The American Fiancee

by Eric Dupont

  At the end of the lesson, I opened the door to find Ludwig in the hallway. He’d been waiting there the whole lesson. He looked like someone who’d been caught stealing bread.

  “Ach! You’re still there, my little Ludwig! You stayed behind to listen to Magda. You’re so charming, the two of you. You know my house is always open. You can come and go as you please. You can practice anytime I’m not giving a lesson.”

  Listening to Terese Bleibtreu bless our union like that, I felt as though I was being admitted to an inner sanctum, being initiated into a mystery religion, joining a new family that was a far cry from my depressed mother, absent father, and the little brats at Sophie-Charlotte-Schule. It seemed as though I’d found my real family, the one I’d clearly been separated from at birth. As for Ludwig, I already knew from hearing his voice that, were he ever to die, my life on this earth would become one long painful, pitiful tale of woe, a gaping crater of solitude, a futile, sorrowful journey.

  Ludwig followed me down the stairs.

  “You have a lovely voice,” the little charmer told me.

  No one but Tante Clara and Mama had ever complimented me. Oh, there was Mademoiselle Jacques who, even though she officially took me to be an idiot, would congratulate me on the progress I was making in French, but no boy had never praised me before. Ludwig and I decided to walk together. He lived near Nollendorfplatz. His sister Terese no longer lived with her parents and was now staying with an aunt, a woman who could sometimes be seen wandering around the apartment, interrupting lessons with her applause or an admiring “Schön!” Like the idiot I was, I followed him, even though Mama was to pick me up from Terese’s.

  “I have to go to my Hitler Youth meeting. It’s Tuesday.”

  Standing outside the subway station, Ludwig told me he’d been allowed to take singing lessons only after striking a deal with his father. Ludwig didn’t like the other boys. His father had agreed to pay for the singing lessons, provided he join the Hitler Youth. His father must have been a real bundle of laughs.

  “The other boys are as thick as two short planks,” Ludwig said.

  “The girls aren’t any better,” I replied. “I go on Sundays and it’s to make Papa happy too. But it’s awful! A bunch of nincompoops. And those idiotic songs they make us sing!”

  “I know, I know. We have the same ones. I prefer Schubert any day. What about you?”

  “I don’t know much Schubert.”

  “I want to learn Ständchen, that’s what I told Terese. Look, she gave me the score.”

  “‘Leise flehen meine Lieder durch die Nacht zu dir.’ You’re going to sing it to a girl?”

  “It’s written to a girl?”

  “I think so. ‘. . . fürchte Holde nicht.’ Holde is his sweetheart.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  The words on the score seemed to be written for me. For me to sing them in Ludwig’s voice to Mademoiselle Jacques on a zebra. Although I didn’t really know anymore. I think Ludwig’s voice might have sent poor Mademoiselle Jacques packing for good. She hadn’t cut the mustard; I almost felt sorry for her.

  We stayed outside the subway station for a good while, then Ludwig suddenly began to panic.

  “Quick! Hide! Here come the baboons from my group!”

  He dragged me behind a wall just as four young men came out of the station, all wearing the same uniform.

  “It’s my Oberkameradschaftsführer, Kranz! He’s a real moron, but he might recognize me! They almost saw me! Quick, let’s get out of here!”

  And so began my life with Ludwig Bleibtreu. Five years of poetry in motion. Five years of folie à deux. Five years of dizzying promises. We went to hide with the zebras at the zoo. Ludwig was achingly funny. He would get up on the benches and mimic Terese’s coloratura soprano, dishing out singing advice to passersby. “You over there! Stop moving your jaw! And you, sir! Your posture! Stand up straight like you’re hanging from a thread! And, remember, that’s a D on vola!”

  I rolled about laughing. Then he sang Semplicetta tortorella to the zebras, like in my dream. Do you know Max Raabe, the singer? No? Well, he looked like him. A graceful blond cherub who wouldn’t hurt a fly but had cutthroat charm.

  Ludwig wore a little cross on a gold chain around his neck. His aunt, the very devout Bavarian that Terese lived with, had given it to him the day his father forced him to join the Hitler Youth. “At least have that under your uniform,” she’d said. No one has ever made me laugh as much as Ludwig Bleibtreu. No one will ever pay me more attention than Ludwig Bleibtreu did. No one will ever look at me the way Ludwig Bleibtreu looked at me. My little angel in a uniform that was too big for him. As blond as the wheat in East Prussia. A true German, I’m telling you: wearing an idiotic uniform, his auntie’s cross around his neck, but give him the choice and all he wanted to do was sing. And he moved with all the grace of Mademoiselle Jacques. Ach! That boy! Forgive me, Kapriel. I need a tissue.

  I got home at six thirty that evening, lips blue with cold. Papa and Mama were frightened half to death.

  “Where on earth were you? We looked for you everywhere, you little nitwit!” Papa roared, slapping me twice. Papa Alfred hit me twice a year. Since it was already December and he’d spared me on account of the move to Berlin, he gave me two good slaps I wouldn’t forget in a hurry, once with the palm, once with the back of his hand. But he wasn’t angry for long. I was even allowed to have supper with them once Mama had calmed him down. Ludwig got a thrashing from his father; Kranz the baboon had told him his son hadn’t been at Hitler Youth. They had no way of knowing that by beating us, our fathers helped forge a bond stronger than steel between the two of us. Ludwig and I understood with each blow just how much we meant to each other. The first six months of 1935 we spent almost entirely at Terese Bleibtreu’s. By then we were having our lessons together. Two hours straight. Ludwig’s sister had no objections, but Mama couldn’t find out.

  “As long as you keep applying yourselves! You’re here to work!”

  I celebrated my fifteenth birthday at Terese Bleibtreu’s. Ludwig too, two weeks later. We told our parents we wanted to practice our singing.

  “But you can practice here. We have a piano, after all. I can even accompany you!” Mama protested.

  “It’s better at Terese’s. She helps us.”

  It was a terrible lie. Terese let us hide in the next room while her students practiced. The little room had two armchairs and a table with framed photographs on it. Photos of Terese. One big photograph, I remember, showed her with a gentleman sitting at a piano. He was in five of the photos.

  “Her fiancé,” Ludwig whispered.

  It felt as though Terese was committing adultery.

  To my mind, Terese, Ludwig, and I formed a single emotional entity with no room for a fourth person.

  Hidden away behind the door in our little boudoir, Ludwig and I listened to Terese give her lessons. All kinds of people came and went, from professional singers at the Deutsches Opernhaus in search of technical advice and amateur chorists from the Reich’s railway choirs to beginners like us and men in their thirties who would sometimes forget their manners between two scales. I remember one particular gentleman from Wittenbergplatz . . . The poor man would begin to stutter every time he walked into Terese’s parlor. I couldn’t look at Ludwig the whole time he was there, otherwise I’d have burst out laughing.

  “T . . . Te . . . Ter . . . Teres . . . Terese . . . You are th-th-the v-v-very p-p-picture of r-r-radiance it-itself,” the poor man would stutter. Shurbaum, I think his name was.

  “Don’t make me blush, Herr Schurbaum,” she tittered. “Shall we begin?” Herr Schurbaum had a very pleasant basso cantante. Like the sacristan in Tosca. Or Sarastro in The Magic Flute. Terese was radiant, it was true. And Ludwig and I would hear all those voices, all the advice she gave. Terese would come see us after every lesson. We’d talk technique, color, timbre, the pieces that her students were singing. I remember the tenor who sang C
avaradossi at the Deutsches Opernhaus. He’d also come to see her. We called him “the goat” because he’d put tremors and vibratos absolutely everywhere.

  “Nein! Nein! Kein Vibrato!” Terese would shout, enraged.

  I think it was there in Terese Bleibtreu’s boudoir that the first challenge was laid down. The first tests, I should say. I think I mentioned, Kapriel, that Ludwig wore a little cross around his neck. The gold shone in the half-light where we were hidden. Sometimes I’d take it between my fingers and caress the smooth metal. His date of birth was engraved on the back, along with his initials. LB 13.12.20.

  Gold has always fascinated me, Kapriel. “Solidified light raised from a subterranean world,” that’s what Karl Marx wrote! It was October 1935. Ludwig set me my first mission. Kapriel, you must promise me you’ll tell no one. The missions . . . Ach!

  “Do you like my cross, Magda?”

  “Yes, it’s pretty.”

  “Do you want it?”

  “No! It’s yours!”

  “Admit it. You want it.”

  “I do, but it’s yours. It even has your initials engraved on the back.”

  “It’s yours.”

  “But I don’t want it.” (I was lying. I wanted that cross as badly as Hitler wanted war.)

  Ludwig had taken off the chain and was dangling the little cross in front of me. We had to whisper while the tenor wailed Und es blitzten die Sterne. Like your brother, only in German. That’s right: he was singing Tosca in German. Ludwig waved his little cross under my nose.

  “I’ll give it to you on one condition.”

  “What condition?” (I was curious.)

  “You’ll have to pass a test.”

  That’s when the missions started. Childish games that quickly spiraled out of control. The first one was simple. I didn’t have to bring back the Golden Fleece, just Mademoiselle Jacques’s barrette. Ludwig knew all about her, my every feeling for her. He hadn’t even met her, but he told me he loved her just as much as I did.

  “If you love her, then I love her too,” he said.

  You have to admit he was good!

  It wasn’t easy. I had to get Papa’s help. And guess how? Thanks to Tosca! You’ll like this story, Kapriel! You already know that Papa worked for KdF, that he had opera tickets for the workers. In the fall of 1935, that October, he got tickets to Tosca at the Berlin Staatsoper for Mama’s birthday. Mama had already taken me to The Magic Flute and other Mozart operas, but she thought I was too young for Puccini. I remember them arguing about it. Papa insisted I go.

  “What harm do you think Tosca’s going to do her?”

  “All that violence. Come on, Alfred. You know very well what happens in the second act. There’s a torture scene, then Tosca stabs Scarpia to death. It’s a story for adults. Plus, she’ll be bored. Mozart is what she should be listening to at her age. Mozart trains the ear without corrupting the soul! It’s nice of you, Alfred, but I won’t go. I get nightmares every time I see that jealous woman throwing herself to her death at the end of the opera.”

  “Do you really want us to go see The Magic Flute again?”

  “Alfred, you simply cannot take her. I forbid it. Puccini just isn’t suitable for a young girl who’s studying French and learning to sing like our Magda. She needs stories that are right for her age. I won’t even hear of her going to see Madame Butterfly!”

  “I think I’ll leave it up to Magda, darling.”

  “That’s right. You bring her to see Tosca. Just don’t be surprised if she ends up with blood on her hands!”

  “For goodness’ sake, Waldtraut! Listening to Puccini won’t turn someone into a murderer!”

  “Do what you like, Alfred. You always do anyway. All I can do now is keep quiet.”

  I would often hear them arguing in their bedroom or the living room where I never went to sit with them. From that moment on, seeing that forbidden opera where passions were unleashed seemed to me my sole reason for living. Papa made me wait until Saturday, October 19. The entire Staatsoper had been booked by KdF. Papa even gave some opera tickets to Sophie-Charlotte-Schule, probably to get the principal on his side. The concert hall was almost full. I was in the orchestra seats with Papa. A wonderful place, Kapriel. Prettier than the Königsberg theater, much prettier. There were speeches by people from Kraft durch Freude, then the Hitler salute. The usual blah-blah before a show. The Führer generously ensures you have this and that and the other, the regime is pleased to offer you this performance of Tosca . . . Pfff! They stopped just short of claiming Hitler had written the score himself! Anyway, you’ll never guess what I saw no more than three rows in front of me, a familiar sight, glinting in the half-light . . . Mademoiselle Jacques’s barrette, neatly pinned to its owner’s hair! She must have been given one of the tickets Papa had left at the school.

  The speeches finally ended and the curtain went up. I spent the whole first act thinking this was my chance, it was now or never. I barely paid any attention to what was happening on stage. D’Angelotti arriving, hiding when he sees Cavaradossi, then that sacristan idiot. Tosca at last coming into the church, shouting “Mario! Mario! Mario!” convinced she’ll catch him with another woman! You know, Kapriel, it’s a woman’s jealousy that brings the whole thing crashing down, that’s what Tosca’s all about. Had Tosca been a bit more sensible, none of it would ever have happened. It was through that flaw that Scarpia managed to worm his way into her heart. That’s what Papa told me. I needed to find a way to sidle up next to Mademoiselle Jacques. The first intermission came just after the Te Deum. When we came back from the bar, I noticed that the seats behind her were empty. The people sitting there had had enough after the first act!

  “Papa, may I sit a little closer?”

  “Of course, darling. No one will mind if the people have left.”

  From that moment on, it all happened very quickly. Mademoiselle Jacques didn’t see me in the dark hall, and since Papa didn’t know any more about her than what Mama had told him, he had no way of knowing it was her. The barrette glistened in the darkness. But it was far from in the bag, Kapriel. Even if I’d managed to get the barrette out of her hair without attracting her attention, the people behind would have caught me red-handed and turned me in on the spot. Papa would have been disgraced! But it was Tosca who delivered the barrette into my lap, almost literally. Mademoiselle Jacques became more and more agitated during the second act. She jumped in her seat every time Cavaradossi let out a tortured cry. She buried her face in her hands as though it was she or her lover being tortured! She even wept during Vissi d’arte. I could have pinched her barrette while she sobbed, but someone would have seen me. Mama was right after all: Puccini does drive people to a life of crime! Ha! Ha! I was getting desperate. The second act was almost over. Tosca grabbed the knife from the table, ready to murder Scarpia, who had been going to rape her. It was the pact they had made: he’d let her leave with her lover Cavaradossi and in exchange she’d give herself to him. The ink on their safe conduct out of Rome was barely dry when she seized the knife and approached him. And that’s when the miracle happened. By the look of things, it was a folding knife that refused to give way at the right moment. Poor Scarpia took a knife to the stomach. Everyone thought he was acting; it wasn’t until the blood dripped down onto the stage that we understood what was going on.

  People stood to get a better look, began to whisper. “He’s bleeding! He’s going to die,” a woman suddenly cried. “Quickly, a doctor!”

  Men leaped up from the orchestra to come to Scarpia’s aid as he lay moaning in a pool of blood. The poor soprano who played Tosca had buried her head in her hands with shame; the musicians poked their heads up from the pit to watch the drama unfold. People began to shout. That was when she dropped to the floor. Mademoiselle Jacques couldn’t bear the sight of blood! She had stood up to look and fell straight back into my arms. She never knew it was me who had caught her.

  The barrette was a cinch. It was in my pocket in a second. P
eople were shouting and running about the hall. Someone had the presence of mind to close the curtain. Someone else gathered up Mademoiselle Jacques. “Let me help you, Miss.” I already had what I wanted. Papa and I went home. The next morning, it was all over the newspapers and the barrette was in my secret drawer.

  “I told you, Alfred. I knew you were going to traumatize her.”

  If Mama had known what still lay in store for me, she wouldn’t have raised so much as an eyebrow.

  I couldn’t wait for my next singing lesson. When I got to Terese’s hallway, I admired the little barrette in the sunlight, then clipped it in my hair. It was the first thing Ludwig saw when I walked into the studio. He was speechless.

  “What a pretty barrette, Magda!” Terese said.

  Ludwig wore a wry smile, and his eyes were filled with disbelief. After our lesson, we walked along Bülowstraße.

  “How did you pull it off?”

  I told him everything. I exchanged the barrette for the gold cross and the deal was sealed. He must have told his parents he’d lost the cross. I don’t know what he did with the barrette. Maybe he gave it to his sister.

  In February 1936, a new version of Tosca came to the Deutsches Opernhaus in Charlottenburg. I went to see it at least a dozen times. Three times with Ludwig, who was as intrigued as could be. It was always Papa who got me tickets. I think he did it just to annoy Mama. I can still see her feigning disinterest on her way out of the living room.

  “I won’t go. Puccini isn’t music: it’s shouting. It’s not for me, thanks all the same, Alfred.”

  Mama had her own tastes.

  Ludwig wanted the cross back. Naturally. I was going to make sure he paid top price for it.

  “You’ll have to serenade me.”

  That was my price. And that’s what he did, the silly fool. It was one morning in June 1936. I’d had the cross for months. The sun was barely up when I heard Mama knocking at my door.

  “Magda! Come at once!”

  The living-room window was open. We could hear men grunting and exclaiming loudly. It sounded like they were moving something heavy and unwieldy. Their grunts mingled with shouts from people in our building. “What’s all that ruckus at this hour? People are trying to sleep here! I’m going to file a complaint.” Mama was all aflutter.