“Excuse me, Frau, is this seat free?” I asked.
She looked up. She was no Frau. Or at least, she appeared only a little older than me, with deep brown eyes and a tired mouth, her fingertips stained with ink.
“Yes.” She removed her tapestry bag from the empty chair. “Join me.”
I hadn’t intended to join her. I merely required a place to eat my meal. But as I sat and offered her a smile, she thrust out her ink-smeared hand. “Gerda Huber.”
“Marlene. Marlene Dietrich.” After a moment’s hesitation, I shook her hand. Her palm was dry. But I liked her firm grasp. I’d only seen men greet each other with handshakes. Eyeing her, I saw she wore an old-fashioned shirtwaist with a frayed collar and a knotted black tie. She wasn’t unattractive but looked as though she wanted to be, her black hair drawn in a severe bun, her dowdy air ensuring she’d go unnoticed.
“You look exhausted,” she said. “Bad day?”
“The worst.” And then I blurted out, “I just got sacked from my job.”
She winced. “In this economy. For a woman, it’s not easy to find work at all.”
“That’s why I was sacked.” I paused as the waiter delivered my sauerkraut and overcooked sausage. I motioned down; as she looked, I lifted my skirt. “For being a woman. I played the violin in an orchestra for the UFA. The other musicians complained. Can you believe it?” I wasn’t sure why I was telling her, only I needed to tell someone and I was unlikely to meet her again. “They claimed I showed off my legs to distract them.” I gulped my beer. “Have they no sense? It’s like an oven in those pits, and the manager insisted I must wear stockings at all times—with the price of stockings as they are.”
“You aren’t wearing stockings now,” she remarked.
I paused. “Yes, well. My latest pair had a run in them. I took them off.”
“Before or after you were fired?” She was smiling. She had uneven teeth, discolored from too many cigarettes and cheap coffee. “Not that it matters. Women are never respected in our world. We live in an age of rampant misogyny.”
“Mis-what?”
“Misogyny. Prejudice against women.” She flicked her finger at my plate. “You should eat. Cold sauerkraut isn’t very appetizing.”
Her words returned me to another time in another café, when I’d sat with the teacher whom I adored and she’d advised me to drink my coffee before it went cold. I gestured to the waiter, who returned with an impatient frown. “Another plate for my friend.”
She started to refuse. I waved him off, saying, “It’s my treat. This is my last paycheck for who knows how long, and as I must give whatever is left for rent, we might as well enjoy it.”
She dipped her head. “Danke, Marlene.”
Over our food, I told her about how I’d come to play the violin and she told me she was a journalist who wrote freelance articles for newspapers—“Stupid stories about stupid people,” she said, grimacing. “Editors think all women can write about is Henny Porten’s latest affair or the latest show on the Behrenstrasse with that ghastly Anita.” She hooked her hands like claws at the sides of her face. “I’m Anita Berber. Do you like cocaine, darling? I bathe in it. Willkommen to my dance of horror, lust, and ecstasy.”
I laughed aloud. It felt good. I hadn’t laughed in weeks. I’d also seen posters of this Anita Berber, who posed like a crimson-mouthed vamp. “Is it true she performs in the nude?”
“Naked,” corrected Gerda. “Nude denotes taste. She has none.” She lit a cigarette, though she hadn’t yet finished her meal, blowing out smoke as she pushed the package to me. I took one. Beer, cigarettes, sausage. Let Mutti have a fit.
“I want to write about serious issues that affect us now,” Gerda said, glancing angrily about the café and its garrulous patrons. “About this terrifying economy, the political instability, and the emancipation of women—things people should be reading, not lurid tales of cocaine-addled sluts or the antics of some overrated actress.”
“Porten is overrated,” I agreed, cigarette in hand as I wolfed down the rest of her half-finished sausage. No reason to diet now. “I used to worship her. I saw all her films, memorized even her dialogue titles. When I was in Weimar, I could imitate her to perfection, but after this job—ugh. She’s so unnatural. It’s not life she portrays up there.”
“No,” said Gerda. “She imitates life. That’s all anyone cares about: to escape and ignore the catastrophe we brought upon ourselves. Life is too real. Best to pretend it doesn’t exist.”
Now it was my turn to glance around. The war was still a raw wound. Everyone in Germany had lost someone to it. No one would welcome hearing it disparaged as a catastrophe we had brought upon ourselves, as that implied we could have avoided it.
“I’ve made you nervous,” she said. “I have a big mouth. Too big, my editors tell me. Which is why they’ll never let me write anything substantial. A woman who speaks the truth is also too real.”
I was embarrassed that she’d seen right through me. “It’s just that—my mother lost a brother and a husband in the war, and . . .” I faltered under her steady gaze. “I was taught to believe that an honorable German, a good German, must always support the cause.”
“No matter what.” She stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray. “So was I. I lost two brothers to the war. After that, I decided it was time to think for myself. As Goethe wrote: ‘None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.’” She reached across the table, oblivious to her sleeve trailing over her plate. She grasped my hand. “I like you, Marlene. You have courage. Marx says men make their own history. Women can, too, if we’re only given the chance. You strike me as someone who wants to make her own history.”
I did? At this particular moment, I didn’t feel like one. But all I replied was, “I like you, too,” and I realized I did. Of all the places I might have gone, I’d come in here and met her. She’d made me forget for an hour or so that I’d lost my sole source of income and my dream of independence. But now I remembered and the weight of it fell upon me as I searched my pocket for the envelope, doling out the price of our meals.
“I must get home before it’s too late.”
“Must you? Or have I made you so uncomfortable that you feel you must leave?”
“I’m not uncomfortable.” My denial was too quick. The truth was, although I liked her, she did perturb me. She was not feminine like Mademoiselle, refined like Oma, or glamorous like Jolie. She was unlike any woman I’d met—one who spoke her mind with a directness that was more like a man’s.
Then she said softly, but with an undeniable challenge, “Why don’t you come home with me instead?”
SHE LIVED IN A BOARDINGHOUSE in the Wilmersdorf district, one of those crumbling older buildings whose better days had come and gone with the empire, now reduced to cubbyholes for tenants. Her room wasn’t much larger than the one I’d had in Weimar, though hers had a kitchenette. Stacks of books were heaped everywhere—volumes by Goethe, Marx, Zweig, and Mann, and writers I didn’t recognize, American or English, it seemed, with names like Fitzgerald and James. She also had two tabby cats who meowed plaintively as we entered. I saw then that she’d not finished her sausage at the café because she was saving it for them, unclasping her bag and removing sections from a napkin to feed them in chipped dishes while I watched, thinking I’d greedily consumed her pets’ dinner.
“Whatever I can afford,” she said. “Parts of my meals and the cream off the milk that Trude gives me on Sundays. Poor dears. They don’t look famished, do they? They should be skin and bones. But Trude adores them. She must give them extras. Do you like cats?”
“Yes.” I squatted. “I’ve never had one, but aren’t they considered good luck?”
“By the ancient Egyptians, perhaps.” She unwound her scarf. “In Berlin, with the price of meat as it is, they’re considered a staple.”
I gasped, looking up at her. “Honestly? People eat . . . ?”
She ch
uckled. “So I’m told. I’ve never tried it myself. Coffee?” She went into the kitchenette; as I made kissing sounds, one of the cats meandered over to me and began to purr.
“He likes you. That’s Oskar. Like Oscar Wilde. Handsome devil, isn’t he?”
“Who’s Trude?” I asked. The cat was so soft, its fur rippled like silk through my fingers.
“The landlady.” Gerda emerged with a pot and two cups on a tray. “She’s very nice. A bit daft, but one of the truly kindhearted souls I’ve met in this city. She runs this house. She only rents to women, mostly aspiring chorus girls or actresses. A few of her tenants study at the Max Reinhardt academy. Have you heard of it?”
I shook my head, picking up Oskar and settling with him in a lumpy chair.
“Neither had I, but Trude adores the theater.” Gerda served the coffee, which smelled of chicory. “She wanted to be an actress herself, but in her day, it wasn’t done. It still isn’t. But most of us have to make a living somehow. Not many options besides the cabaret, modeling, or acting, and of course the oldest profession. Max Reinhardt’s academy is considered the best; many of his graduates go on to perform in his repertory companies.” She eyed me. “Better to try one’s luck on the stage than on one’s back. The competition these days is the same.”
If she was trying to shock me, it didn’t work. I’d seen plenty of prostitutes as I’d dashed to and from my auditions. Just beyond the Kurfürstendamm, the alleys seethed with them, men and women alike, beckoning from doorways or cruising the grimy cafés.
“Trude also reads tarot cards for money,” Gerda went on. “She’s quite good. She once foretold that a girl here would get a part, and the very next week, she did.”
“She sounds interesting.” As I reached for my cup, Oskar leaped from my lap, leaving fur all over my skirt. I smiled, brushing at it. “Mutti will be furious. Cat hair in the house.”
“She sounds like a tyrant. How do you stand it?”
I sighed. “I didn’t think it would be for much longer. I was saving whatever I could to rent my own place, but now . . .”
“Yes?” Her gaze was now fixed on me.
I hated to admit it. “I suppose I’ll have to clean houses.”
“Why don’t you try acting?”
I laughed. “Acting? I have no talent whatsoever for the stage.”
“You have those.” She pointed at my legs. “Legs like yours—”
“Can make fortunes. That’s what my Oma once told me.”
“She was right.” Greta lit a cigarette. “I’ve seen girls with far less than you do quite well for themselves. You should consider it.”
I sipped my coffee; it was mostly chicory and as bitter as failure.
“You said you can imitate Henny Porten,” she said. “Show me.”
“Now?”
She nodded. “I’d like to see it, if you don’t mind.”
I assumed the pose, arching my arms above my head as I’d done so many times for my friends in Weimar. Affecting an anguished tone, I recited, “Why do you forsake me, Curt? Can’t you see I am spellbound by the baron?”
She sat still, a pall of smoke drifting about her. I shrugged. “See? No talent whatsoever.”
“But we proved our point. Porten is definitely overrated. With some dramatic training and voice lessons, I see no reason why you couldn’t do better.”
“Better than Porten? She’s famous. I don’t think I could ever be like her.”
“You don’t want to, remember? You want to be your own creation.” She dragged on her cigarette before extending it across the table. As I smoked, coughing slightly from the harshness of it, she returned the tray to the kitchenette, her cats winding at her heels. I finished the cigarette and looked around for an ashtray; the room was filled with bric-a-brac, and I didn’t see one anywhere until she said, “On the table. The pot.”
Leaning over a chipped ceramic pot, I saw it contained an inch or two of filthy water, with sodden butts floating in it. “It helps with the smell,” she said, coming back toward me.
I dropped the butt in. It didn’t help; her entire room reeked of tobacco. I reached for my coat. During the walk here, I’d felt a chill in the air. Autumn approached, heralding another frigid winter. I had a long trek home, unless I could catch a tram at this hour. But I didn’t want to leave. She made me feel safe, welcome. I thought we might be friends and she must have thought the same, for before I could thank her and say good night, she said quietly, “If things get bad at home, you could always stay here on the couch. Trude wouldn’t mind and I could use extra help with the rent once you find work. It’s not expensive. I travel now and then for assignments, so you’d have the room to yourself sometimes. But when I’m here, I’d enjoy the company.”
I turned to her. Her eyes shone. “Company?” I said.
“Why, yes.” Her words quickened. “I’ll introduce you to the other tenants; the girls here know all the voice instructors and drama coaches. You could train for the theater, perhaps audition for the academy. I’ll help you select roles. I have a lot of books with plays here.”
Her voice held a slight tremor. In the room, with her one lamp casting more shadow than light, she looked different—prettier. Just a girl like me, like so many of us trying to survive. I remembered Mademoiselle, how I’d yearned to caress stray hairs from her cheek, and then Reitz, when I’d taken his hand and he clasped it. Would this be any different? I had always wondered about my affinity for women, and I felt an inexplicable kinship with Gerda, not like with a sibling, as Liesel and I were, but as I imagined true sisterhood might be.
“I could stay now,” I offered, and she nodded.
“You could,” she said. “Do you want to?”
I smiled. “I could try. I’ve never done this before. But I have thought of it.” As I spoke, I tentatively reached out to caress her cheek. Her skin was dry. She didn’t use any cream, not even the ubiquitous bargain lotions found in the drugstores, which always left a palpable film. My curiosity made me feel naive, exposed; I heard myself say haltingly, “Will you show me how?”
Her eyes dilated, like a cat’s. “Tell me,” she said thickly, “what you want to learn.”
I let my hand linger on her face. “Everything.”
Desire flamed up in her. I’d seen it before, on the afternoon I had seduced Reitz. But she was not like him; she did not hide her need in shame or deceit. It was on her face, young and brash; she burned as if she might melt. It excited me. It was conquest and surrender; we were women, equals, with nothing between us but our hesitation.
I abruptly kissed her. She tasted of stale tobacco; and when she returned my kiss, I felt her shudder. I liked the sensation, her vulnerability wavering under her flesh like an elusive pool.
As she guided me to the tiny bedroom off the living area, I warmed to her touch. She had done this before, perhaps not often, but often enough that her kisses turned pliant, her hands sliding within my clothes, unfastening, tugging, until I stood naked before her and she breathed, “Mein Gott. You are beautiful. Like a goddess.”
I could see that she meant it. She herself was small breasted, with heavy thighs; her long skirt and shirtwaist had concealed a pear-shaped body that made her self-conscious, another vulnerability that endeared her to me. She wanted to be taken seriously as a journalist, to effect change in the world, but like everyone else, she must yearn to be loved. I understood. I, too, longed for it, and her sudden gasp as I kneeled to clasp her was like being in an elevator going down very fast. She strained against my mouth, moaning aloud, and then we were tumbling onto the rumpled bed, tangled and gasping as palms and tongues merged. I soaked into her; I wanted to please her, and when I did, her cry shattered in my ear. Her breath was husky as she whispered incredulously, “You’ve never done this before?”
“Never,” I said, and then she rose over me, holding my arms over my head as she lapped at my nipples, moving down slowly, teasing, until she parted me and then, with a sly grin as she raised he
r gaze to my face, she said, “If I do this, I might never let you go.”
“Do it,” I said. “Please . . .”
She sipped me as if I were a delicacy, peeling me like fruit, piece by supple piece, until I was panting as she reached my searing core.
I thought I’d had a lover before. How wrong I had been.
I DRIFTED HOME THE NEXT DAY, a Saturday, feeling fragrant and boneless as oleander petals, and packed my suitcase while Mutti sat stone-faced at the table and Liesel gaped in disbelief.
“It’s a respectable boardinghouse,” I said. “For girls. Frau Trude runs it and insists on her tenants having proper employment. I’m sharing a room with a writer.”
It was a lie of course. I no longer had a job, proper or otherwise, and when we’d happened on Trude as I left the boardinghouse and Gerda introduced me, I beheld a floozy of a woman in a faded housecoat, gray roots threading her dyed red hair. She was as sweet and absentminded as Gerda had described, smiling vaguely when told I was moving in. “Oh, how lovely. You’ve found a new friend, Gerda. I hope she likes cats. Welcome, dear.”
Mutti didn’t know any of this yet, but she had an unerring ear for falsehood. “Frau Trude?” She frowned. “You don’t even know the proprietor’s last name?”
“Handelmann,” I said. “Or Herbert. I’m not sure. I only just met her, but she’s very strict.” I kept emphasizing the propriety of the situation, even though nothing I said would convince her and images of Gerda lifting a cigarette to my lips as we lay together, arms and legs entwined, flashed behind my eyes. Unmarried girls lived at home: That was the only propriety Mutti knew. Anything else was unacceptable. But I was about to turn twenty-one. She couldn’t stop me, and even if she had tried, I would not have let her.
She did not try. She accepted my kiss good-bye and let Liesel see me to the door. Unexpectedly, my sister said, “I admire you, Marlene. You’re doing what you want.”
It was the nicest thing she’d ever said to me, and it eased my anxiety. Mutti would come around. She wouldn’t be able to resist. She’d want to see this boardinghouse and roommate of mine for herself. Even if she no longer had me under her thumb, she must ensure that I didn’t make a spectacle of myself. How she’d react when she discovered I wasn’t playing the violin but was living with a lesbian and training to be an actress—I couldn’t dwell on that now.
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