The Artificial Silk Girl

by Irmgard Keun

  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.

  I was negotiating with a traffic cop about how to get to Friedenau, which is where I needed to go, to Therese’s old friend Margretchen Weissbach. I found her in a one-bedroom apartment where she was living with her unemployed husband. She was no Margretchen, but a real Margrete with a face that doesn’t take life easily. And she was about to have her first baby. We said hello and immediately said “du,” since we knew without exchanging a word that what had happened to one of us could just as easily have happened to the other. She’s over thirty, but giving birth was easy nonetheless.

  I had to call the midwife, since all her husband was capable of was smoking cigarettes at three pfennig apiece. I gave the midwife ten marks and told her to hurry up and that she should come to me for the rest of the money. And so I’ve been in Berlin for less than three hours and I already owe money to a midwife, which hopefully is not a bad omen. I sat next to Margrete while she was in labor. That’s when you’re ashamed not to be in pain yourself.

  It was a girl. We called her Doris, because I was the only one there — besides the midwife of course, but her name was Eusebia. I spent one night on a mattress in case she needed someone after all. Next to me was the baby in a wooden box that she had filled with cushions and soft blankets with pink roses embroidered on them. On the other side of the baby slept her husband. His breath was hollow with happiness, because Margrete was okay — you could tell, even though he was all hard and grumpy. Margrete was asleep and he was saying things like: what were they going to do with a child, that already they didn’t know what to do, and it would be better if the child had never been born. But during the night, I saw him bend over the wooden box, kissing the embroidered pink roses. I turned white with fear, because if he had known that I had seen him, he probably would have killed me. There are men like that. And Margrete thinks she can get another job at the office, now that it’s all over.

  In the morning, the baby was screaming like an alarm clock and we all woke up. The air felt like a round dumpling and you couldn’t swallow it. The baby weighs eight pounds and is healthy. Margrete is breastfeeding, and she’s well. Her husband was making coffee and milk. I made the beds. The man was black and angry. He was too ashamed to say nice things to Margrete, but we could tell that they were in him. Then he went out to look for work, but without any hope.

  Margrete says that when he comes back, he will get mad at her and reproach her, and that’s because he doesn’t believe in what they call God. Because what a man like him really needs is a God whom he can blame and whom he can get mad at when things go wrong. This way he’s got nobody who can be the target of his anger and hatred and that’s why he blames his wife, but she minds — and the one who is called God doesn’t mind — and that’s why he should have a religion, or he should get political, because then he could also make a ruckus.

  So I said goodbye to her, since I really couldn’t stay there. Margrete gave me Tilli Scherer’s address, a former colleague of hers who is also married, but her husband is frequently out of town. So I bought three diapers and I plan to have a green branch embroidered in the corner for good luck. And I will have them sent to the Weissbachs, since the child has been named after me.

  And then I went to Tilli Scherer. She agreed to take me in. She too wants to become a star. And she won’t take money from me. But every other morning, I will loan her my fur coat to wear at the film agency. I don’t like to do that — not because I’m stingy, but because I don’t like it to smell from anybody else. I’ve also tried film, but there’s not much opportunity there.

  Things are looking up. I have five undershirts made of Bemberg silk with hand-sewn seams, a handbag made of cowhide with some crocodile appliqué, a small gray felt hat, and a pair of shoes with lizard toes. But my red dress that I’m wearing day and night is starting to tear under the arms. But I’ve started to make contacts with a textile firm, which, however, isn’t doing so well at the moment.

  Overall, I can’t complain. It all started on Kurfürstendamm. I was standing in front of a shoe store, where I saw such adorable shoes, when I had an idea. I went in with the assertiveness of a grand lady — helped by my fur coat — and tore off one of my heels and started to limp into the shop. And I handed my broken heel to the salesman.

  And he calls me “Madam.”

  I say: “What a pity. I wanted to go dancing and I don’t have time to go home and don’t have enough money on me.”

  Needless to say, I left the store with lizard toes and that night I went to a cabaret with the salesman. I told him I was one of Reinhardt’s new actresses. We both lied to each other tremendously and believed each other just to be nice. He’s not stupid and he’s a gentleman. He has a stiff knee and falls in love with women because he feels self-conscious about it.

  At the Jockey Bar I met the Red Moon — his wife is on vacation, because times are bad and seaside resorts are cheaper in October than in July. He happened to be at the Jockey Bar by coincidence, as he’s traditional and he’s disgusted by the new times because of their lax morals and politics. He wants the Kaiser back and is writing novels and is well-known from the past. He also says that he has esprit. And his principle is: men can, women cannot. So I’m asking myself: How can men do it without women? What an idiot!

  So he says to me: “Little woman” — and puffs himself up because he feels so superior to me. When he was 50, all the newspapers were in awe of him. And he had readers. He also has a degree and a cultural foundation. And he counts for something. He comes to the Jockey Bar to study. He’s studying me too. He’s written many novels for the German people, and now those little Jews are writing their decadent stuff. He’s not going to play along with that.

  So the Red Moon has written a novel, Meadow in May, that has been reissued hundreds of times, and he just keeps on writing and right now he’s writing The Blonde Officer. And he invited me too. He has a beautiful apartment — full of books and so forth and a provocative chaise longue. I was drinking coffee and liqueur and eating a lot. The Red Moon was sweating and started to get heart palpitations, because we weren’t drinking decaf. I didn’t like it — the coffee or the Red Moon. But we had Danziger Goldwasser, which glitters in the small glass like a pond full of tiny gold pieces — they are swimming in it and you can’t catch them, and it’s highly uneducated to even try, and if you do try, then you scratch holes into your fingers and you still won’t find anything — so what’s the point of behaving in an uneducated way in the first place. But it’s nice to know that you’re drinking gold that tastes sweet and makes you drunk — it’s like a violin and tango in a glass. I love you, my brown madonna … wouldn’t it be wonderful to be with someone you like. Like, like, like. And he should have a voice as shiny as his hair — and his hands should be shaped so they could fit around my face and his mouth should be waiting for me. I wonder if there are men who can wait until you want to. There’
s always that moment when you want to — but they want to just a minute too soon, and that ruins everything.

  Me — and my fur coat who is with me — my skin gets all tense with the desire that someone find me attractive in my fur, and I find him attractive as well. I’m in a café — violins are playing, sending a waft of weepy clouds into my head — something’s crying in me — I want to bury my face in my hands to make it less sad. It has to work so hard, because I’m trying to become a star. And there are women all over the place, whose faces are also trying hard.

  But it’s a good thing that I’m unhappy, because if you’re happy you don’t get ahead. I learned that from Lorchen Grünlich, who married the accountant at Grobwind Brothers and is happy with him and her shabby tweed coat and one bedroom apartment and flower pots with cuttings and Gugelhupf on Sundays and stamped paper which is all the accountant allows her to use, just to sleep with him at night and have a ring.

  And there is ermine and women with Parisian scents and cars and shops with nightgowns that cost more than 100 marks and theaters with velvet, and they sit in them — and everything bows down to them, and crowns come out of their mouths when they exhale. Salespeople fall all over themselves when they come into the store and still don’t buy anything. And they smile when they mispronounce foreign words, if they do mispronounce them. And with their georgette adorned bosoms and their cleavage they sway in such a way that they don’t need to know anything. Waiters let their napkins trail on the floor when they leave a restaurant. And they can leave expensive rump steaks and à la Meyers with asparagus on their plates without feeling bad and wishing that they could pack them up and take them home. And they hand the bathroom attendant thirty pfennigs without looking at her face to find out if her way makes you want to give her more than necessary. And they are their own entourage and turn themselves on like light bulbs. No one can get near them because of the rays they’re sending out. When they sleep with a man, they breathe on pillows with genuine orchids, which are phenomenal flowers. And foreign diplomats admire them and they kiss their manicured feet in fur slippers and don’t really concentrate, but no one cares. And so many chauffeurs with brass buttons take their cars to garages — it’s an elegant world — and then you take the train to the Riviera in a bed to go on vacation and you speak French and you have pig leather suitcases with stickers on them, and the Adlon bows down to you — and rooms with a full bath, which are called a suite.