The Artificial Silk Girl (3 page)

   I’m walking on air and I’m so excited. I just came home. I have a box of chocolates next to me — I’m eating them, but I only bite into those with the creamy filling to find out if they have nuts in them — if not, I don’t like them — so I press them back together, so they will look like new — and tomorrow I’ll give them to my mother and Therese. I received the box from the Conrad Veidt type — his name is Armin — actually I hate that name, because they once used it in a magazine commercial for a laxative.

And every time he got up from the table, I had to think: Armin, did you take
Laxin
this morning? And I had this idiotic laugh, and he would ask: “Why do you laugh this silvery laugh, you sweet creature?”

And me: “I’m laughing because I’m happy.”

Thank God men are far too full of themselves to think that you could be laughing at them! And he told me he was an aristocrat. Well, I’m not so dumb to believe that live noblemen are running around in the streets these days. But I thought to myself: do him a favor, and so I said that I had been able to tell immediately. But he had an artistic touch and we had an exciting evening. We danced really well and had a good conversation. That’s hard to come by these days. He did tell me that he wanted to get
me into the movies — well, I pretended not to hear it. They just can’t help themselves. It’s a male sickness to tell every girl that they are the top executive of a film studio or at least that they have great connections. All I’m asking myself is if there are still any girls left who fall for that.

But none of that is really important now. What really matters is that I saw Hubert, just as he was leaving. And he has been gone for an entire year — God, I’m so tired now. Actually Hubert was pretty nasty, but I became kind of reserved with the laxative guy nonetheless. But he was only in town on business anyway. I’m sure Hubert didn’t see me, but it still hit me like a bullet — his black coat from the back and his fair neck — and I had to think of our outing to the
Kuckuckswald
, where he lay on the ground with his eyes closed. And the sun made the ground hum and the air was trembling — and I put ants on his face while he was sleeping, because I’m never tired when I’m with a man I’m in love with — and I put ants in his ears — and Hubert’s face was like a mountain range with valleys and all and he would pucker his nose in a funny way and his mouth was half open — his breath came out of it like a cloud. And he almost looked like a looney, but I loved him more for his sleepy face than for his kisses — and his kisses were quite something, let me tell you. And then he would call me “squirrel” because I have this way of pushing my lips up over my upper teeth — and I would always
do that because he thought it was funny and it would make him happy. And he thought I didn’t know I was doing it — and of course you let a man believe that.

So now I’m dog-tired and I wish I didn’t have to take my dress off — when I was with Gustav Mooskopf, I got so tired once, I stayed over — just because I had a long way home and he could help me take my shoes off and whatnot — and here men always think it’s love or sensuality or both — or because they have such great aura that makes you swoon and go wild — but what they don’t know is that there are a million reasons for a girl to sleep with a guy. But none of that is important. Just quickly jotting down my thoughts, actually because I’m too tired to get up — thank God I’m wearing pumps and they’re already under the table — I should put them on shoe trees because suede.…

   I’m writing at the office, because the pimply face is in court. The girls are wondering what it is that I’m writing. Letters, I tell them — so they think it’s got something to do with love, and they respect that. And Therese is eating my chocolates and is glad that I had another adventure. She’s such a good sport, and since she herself doesn’t have a life anymore because of her married guy, she partakes in my life. I love telling her about everything, because she has this great way of being surprised — even though it’s always the same thing, really — but if I didn’t
have her to listen to me, I wouldn’t feel like having such fabulous adventures.

I’m trying to figure out where it is that Hubert lives around here. Whether he’s staying with family and that it would be best not to see him ever again. Because I started the relationship when I was 16 and he was my first, and very shy, despite the fact that he was in his late 20s already. And at first he didn’t want to, not for moral reasons but because he was a coward, because he was thinking that he would be indebted to me, such an innocent girl. And I was innocent. But of course it never occurred to him that he was just a chicken but thought of himself as so noble, so he would have done anything except for that one thing. But I think getting a girl all worked up is the same thing as doing the other thing, and then I was thinking, there has to be a first time and it was important to me that it would be the real thing, and I was in love with him, with my head, my mouth, and further down. And then I got him to do it. But of course he thought he had seduced me and made a big to-do about his bad conscience, but he really wanted to have one and feel like he was a helluva guy — and you don’t destroy that belief in a man. And we were together for an entire year and I was never with anyone else, because I didn’t feel like it when I could only think about Hubert. And so I was what they call faithful. But then he finished his Ph.D. and was done with his studies, physics or something like that. And he went back to
Munich, where his parents lived, to get married — a woman of his standing, the daughter of a professor — very famous, but not as famous as Einstein, whose picture you see all over the newspapers and still don’t have much of an idea. And every time I see a picture of him, with his cheerful eyes and his mobhead, I’m thinking if I ran into him in a café, wearing my coat with the fox collar and elegant from head to toe, perhaps he too would tell me that he was in the film industry and had incredible connections. And I would simply tell him: H
₂
O is water — that’s what I learned from Hubert, and he would be stunned. But back to Hubert. So I didn’t have a problem with him marrying for money and what have you — out of ambition, to get ahead — I always understand. Despite the fact that those canned sardines in his dumpy apartment tasted a lot better than any fancy schnitzel I had with Käsemann in a posh restaurant. As far as I’m concerned, sardines are good enough. But as I mentioned, I adjusted to Hubert’s ambition. That’s when he got really mean. First of all, he wanted to leave three days before my birthday — and he didn’t even have a present for me. That had never been his thing, all he ever gave me was a little plastic frog that I would float down the river just for fun. I used to wear it on a velvet ribbon around my neck, under my blouse, that’s how dedicated I was to him, even though the plastic legs dug into my neck — and I have very sensitive skin, as I mentioned. Which is an advantage
— when you’re dealing with men. But not when you have a sunburn. So he leaves three days before my birthday. I had to take that personally, because I had saved up for a polka dot dress that I was planning to wear on that day — for Hubert of course. And then I ended up all by myself in my new dress at a music bar with Therese. And I was crying my eyes out, and had to wipe my nose with my genuine suede gloves, because I didn’t have a handkerchief, and Therese had a heavy cold. And my tears fell on my new dress — and all I needed was for the dots to run and ruin my salmon-colored outfit. But at least that didn’t happen. That was one of the nasty things he did. The other one was that he shared this moral double standard with me. We’re sitting in a restaurant, and all of a sudden he starts talking about that bitch from Munich. I just nod, still working on my emotional adjustment: he’s got his reasons, I’m thinking, but he really loves only you.

So he gets all red in his face and embarrassed, and that already gets me up in arms. “When a man marries, he wants a virgin, and I hope, my little Doris …” and he was talking as if he had licked out an entire can of cold cream: “My dear child,” he said, “I hope you’ll become a decent girl, and as a man, I can only advise you not to sleep with a man until you’re married to him.…”

I have no idea what else it was he wanted to say, because something came over me as he was blowing himself up, so impressed with himself, with his chest pushed
out and his shoulders pulled back, like a general talking from the pulpit. To tell me that! To me who had seen him in his underwear and less almost 300 times — with his freckled belly and his hairy bow legs. At least he could have told me as a good friend that he wanted money and that’s why he didn’t want me. But to wallow in his own morality, not because I’m too poor but because I’m not decent enough, because I … well, I simply couldn’t stand for that. In situations like that I just lose my mind and something comes over me. I can’t really explain why I got so angry, suffice it to say that I slapped his face in front of all those people, which is something I do only rarely. And it made such a noise that the waiter thought I was asking for the check.

   Right now I’m sitting in a restaurant. I’ve eaten enormous amounts of liverwurst, despite the fact that I could hardly get anything down, but it went down after all and I can only hope that it’s not going to harm me, given how upset I am. Because I’ve been fired and I’m shaking like a leaf. And I’m terrified of having to go home. I’ve come to know my father as an extremely unpleasant man without any sense of humor, when he’s at home. It’s not at all unusual — men who’re all Italian sunshine when they’re with their buddies at the bar, and who’ve got a big mouth and are entertaining everybody — and at home with their families they are such sourpusses that looking at them after
they’ve spent a night with the bottle is like eating a pickled herring.

And here is how it all happened: I hadn’t been writing enough letters because I had been thinking about Hubert, and all of a sudden I had to go full steam ahead, to have something to show for by the end of the day. Of course there were no commas in sight, which is one of my strategies: because I figure, it’s better to have no commas at all than commas in the wrong places, since it’s easier to pencil them in than have to erase them. And there were still more mistakes in my letters and I had my doubts about them. So I put on my Marlene Dietrich face as I go into his office, like I’m making those big eyes at him like I can’t wait to jump into bed with him. And the Pimple Face tells everyone to go home, only I have to stay and write those letters over again, which grosses me out, and I never feel like it, because they are files with some kind of nonsense about some guy Blasewitz, who had had a gold crown stolen by his dentist, who then charged him for it — I can’t make any sense of it, and for weeks I’ve been writing about Blasewitz and his molars, which can really get on your nerves. So I go to see the Pimple Face — everybody has left already — it’s only him and myself. And he’s going over my letters, marking them with commas in ink — and I’m thinking to myself, What can you do? and casually brush against him, as if by accident. And he keeps putting in more and more commas, and crosses
out words and corrects, and he’s about to tell me that one of the letters has to be written again. But as he says “again” I press my breasts against his shoulder, and when he looks up I madly flare my nostrils, because I want to go home and don’t want to write about Blasewitz’s molars anymore and about Frau Gumpel’s payments for that stinky old dairy store. And so I had to distract the Pimple Face and was flaring my nostrils like one of those giant Belgian rabbits when they eat cabbage. And just as I want to whisper that my poor old father has rheumatism and I’ve been reading “Happiness at the Gates” — just as I want to say it, it happens, and I notice too late that I’ve gone too far with those nostrils. So the guy jumps up and clutches me and breathes heavily like a locomotive about to leave the station. And I say: but — and I try to get his disgusting bony fingers off of me, and I’m really confused, because I hadn’t expected all of this for another four weeks, and this just goes to show you that you always learn something new. And he says: “My child, stop pretending. I’ve know for a long time that you have feelings for me and that your blood longs for me.”

Well, all I can say is that it beats me how a man who has a degree and who is able to follow all that stuff about Blasewitz and his molars, how a man like that can be so stupid. And it was Hubert’s fault and my empty stomach and everything happened so quickly and the pimples and he was moving his mouth like a flounder — so I lost control
of the situation. And I whisper nonsense — the usual stuff — and he wants to push me over toward the cold leather sofa — and I haven’t even had dinner yet, and might have to rewrite those letters after all — I wouldn’t put it beyond him, being an attorney — so I figured, enough of it. So I said very calmly: “How dare you wrinkle my dress like this, when I don’t have anything to wear already!” And that was a hint and a test, and whether I would rebuff him gently and politely or get mean all depended on his response. Naturally, I got just the answer I had expected: “My child, how can you think about this now, and I like you best naked and without any clothes on anyway.”

That really blew my mind. I kicked his shin so he would let go of me and said: “Now tell me one thing, you stupid attorney, what on earth are you thinking? How can a highly educated man like yourself be so dumb to think that a pretty young girl like myself would be crazy about him? Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror? I’m asking you, what sex appeal could you possibly have?”

It would have been very interesting to hear a logical response, because a man has to be thinking something after all. But instead he just said: “So that’s the kind you are!”

And he draws out the “that” as if it were
gum arabica
. And so I go: “That kind or not that kind — I consider it a wonder of nature to see you turn blue in the face with
anger, and I never would have thought that you could get even meaner than you already are — and your wife dyes her hair yellow like egg yolks and is into expensive cosmetics and cruising around in her car all day and doing nothing in terms of honest work — and I’m supposed to do it with you for nothing, just for love. And I slap his pimply face with that letter about Blasewitz and his molars; since I had nothing more to lose, at least I wanted to give my temperament full rein. Of course he gave me notice effective the first of the month. I just said: “I’ve also had it with you. Just give me one month’s salary and I won’t be back again.”