The Artificial Silk Girl (19 page)

“No,” he says. “No, no, no — I like you far too much, little woman.” Like or no like — Herr Ern — I just couldn’t say his name — all the cyclamen were looking at me and the air was piercing — “You, Herr — I’m not innocent, you won’t be responsible for me, I have gratitude and lo — well, you know — and you don’t have to marry me and you can forget me again — and if — well, okay, you would be as much pleasure for me as I would like to be for you.”

Those words were coming out of my mouth like an energetic prayer, but my arms and my heart were all weak and helpless. My voice was trembling and I had to cry, but I wanted to, because that sort of thing always gives
a man reason to come closer. And then we comforted each other until we were terribly happy, and this morning we saw the snow together for the first time and woke up together.

That’s not what love is all about, I’ll have you know, but it’s part of it, in a nice way.

Spring. It makes me terribly uncomfortable, but he wants to buy me a coat on the 15th. I’ll take the cheapest they have. Until then, I’m going to keep the fur. Otherwise I couldn’t go outside. It’s still quite cold out. He told me about countries where they already have flowers this time of year.

I don’t talk much. I’m very careful. For a woman it’s different. Once she’s all crazy about a guy, she doesn’t really care anymore. But with a man, you can destroy everything with one word that’s out of place. I’m very much afraid because of my lack of education. That really estranges you from each other, once things start to become erotic. Because you’ve known each other for so long before that. That gives you a feeling of embarrassment.

He brought me lots of flowers. Life is so beautiful that it’s starting to become a religion for me for the first time in my life. I don’t mean to say that I’m pious — but it’s holy to me, because I’m so happy.

   Mother! I’ve fallen apart. Dear mother. It’ll pass. I can’t cry anymore. It happened tonight — my hand is
lame, dear notebook — I’m just going to spill everything now. I’ve been unhappy many times, but it always passes. Does it really? What an ordeal. Perhaps I should take my own life. But I don’t think so. I’m much too tired to commit suicide and don’t really want to do anything with myself.

I’m sitting at the
Friedrichstrasse
Station. This is where I arrived a long time ago together with the politicians and this is where I end — damn it, no, I won’t even think about it. I still have enough food in my stomach for another three days.

Sometimes all sex is good for is so you can learn to say “du” to each other — and that’s always been difficult for me to do. But it was a sign. At seven o’clock tonight, he kissed me — very carefully on my arm — with a kind of love that was no longer sensual. I felt like praying — thank you God, thank you — is that really me? — so happy — “Dearest” — and that fear inside of me — is that how you kiss me? — there must be a mistake, and it was — “Hanne” — he says — “Hanne” — I got all tense and didn’t let on anything. I had love inside of me and anger that turned my face to stone. Then he starts to cry — it’s an outburst like that Trapper’s. I touch his hair and say: Dear, dear. Some of them only need a few minutes to make you feel a hundred years old. He loves her that much. There’s nothing you can do about it. I can understand, if he forgets me — I would have done the same thing for him. My pain was
so immense, it didn’t hurt anymore and I had lost all my bright yellow. And it was my fault. After all, a decent man is a child, and the masculine responsibility falls on the woman. He’s good. I destroyed everything. With love. Life really is a bitch. But he was so unhappy. If I couldn’t be his love, I had to get him another one. I’m dizzy.

So I say: “Just a minute.” I secretly take my suitcase and put it in front of the door. I forgot some of my things, which I couldn’t really afford to do. But I really can’t allow myself any feelings at all right now. And it’s nighttime. And on an envelope I wrote his address, which also used to be my address. And I put the letter from under the cork carpeting inside. And I sealed it with blood from my heart. “Do you have a stamp, Ernst?” I ask. “I just want to mail a letter — no, please let me go alone.”

We’ll never go for walks again, I’ll never be frying kidneys for him again — and I really didn’t want to make much of a to-do about it, but I did want to kiss his hand just once: you gave me the most wonderful time of my life. Yes, I can get really nasty, but sometimes I can also be very decent. Even though it’s the stupidest thing you can do. I could have cut myself into pieces, if that had made you love me, I — oh my God. I’ll never see you again. I want to kill myself in front of your door tomorrow. Bullshit. Now I’m writing it all to you as in a letter — I’ll mail it to you, or maybe not — it doesn’t matter. But talking to you this way makes me feel better. What
torture. But you experienced that too, because of your wife. But I don’t even know what I should live on. That’s a big difference. I’m still only the girl from the waiting room. I kissed your hand and your hand had such careful fingers that didn’t dare touch a woman, because they thought she would break if they did. And so I left. And I almost had to throw up on the stairs, that’s how miserable I felt.

Here I am again. It’s all over. Over forever. I borrowed some money from the concierge, because I need some for what I’m planning to do. You’ll give it back to her, I told her. I didn’t want to take advantage of you, I swear. There’s still some of it left. For half of it, I bought myself something alcoholic. I’ll return the other half to you tomorrow. Unless I’m very hungry, then I don’t care what a man thinks of me. Now that whole rigamarole is starting all over again.

And then I went to the address under the cork carpeting. It was a very elegant restaurant in the
Westend
. She was dancing there with her man. I sit there like a rock. And I don’t care about anything — the way the waiters stare at me and all that. I can see that Hanne. She looks like she had dance lessons and a good family and her mother gave her castor oil when she was little, and a piece of chocolate afterward as a reward. That’s the kind she is. When I was 10 years old, I had a friend for three days. Her name was Hertha with a th. She wasn’t allowed to talk to me, because I only went to the lower-level school and I
knew where babies came from. But she was older than I and would always ask me.

And that Hanne was dancing in a sweet way and waltzing and a blue Danube — and she was blonde. I was sitting there and I know my man and my apartment, which is hers. It was very strange. And she was wearing an ivory georgette dress with lots of little pleats and red straps and a red belt. Not very stylish, but so innocent. And she’s not even all that beautiful, just blonde. Her legs aren’t all that long either. And she smiles at her man like a stone in a graveyard that’s been hit by a ray of sun. The man is very elegant and has black oily hair, the kind that can never make you happy because it always shines for someone else. I’m drinking one cognac after the other, very quickly. There’s so much that’s broken in me. I can’t keep going like that. I’ll talk to her during intermission. It’s a tiny room where we sit, very narrow.

“Your husband sends me. You should come back to him — please go now, now.”

At first, I wanted to add: or else he’ll die — but then she would have become arrogant again right away and assertive and Ernst wouldn’t have had the upper hand anymore. She had dry wrinkles around her mouth and scared eyes like Tilli had sometimes and like she’s going to break into tears any minute. God, you really can’t take them seriously those girls, they’re such babies — especially if they’re blonde.

I have enough money — I’ll have another cognac.

I almost have to laugh now — she couldn’t get a word out. She must not have been doing too well! And that jealous way she looked at me — that pleased me, I guess it means I’m pretty again. I wasn’t jealous of her at all, because you’re just not with an old hag like that.

So I just asked her: “You’ll go right away, won’t you?”

And she says “Yes.” And talks to me as if she were dreaming, or else she wouldn’t have been that honest: “I can’t go on living like this — and a man with a stable income who loves you, and whom you don’t love too much, that’s still the easiest way to live, and it’s a nice thing too, if you can give someone pleasure.”

I didn’t love him too much. And I wasn’t able to give him pleasure. But I’m not going to let on to that cork-carpet woman that I’m hurt. And then she says: “It’s so tough out here.”

It sure is. As I leave and close the door behind me, I’m once again filled with sadness. Of course it’s difficult. So she wanted to become a star at her age, and still hasn’t managed to do it. And now everything is back in place and my candles are burning — I’m going to get — I — I still have enough money — I’m having another cognac — oh God.

   I had a conversation. A guy with a cardboard box comes up to my table. I wanted to be alone with my grief.
But he’s on his way to Ohligs, which is near Cologne, that’s where his uncle lives who has a smithy and he needs help.

“Why are you crying?” he starts up.

“I’m not.”

“Of course you are.” And so one word leads to the next.

I say: “I’ve just witnessed the sad fate of a friend of mine.” And I tell him my story. He smelled from manure. That instilled confidence in me.

He had a sister once who had the same sort of thing happen to her. And I was lucky that I got out in time. It only would have gotten more boring and I would have gotten older and didn’t have the right interests and I always would have lacked education, and he would have gotten sick of that some day. Especially those gentle ones, they want intellect — and there I would have been with my lack of knowledge — and would have wasted my best years. And he could relate to that kind of error, with a man who was something better, as a girl. Because times really are bad. But true feelings — you should have those only with your own kind, otherwise things don’t work out. But that’s exactly my problem, that I don’t have any of my own kind. I don’t belong anywhere. And they would just use you. But he certainly didn’t do that. He was a decent man. That didn’t matter, in any case, I was stuck in the mud and it was my own fault.

And he had four ham sandwiches in his cardboard box — his mother isn’t doing so well, but she made those
for him because of the trip and because it’s nighttime. He gave me two of them. I didn’t want to take them — but he said I shouldn’t insult him, because we were a chip off the same block and you had to start sharing at some point, and with him, I could allow myself to have feelings without any calculation. He didn’t mean feelings in an indecent sense. Out of curiosity, I asked him if he would marry my kind. So he said that there was a lot about my past that bothered him, and those educated types were more tolerant in that respect, but it would be a possibility. And we had a conversation. I asked him what I should do now, whether I should start turning tricks. He wasn’t in favor. And I told him about the office and the fur. He said it would be stupid of me to return it — better sell it and have my mother send me my papers, or perhaps have new papers made. He gave me an address of someone who does that for people. He’s been through a lot too, but now he wants to have his peace and quiet. Perhaps start his own business with a friend — he thought my case was a tough one. But ultimately, the honest way was the best way to go.

And there was so much I still wanted to ask him — but he had to catch his train. And he was biting his lip and said it really stunk that you couldn’t really help anyone these days if you didn’t have money, and he was all pale with fury. And we shook hands. I spit at him three times, I had learned that from our director at the theater — he says: “Stop it. That’s bullshit. What’s that supposed to mean?”

I would have loved to have given him something to take on his journey, but all I had left were thirty pfennig and my spit. I did pull ten pfennig worth of roasted almonds for him from the vending machine. He says: “You’re crazy. Get on to your waiting room or else they’re going to steal your luggage that consists of nothing but bullshit.”

That’s just the kind of thing Karl would say. Karl always wanted me. When I come back to my notebook, I find a one-mark piece stuck between the pages. Can’t believe I didn’t notice how he put it there! He had so little. I’m sending him a thank you, all red with shame. I would like to be good to somebody.

At home my candles are burning, I had painted the candlesticks so decoratively. For several pages now, I’ve been trying not to think of it, but I have to think of it — if he were only to have one sad thought about me once in all his happiness, that would make me so glad. I would love to call him sometime — but what for? It’s possible I would disturb them in a situation, but a decent person wouldn’t do that. I wish I could think of him as a nasty person, that would make it easier — but he was decent. And it was beautiful. Pain is pain that destroys everything that could have been happy. But it can’t destroy what has been beautiful — can it?

I want to get to the Zoo station waiting room — maybe Kreuzstanger’s Karl will be there. I would very much like
to ask him to give me some time without sex. You have to be able to wait, especially with a woman. I wonder if he’d understand. I’ll never get used to one without education which is where I would belong — and one with education is not going to get used to me. But I can’t just walk down the
Tauentzien
and with the big industrialists, I just can’t be with a man right now. It’s just like it was with Hubert — because my body is a lot more faithful than I am. Nothing you can do about it. But it’ll pass, I’m sure. For now, my sensuality is in prison. That’s love. Someday, it’s going to be released.

It’s not that important, really — I’m a little drunk — maybe I won’t go to the Zoo station waiting room. Instead I’ll go to an elegant dark bar, where you can’t see that my eyes are dead with tears — and I’ll let myself be invited by someone and nothing else — and I’ll dance, dance, dance — I so much feel like dancing
— Das ist die Liebe der Matrosen
— we’re only good or bad when we love, or we’re nothing at all for lack of love — and we don’t deserve to be loved, of course, but otherwise we’d have no home at all.