretaker would do on Sundays. Hookers were wearing dresses that were fashionable five years ago or longer. Completely out of style and dead Middle Ages, like in those novels. And a band. It was a one-man show and he gets one mark per night. He had been in jail and before that he had been an actor. He looked like those young heroes at my old theater, with their blond hair and their faces a color that made them look like babies under the stage lighting and like those sick old men at the hospital during the day. He had also written for newspapers. So now he’s standing in the middle
of the empty gray space holding a bag made from newspaper. And he sticks it on his nose and lights the tip of it. Boom-boom makes the band and then the lights go off, which only makes you realize that they had been on in the first place. He kneels down with the newspaper bag burning like a flame on his nose — and he bends over backwards — he’s wearing those Tyrolean pants.

“What do you want to drink?” the Scarface asks. “There’s nothing happening here.”

The hooker with the red face claps and an echo of hers claps too. The bag is very large, it’s burning slowly. The actor is shaking the flames off his face
— O Donna Clara
plays the band and the dark light comes back on. His name is Herbert, I know him. Three years ago he was still one of the elite. And then he puts on a tiny idiotic hat and makes faces.

“Give him one mark,” I tell the Scarface.

“A penny is plenty,” he says, and throws Herbert a nickel.

“Too bad you didn’t have anything smaller,” I say.