The Artificial Silk Girl (7 page)

And I went to the cloakroom of the dress circle to see my mother, who sometimes, sometimes understands my situation. But you can’t understand another person when you’re not surrounded by the same aura as they are, which causes them to do what they do. But my mother wasn’t there — instead it was Frau Ellmann, the bitch, our neighbor. She was sitting there asleep, suffering, because she doesn’t have to and for no good reason. And there was this coat — such sweet, soft fur. So fine and gray and shy, I felt like kissing it, that’s how much I loved it. It spoke comfort to me, a guardian angel, protection from heaven. It was genuine squirrel. I quietly took off my rain coat and put on the fur coat, and started to feel guilty toward my abandoned rain thing, like a mother who doesn’t want her child because it’s ugly. But you should have seen me! And so I decided to present myself to Hubert like this, and put the coat back after the performance. But something inside me knew right away that I would never give it back again. And already I was too scared to come back to the theater later and having to talk to Leo and look at Frau Ellmann and hear her voice and all that.

And the fur coat was attached to my skin like a magnet and they loved each other, and you don’t give up what you love, once you have it. But I was lying to myself all the way and truly believed that I would come back. The lining was crepe marocain, pure silk, hand embroidered. And so I went to
Küppers Café
. Hubert was sitting there with dark circles under the eyes, the size of
Continental
tires. He used to have skin like a baby — and it was all gone. And we said “du” to each other in such a formal way that it sounded like “Sie.” But my mouth was open to his kisses, because he was sad. He admired me, which didn’t make me feel good and didn’t make me proud. I was surrounded by my coat, which had more feelings for me than Hubert.

And I knew right away that the true virgin had left him and that her father, the professor, hadn’t given him a job, and that he was in trouble. And he says: “Doris, you’re doing well, I can see. Therese told me about your career.”

“Thank you,” I said.

And Leo was waiting — because of the pajamas — it was late — the Ellmanns — I had been torn away from the world — and my furious father — everything was screwed up — and Hubert became a dead memory and wasn’t really sitting there alive, in front of me — I tried to conjure up feelings for him, and it was like looking at his photograph when I’m drunk and wanted to believe that it was talking to me, and when I tried really hard I could sometimes make myself believe that it did.

And then I went with him. And I slept with a photograph. It was very cold. And he asked about my income and wanted help. I don’t have anything. And I said Therese has some cold cuts, it’s not as fancy as it looks, and I was tempted to tell him it was all over.

And I tried and said: “Hubert, you don’t have anything, I don’t have anything, that’s enough — let’s make something out of nothing together.” And a disappointment came over him that made me sick to my stomach.

So I washed my face. It was a dark morning and I saw his face in bed, and it made me feel angry and disgusted. Sleeping with a stranger you don’t care about makes a woman bad. You have to know what you’re doing it for. Money or love.

So I left. It was five in the morning. The air was white and cold and wet like a sheet on the laundry line. Where was I to go? I had to wander around the park with the swans, who have small eyes and long necks that they use to dislike people. I can understand them but I don’t like them either, despite the fact that they are alive and that you should take pity on them. Everyone had left me. I spent several cold hours and felt like I had been buried in a cemetery on a rainy fall day. But it wasn’t raining or else I would have stayed under a roof, because of the fur coat.

I look so elegant in that fur. It’s like an unusual man who makes me beautiful through his love for me. I’m sure
it used to belong to a fat lady with a lot of money — unfairly. It smells from checks and Deutsche Bank. But my skin is stronger. It smells of me now and
Chypre
— which is me, since Käsemann gave me three bottles of it. The coat wants me and I want it. We have each other.

And so I went to see Therese. She also realized that I have to flee, because flight is an erotic word for her. She gave me her savings. Dear God, I swear to you, I will return it to her with diamonds and all the good fortune in the world.

I
’m in Berlin. Since a few days ago. After an all-night train ride and with 90 marks left. That’s what I have to live on until I come into some money. What I have since experienced is just incredible. Berlin descended on me like a comforter with a flaming floral design. The Westside is very elegant with bright lights — like fabulous stones, really expensive and in an ornate setting. We have enormous neon advertising around here. Sparkling lights surround me. And then there’s me and my fur coat. And elegant men like white-slave traders, without exactly trafficking in women at the moment, those no longer exist — but they look like it, because they would be doing it if there was money in it. A lot of shining black hair and deep-set
night eyes. Exciting. There are many women on the
Kurfürstendamm
. They simply walk. They have the same faces and a lot of moleskin fur — not exactly first class, in other words, but still chic — with arrogant legs and a great waft of perfume about them. There is a subway; it’s like an illuminated coffin on skis — under the ground and musty, and one is squashed. That is what I ride on. It’s interesting and it travels fast.

So I’m staying with Tilli Scherer in
Münzstrasse
, that’s near
Alexanderplatz
. There are unemployed people here who don’t even own a shirt, and so many of them. But we have two rooms and Tilli’s hair is dyed golden and her husband is away, putting down tram tracks near Essen. And she films. But she’s not getting any parts, and the agency is handling things unfairly. Tilli is soft and round like a down pillow and her eyes are like polished blue marbles. Sometimes she cries, because she likes to be comforted. So do I. Without her, I wouldn’t have a roof over my head. I’m grateful to her and we’re on the same wavelength and don’t give each other any trouble. When I see her face when she’s asleep, I have good thoughts about her. And that’s what’s important: how you react to someone while they’re sleeping and not exerting any influence over you. There are buses too, very high ones like observation towers that are moving. Sometimes I go on them. At home, we had lots of streets too, but they were familiar with each other. Here, there are so many more
streets that they can’t possibly all know each other. It’s a fabulous city.

Later on, I’ll be going to a jockey bar with a white-slave trader type that I don’t care about otherwise. But this way, I’ll get introduced to the kind of environment that will open up some opportunities for me. Tilli also thinks that I should go. Right now I’m on
Tauentzien
at
Zunztz
, which is a café but without music, but cheap — and with lots of hectic people like swirling dust, so you can tell that something’s going on in the world. I’m wearing my fur and am having an effect. Across the street is the Memorial Church that nobody can get into, because of the cars all around it, but it’s an important monument, but Tilli says it’s just holding up traffic.

Tonight I’m going to write everything down in order in my book, because there’s so much material that’s accumulated in me. So Therese helped me skip town that night. I was trembling all over and full of fear and expectation and joy, because everything would be new now and full of excitement and adventure. And she also went to my mother to fill her in and told her that I would pay back both her and Therese handsomely, if it all worked out. And I know that my mother can keep a secret, which is amazing because she’s over 50, but hasn’t forgotten what it used to be like for her. But they can’t send me any clothes. That would be too dangerous — and so I’ve got nothing except for one shirt which I wash in the morning
and then I stay in bed until it’s dry. And I need shoes and many many other things. But it’ll come. I also can’t write to Therese because of the police who are undoubtedly looking for me — because I know the Ellmanns, how tenacious she is and how she enjoys making criminals out of people.

I don’t care if she’s in trouble because of me, because she was the one who cooked and ate Rosalie, which was our cat — a sweet creature with a silky purr and fur like white velvet clouds with ink spots. She used to lie on my feet at night and keep them warm — now I have to cry — I ordered a piece of cake for myself, Dutch kirsch, and now I can’t eat it because I’m full of grief at the thought of Rosalie. But I took a doggy bag. And she had disappeared all of a sudden, without coming back, which she never did, because she was used to me. And I was standing at the window calling: “Rosalie” at night and into the gutters. I felt so sad that she was gone, not only because she kept me warm, not only my feet. And for something that’s so small and so soft and helpless that you can pick it up with your two hands, you have to be full of love for that. And the next Sunday, I go upstairs to the Ellmanns to retrieve the celery slicer that she had borrowed from us, the bitch, because she won’t ever buy anything that she can borrow from someone else. They were just sitting down for dinner — that unkempt Herr Ellmann, who looks like a missionary with those hypocritical eyes,
sitting on an island unshaven and eating poor black people in order to convert them. His yellow teeth were sticking out of his mouth, that’s how greedy he looked. And there was a platter on the table with fried meat on it — and I recognized the shape of Rosalie’s body. Also, I could tell because of Frau Ellmann’s behavior and her beady eyes. So I told her straight out, and she’s lying in a way that I know; I’m telling the truth. And I break into tears in all my grief and smash the celery chopper into her face so her nose starts to bleed and her eye gets all black and blue. Which wasn’t nearly enough, because Ellmann has work and they had enough to eat and didn’t go hungry and so they didn’t need Rosalie. My mother has been worse off many times, but we never would have dreamed of frying Rosalie, because she was a pet with human instincts — and that you shouldn’t eat. And that’s one reason I’m keeping the fur. Now I’m all worked up from those memories.

And I was on the road all night. One man gave me three oranges and he had an uncle who owned a leather factory in Bielefeld. He looked like it too. But since I had Berlin ahead of me — why should I have bothered with a guy who travels third class and has second-class airs, just because of leather uncles. That never makes a good impression. Plus he had oily hair, full of dust and grease. And smoker’s fingers. And only an hour later, I knew of all the girls he’d had. Wild stuff, of course, and superwomen. And
he broke their hearts, when he left them — and they’d throw themselves off church steeples, while taking poison and strangling themselves — so they would be dead for sure, and all that because of the leather guy. You know what men will tell you, if they’re trying to convince you that they’re not as miserable as they are. I, for one, don’t say anything anymore, and pretend to believe it all. If you want to strike it lucky with men, you have to let them think you’re stupid.

So I arrived at
Friedrichstrasse
Station, where there’s an incredible hustle-bustle. And I found out that some great Frenchmen had arrived just before I did, and Berlin’s masses were there to greet them. They’re called Laval and Briand — and being a woman who frequently spends time waiting in restaurants, I’ve seen their picture in magazines. I was swept along
Friedrichstrasse
in a crowd of people, which was full of life and colorful and somehow it had a checkered feeling. There was so much excitement! So I immediately realized that this was an exception, because even the nerves of an enormous city like Berlin can’t stand such incredible tension every day. But I was swooning and I continued to be swept along — the air was full of excitement. And some people pulled me along, and so we came to stand in front of an elegant hotel that is called Adlon — and everything was covered with people and cops that were pushing and shoving. And then the politicians arrived on the balcony like soft black spots. And
everything turned into a scream and the masses swept me over the cops onto the sidewalk and they wanted those politicians to throw peace down to them from the balcony. And I was shouting with them, because so many voices pierced through my body that they came back out of my mouth. And I had this idiotic crying fit, because I was so moved. And so I immediately belonged to Berlin, being right in the middle of it — that pleased me enormously. And the politicians lowered their heads in a statesmanly fashion, and so, in a way, they were greeting me too.

And we were all shouting for peace — I thought to myself that that was good and you have to do it, because otherwise there’s going to be a war — and Arthur Grönland once explained to me that the next war would be fought with stinky gas which makes you turn green and all puffed up. And I certainly don’t want that. So I too was shouting to the politicians up there.

Then people were starting to disperse and I felt the strong urge to find out about politics and what those officials wanted and so on. Because I find newspapers boring and I don’t really understand them. I needed someone who would explain things to me, and as part of the overall deflation of enthusiasm luck swept a man over to my side of the street. And there was still something of a bell jar of fraternization covering us and we decided to go to a café. He was pale and wearing a navy blue suit and was looking like New Year’s Eve — as if he had just handed
out his last cent to the mailman and the chimneysweep. But that was not the case. He was working for the city and was married. I had coffee and three pieces of hazelnut torte — one with whipped cream, because I was starving — and I was filled with a desire for political knowledge. So I asked the navy-blue married man what the politicians had come here for. And in turn he told me that his wife was five years older than him. I asked why people were shouting for peace, since we have peace or at least no war. Him: “You have eyes like boysenberries.” I hope he means ripe ones. And so I was beginning to become afraid of my own stupidity and asked carefully why it was that those French politicians on that balcony had moved us so much and if this means that everyone agrees, when there’s so much enthusiasm, and whether there will never be another war. So the navy-blue married man tells me that he’s from Northern Germany and that’s why he’s so introverted. But in my experience those who tell you immediately: “You know, I’m such an introvert,” are anything but, and you can rest assured that they’re going to tell you everything that’s on their mind. And I noticed that that bell jar of fraternization was starting to lift off and float away. I made one more attempt, asking him if Frenchmen and Jews were one and the same thing, and why they were called a race and how come the nationalists didn’t like them because of their blood — and whether it was risky to talk about that since this could be
the beginning of my political assassination. So he tells me that he gave his mother a carpet for Christmas and that he’s terribly good-natured, and that he was telling his wife that it was unfair of her to criticize him for having bought himself a new silk umbrella instead of having the big easy chair reupholstered — which makes her too embarrassed to invite her lady friends over, one of whom is a professor — and that he had told his boss straight to his face that he didn’t know anything — and that I had feelings in me, which is what he needed, and he was a lonely man and always had to tell the truth. And I know for a fact that those who “always have to tell the truth” are definitely lying. I lost interest in the navy-blue married man, since I was heavy-hearted and excited and didn’t have the patience to flirt with a city official. So I said, “Just a minute,” and secretly disappeared through the back door. And I was sad about not having gotten any political education. But I did have three pieces of hazelnut torte — which took care of my lunch, which couldn’t be said about a lesson in politics.