The Artificial Silk Girl

by Irmgard Keun

  Today we also put on make-up. It looked all waxy, under the lamps in the dressing rooms and the light that was coming through the window. And Linni looked like a puffed-up painted dead body, with eyes like burnt sunnyside-up eggs, and the Trapper looked as if she had been a hooker for years. I really had to watch closely to see how they do it, the eyeliner and all that, and my face became strange to me in an interesting way. And when I smiled at myself in the mirror, it looked like I had a slit in my face. I’m all for powder and lip gloss — Coty dark in particular — but I think it’s wrong to do your make-up in a way that your own smile doesn’t belong to your face anymore.

  But on stage with the lighting it looked just right. And we were wearing gigantic hats made from cheap material, because it’s the Thirty Years War — with huge feathers. I picked a hat with a white feather, because that’s something you can reuse. After the play is taken off the program, I’ll take it home. The rest of the costume is junk. It’s all ripped, just like the things Frau Ellmann from next door wears when she goes to clean at fancy homes. That’s so the lady of the house should feel the urge to give her clothes. And when she gets home she complains about them, like she doesn’t wear that kind of crap — and uses them as rags to clean her apartment. And Frau Becker, who lives above her and whose husband makes her more babies than he makes money, she would be happy if someone gave her a ripped blouse. But no one gives her anything, because she’s unassuming and decent. I hate the Ellmanns, for more than one reason.

  What a day! It was the opening night of Wallenstein. I got more flowers than all the other actresses combined. That’s because I had spread the word that I would be playing, and except for Hubert, all the men I had ever had a relationship with were at the theater. I had no idea there were so many! Except for them, the theater was empty. There was hardly anyone there.

  Käsemann behaved very well, sending a basket filled with roses and a golden bow and in red letters: “Bravo to the young artist!”

  So I’m almost a star now. And Gustav Mooskopf sent yellow chrysanthemums the size of my mother’s head after she’s had it done. And delicatessen owner Prengel brought a basket filled with sardines and tomato paste and the finest saveloy and a note that I shouldn’t tell his wife. Only over my dead body. I wouldn’t put it past that woman to use vitriol, that’s why I’m staying away from Prengel whom I’d otherwise consider. And Johnny Klotz sent the horn from the Ford he’s paying off, together with a note saying that unfortunately he once again didn’t have a cent for flowers but he invites me and Therese to the Mazurka-Bar after the performance. He knows a waiter there who will take a rain check. And Jakob Schneider sent three elegant boxes of chocolate with purple ribbon and a yellow georgina and a polite invitation to have dinner with him at the Schlossdiele. But I can’t do that because unfortunately, he’s so cross-eyed that I start to get cross-eyed myself when I sit opposite him — and that makes me look less attractive, which is something that can’t be expected of me.

  And finally all I did was have a simple beer with Therese and Hermann Zimmer in a bar nearby. Because Hermann Zimmer is leaving on montage and he moved me by giving me a bouquet of asters — and he hardly has any money and is an old friend of mine. And he’s a member of the Athlete’s Club of which I’m the honorary lady member. And all the guys from the club sent a huge laurel and fir wreath decorated with colorful silk paper ornaments that was meant for the mayor’s funeral last week, but then didn’t get picked up because they couldn’t pay for it — and that’s why they got it cheaper. A beautiful piece that’s going to last. And that made me indebted to them of course, because the whole Athlete’s Club was joining us at the bar and there was a huge party. And all these guys had been sitting in the gallery and after my sentence they were shouting bravo, and Hermann Zimmer was stomping his feet, and Käsemann applauded from the dress circle and Gustav Mooskopf in his box was moving his chair back and forth in recognition. All of that got some other people to start hissing and whistling and Klinkfeld was shaking behind the set, because he thought they were communists and there would be a scandal at the theater. But it was because of me. I thought it better not to say anything, despite the fact that the Athlete’s Club is convinced that I’m the attraction of the local theater.

  I was dancing on the table, singing the song of Elizabeth and her beautiful legs — and they told me they liked that better than the entire Schiller. And Therese was drunk — I gave Hermann Zimmer some of Prengel’s saveloy, so he would kiss her hand every five minutes and tell her some nice things, that she’s looking beautiful and all that — because that’s the kind of thing a woman wants to hear when she’s soused. And she really developed some verve and if she finally forgets about that married guy of hers, perhaps she’ll have a second flowering — it happens, and I would be very happy for her.

  Perhaps I’ll ask her tomorrow to call Hubert’s relatives. Now that I’m famous and a star, I don’t think he can hurt me any more. Perhaps I’ll get written up in the papers tomorrow in a review. And then we all went over to the Mazurka-Bar to Johnny Klotz. It was terrific!

  On the road, we were honking that interesting Ford horn, sounding like a Kaiser Wilhelm-Memorial Church — and people were running off in all directions and one guy was singing “Heil dir im Siegerkranz,” he was drunk. We got to talking with him, due to a bottle of Asbach we had on us — we were taking turns with the bottle. The Siegerkranz type took pretty big gulps and had a broken look in his eyes. He told us that he had just pawned his Iron Cross for the 17th time at a bar, so he could go on drinking, and this way a life-threatening mission was finally becoming worth something, though not much. And we took him along to Johnny. He had a bald spot because of the steel helmet, but they all tell you that, unless they’re under 30. And he said his life was over and that’s why things were just starting to get interesting. The Athlete’s Club was singing the Marseillaise, which is French, and he said this was giving him a new perspective. There was such hopelessness in the corners of his mouth, so I showered him with kisses because I felt sorry for him, which easily happens to me whenever I’m hammered.

  And Therese was carrying a whole folder full of letters for the Pimple Face — that all seems so far away — Did I really used to work there? My life is moving at the speed of a bicycle race. So the letters had to be mailed and didn’t have postage on them yet, and the stamps were beginning to stick to the folder. I understood that they had to be mailed. They were making me nervous and so Therese took them out of the folder, drunk as she was — and we wetted them with Cherry Cobler, since Johnny had licked the glue off of three of them, so you couldn’t use them any more. And Therese went across the street to the mailbox, and got lost for half an hour. She has no sense of direction — when she goes to the bathroom in a restaurant, you need to give her a compass. And three of the guys lifted up one of the tables, all the way up — with Johnny’s 200-pound waiter and myself on top. A tremendous achievement that can only be explained through enthusiasm and constant training. It was great!

  So we were roaming the streets, singing songs without any politics, because that’s the way I wanted it. Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust and Kommt ein Vogel geflogen, which are so harmless that I have my doubts whether there isn’t some secret meaning hidden in them. And a cop wanted to give us a ticket, so the entire Athlete’s Club offered him Asbach, but he didn’t go for that. So I gave him this look — with my eyes and kissed one of the buttons on his uniform, and it got all foggy. And so did the cop. He didn’t cite us.

  I’m so feverish and full of excitement. Oh Hubert. And I’m surrounded by roses and a ton of flowers. I hung the laurel wreath over my bed, right where the Holy Thusnelda used to be with her fat arms, but I feel closer to the wreath. And on my night table, which is so shabby-looking — I bought it from the Beckers, because she really needed the money — despite the fact that it looks like a bad marriage — on that table is Käsemann’s basket of roses with the bow flowing down onto my pillow. I’m going to put
my face on top of it and go to sleep against the red letters: “Bravo to the young artist!” And unfortunately, I’m once again alone in bed.

  If the doorbell rings, I’ll go crazy. Dear God, please help me. This is the end of my stardom. It’s all over — but for me that means it’s just beginning. My heart is a gramophone playing inside of me, scratching my bosom with a sharp needle. Of course I don’t have a bosom, because it smacks of the ordinary, like breastfeeding or an old opera diva where you can’t tell what’s bigger, her breasts or her voice. I’m writing in a fever and my hand is trembling. I’m trying to fill up the hours sitting in Therese’s furnished room, which she never uses. It’s always like that. What you have, you don’t need, and what you need, you don’t have. Dear God, my letters are trembling on the paper like the legs of dying mosquitoes. I have to stop.

  Tonight I’m off to Berlin. You can go underground there, and Therese has a girlfriend there, where I can stay. I want to cry. But there’s a desire in me that has gotten me to this point. My head is like an oven heated with coal. I could be arrested any minute — because of the fur coat, because of the Ellmanns, because of Leo and a cop or Trapper’s general.… And all that because of Hubert and this feeling in my stomach that’s totally foreign to me.

  It was last night — another Wallenstein. I arrive at the theater to put on my make-up, and Therese is there waiting for me — she was done at the office and I was just starting. So she says: “Doris, Hubert called.” He had asked about me, called up the Pimple-Face and Therese got on and set up a date at Küppers Café at eight, after the performance.

  And it had to be that night that I was wearing my old raincoat — which happens about once a year — not so much because of rain, but because I needed sleep and wanted to go straight home, knowing my weakness for evening activities. And so I put on my disgusting coat that I wouldn’t wear to go anywhere.

  I love Therese. She’s fabulous. As soon as I’m a star, I will shine on her and make her my sidekick. I’m scared. Wondering if they take away your powder puff in jail. I’ve never been there. Neither has Therese. There — I think I heard the doorbell — my eyes pop back into my head with a scream — I won’t open it — I’ll climb out the window when they come. They won’t get me! Never, never, never. Particularly now. I feel strong like a revolver. I’m a detective novel. Help me, dear God — I promise to cut “dear God” deep into my skin with a knife so it’ll draw blood — if you let me get to Berlin safely.

  It’s quiet — it was just nerves. I’m biting my hand — it hurts so much that I stop being afraid.

  So I was wearing my old rain coat — and Hubert — Küppers Café — no time to go home to change into the fox coat. I didn’t know what to do. I so wanted to impress Hubert and shine for him. And we were taking our make-up off with grease — I had secretly taken margarine from home — and the porter comes in and calls in front of the door. I was to come to see the director. I got margarine in my eyes — God, did I feel awful. So it had finally happened. Leo — pajamas with roses — the girls were looking at each other, imagining wild passion. But I knew better. I only had the strength to secretly take the white feather off the Wallenstein hat — it’s lying next to me now. I was hot with longing for Hubert, a man with a small indentation in his shoulder, where you can put your head and let the man be. You pay for that kind of longing. I knew it, but my feelings didn’t feel like knowing it. Now the Trapper has my sentence, and I can only hope that she’ll trip and fall when she dashes out of the tent. And so I packed up my little lump of margarine — why should that filthy theater get anything from me for free — and the eyeliners that were brand new.

  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.

  2

>   LATE FALL AND THE BIG CITY

  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.