by Frank Deford
“A point I will acknowledge, Mother, reluctant as I may be to concede it.”
All right. And so, in the changing room, I saw how wonderfully the gown clung to me, just flaring out below my knees. It was cut on the bias, too, which, of course, made it all the more special.
That lost me. “I’m sorry: what’s that?”
Cut on the bias?
“Yes. I never heard of that before.”
Teddy, how old are you now?
“You know, Mom. I’m sixty-one.”
And you have never, in all your life, sixty-one years of a relatively sophisticated life—you have never, in all this eon, heard of any clothing being bias cut?
“No, I have not.”
Then, given that this has escaped you for sixty-one years, it’s reasonable to assume that it’s unlikely you will encounter any discussion of the subject in what remains of your sojourn on this planet, and so therefore we are not going to interrupt this reverie of your dear old mother’s for any further technical explanation. Let’s just leave you with the basics: that the gown is tight on me in here—
She slapped her thighs.
—and then flared out, so, if you can envision this, Teddy—try now—you have the wide shoulders and the wide skirt, top and bottom, and me in between.
“I can envision.”
Good. And so I emerged from the changing room, and I stood there, nearly breathless, and, well, hallelujah: the reaction was all a gal could desire. Frau Rosenthaler clasped her hands before her bosom and sighed, and Herr Rosenthaler simply said, “Schon, schon, schon,” over and over. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew it was damn good, whatever it was. And that was that, Teddy. That gown fit like it had been cut for me alone. They had only to take in the tiniest pinch under my arms, and that was it. There was Cinderella in magenta.
Mr. Rosenthaler folded the gown up and put it in a box. I hated to treat it that way, but Horst didn’t want to see the gown till he could see me in it. In that respect, it was sort of like a wedding gown.
She paused, wistfully.
All the more so, from hindsight, since it turned out that I never would have a wedding gown.
And so, clutching the box, I glided on air out to the car. Horst went back inside and settled up. When he came back, I thanked him and kissed him. Then I said, “You spent too much.”
“No, I didn’t, Sydney. And don’t ever bring it up again.” So I let that slide, Teddy, even though that gown was terribly expensive. It was the most expensive present I’d ever had in my life.
But Horst wasn’t done, because then he took me to the Rot-Weiss Club for dinner. Everyone was elegant, dressed to the nines. It must’ve been obvious how impressed I was, for after dinner, when we were strolling on the veranda, Horst asked me, “Do you really like it here?”
“Of course I do. Can’t you tell?”
“It’s important to me,” he said.
“Come on, Horst.” I swung my arms wide and whirled around. “This place is absolutely beautiful.”
“No, no, Sydney, I don’t mean just here. I mean Berlin. I mean us—Germans. Have you liked us?”
“Yes, I have.”
It had started to get chillier again. The beautiful day before had been the exception. He took off his jacket and put it round my shoulders, took my hand and walked me down to the tennis courts. “We play our Davis Cup matches here,” he said. “Have you heard of Gottfried von Cramm?”
Actually, Teddy, the name only dimly rang a bell, but, in the context, I figured correctly that he must be a tennis player, so I said I had. “He’s a member here,” Horst said. “The Baron—he’s old royalty. He made the Wimbledon final last month. He lost, but he was injured at the very beginning of the match. The Baron played on, though. He simply wouldn’t give up. And then he apologized for playing so poorly. Everyone admires him so. We’d never had a German do so well at Wimbledon before. And no one—no one from any country—had ever played so nobly. The Baron made us all so proud.”
There was a bench there. It was quite dark, because there was no moon. You could barely see the courts before us, from the lights of the clubhouse we’d left behind. When we sat down, I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead he actually leaned away, putting his elbow up on the far arm of the bench. He looked out toward the courts, into the dark, and began to speak as if from a script. “Remember, Sydney, remember I told you how my mother sent me to the American school in Tokyo in lederhosen?”
“Yes. You told me that.”
“Well, it was mortifying. Of course, none of the other boys wore them, and not only that, I didn’t speak English that well yet, and I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was seven. It was 1923, and the war had only been over five years. Now, the other boys didn’t remember the war at all. They’d been too young. But, oh, they all sure knew that we Germans had been the enemy. They knew that. And they knew they’d won the war, and Germany had lost. And so, right away, I was an outcast. No one wanted anything to do with the strange duck in the funny pants.”
Horst stood up and put his hands in his pockets, but he kept talking. It’s a little bit the way I’ve been talking to you, Teddy. I just have to say these things, and I may be saying them to you, but, really, I just need to say them. I thought at the time that it was more important for Horst to say what he wanted to than it was for me to listen. I thought I was just an excuse for him to talk.
“I’m just an excuse, Mom?”
In a way, yes. Don’t take it personally.
“Don’t worry, I don’t.”
Good. But I do hope you’re listening.
“Of course I am.”
Well, I listened to Horst then, out by the tennis courts. I could tell what he was saying mattered a great deal to him. He told me that at recess, several boys teased him, called him a “kraut,” and one of them, a bully named Andy, began to jab at him, and then he grabbed Horst and threw him to the ground and started punching him.
Horst turned directly to me, then. I was still sitting on the bench, wearing his jacket. And he said, “He beat me up pretty good, Sydney. Andy was much bigger than me, and I didn’t have a chance. And the other boys just watched. I don’t know about girls, but boys can be very cruel, honey. They’re kinda like those brownshirts, you know, the really awful Nazis, who’re suddenly very emboldened, very mean when they’re all together. A teacher finally heard the ruckus and pulled Andy off me, and told us to stop fighting. Only, of course, there was just one of us responsible for the fighting. But I didn’t say it wasn’t my fault. I just looked around at all the other boys who’d just stood there watching me get beat up, and I let it go. I think it made some of them ashamed. A couple of them, anyhow.
“So I got beat up just because I was a German. In a way, I found out then what it was like to be a Jew. Or a Negro.
“When my mother came to pick me up and saw me all scratched and bruised, she wanted to go right to the headmaster and complain. But I wouldn’t let her. I just told her never to make me wear those damn lederhosen again. Which she didn’t. And I learned to speak better English, and to speak it exactly like the American boys. And I told you: I learned to play baseball. I caught on, Sydney. You live abroad, you adapt. I can be a chameleon. I can be an American.
“It drove Andy crazy, and near the end of the year he tried to pick a fight with me again. And guess what?”
“You beat him?”
“Oh no. That’d make a good story, but Andy was much too big for me to ever beat him. Besides, I’ve never liked to fight. No, but it was even better. You see, the reason Andy got so mad at me was that the more popular American guys had begun to accept me. After a while, they didn’t care anymore that I was German. They’d forgotten that I was supposed to be a rotten person. By the end of the year, I was accepted into the right group. You know? And Andy wasn’t part of that. That was much better than if I’d just beaten him up. The other guys stopped Andy from trying to pick on me. I got much more satisfaction that way. I’d found
my way in, and Andy was still out.
“But I never forgot, Sydney. I never forgot how hated I was in the beginning just because I was a German. And I don’t want anyone ever to look at us like that again.”
I reached out and took Horst’s hand. “That’s a very nice story,” I said. “I’m glad you told me.”
“Yeah, I wanted to tell you, Sydney. I’ve never told another soul.”
So I was wrong. It was important that someone had listened to him. “Thank you, Horst. That means a lot to me.”
Then, after a moment, he said, “You wanna go back to our house with me?”
I said, “Sure.”
Horst put on a very serious face then. He said, “You understand, Sydney. My parents are up in Kiel for the sailing. We’d be alone.”
So I just said, “Yeah, you told me.”
And, of course, Teddy, I’m sure you know that in 1936, a so-called nice girl, which is what I was, so-called and otherwise, was not supposed to go to a boy’s house unchaperoned.
“But still, you said ‘sure.’”
Yes, and as we used to say on the Shore: in a July minute.
Then Horst said, “You can trust me, Sydney,” and I nodded that I knew that, and we got in his car. His house was also in Charlottenberg, not far away, on a lovely little street named Dernburgstrasse. It was a very nice area, a very nice house. Germany had come a long way since the terrible times after the war. Especially on this western side of town. To me it didn’t look any different from some nice section of Baltimore or Wilmington.
He asked me if I wanted a schnapps, and I said yes, because I was suddenly a very sophisticated schnapps drinker, and while he got the drinks I started glancing at the various photographs of his family there in the living room. I was looking at one picture of three boys, standing on a dock somewhere, when Horst came back. “That’s my father,” he said, pointing to the boy on the left. “And those were his brothers—Henner and Max. They were both killed in the war.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, Dad was the only one of the brothers who survived, and he was wounded.”
“Is he okay?”
“Oh yeah, he recovered. Almost entirely. He still has a slight limp, but most people can’t even notice. He was lucky. His ship sank, but he got to shore safely.” Then he pointed out more recent pictures of his parents. “That was in Portugal.”
“When he was the ambassador?”
“Yes.”
His father, Klaus, was as handsome as Horst was, with the same light coloring, the same smooth features that would be too pretty on most men, except for the sharp chin and eyes that had a hint of the devil in them. Herr Gerhardt was standing, smiling, with one arm around his wife. She was a beautiful little blonde. Inge. It looked like you could put Inge in pigtails and she would yodel. There was also a photograph of the sister, Liesl, at her wedding, and she was every bit as adorable. Her husband was in his army officer’s uniform.
On the same table was another photo, this one of several men, standing together in some sort of garden. It took me a moment before I realized that it was Hitler himself in the middle; Herr Gerhardt was at the end. “Your father knows Hitler?”
“Well, he’s met him a few times. That’s in Bergdorf, the mountains. He’d get mad at me for telling you this, but Dad thought he had a chance to be the next ambassador to London, but it seems it’ll be von Ribbentrop.” That meant nothing to me, but Horst pointed to another man, the one standing to Hitler’s right. “There. Hitler’s crazy about von Ribbentrop, but Dad doesn’t think he’s all that bright.” He waggled a finger at me. “Now, Fraulein, don’t you dare repeat a word of that.” Of course, he was smiling when he said that.
“Are you kidding?” I said. “I can’t wait to spill the beans about that down on the Eastern Shore.”
“I hate a girl who can’t keep a secret.” He put the picture back in its place. “Anyway, Dad figures now that he’ll probably get sent back to Tokyo, as the ambassador there this time. Mom’s not crazy about the idea, but she likes being an ambassador’s wife. And it’s different now. The Japanese are pretty much our friends.”
“Would you go, too?”
“Back to Japan? Oh no. Just the one more year at Heidelberg, and when I graduate, do my damn time in the Navy—”
“Why the Navy?”
“Oh, the Gerhardts’ve always been a naval family. Besides: better than the army. I don’t want anything to do with guns, thank you very much. So get the sailor stuff outta the way and then go to architecture school.” He picked up his drink and raised it to me. “Of course, now, I will go back to Tokyo in ’40, so I can be there with you when you win the gold medal.”
I said, “Then I’ll never let you leave me again,” and with that as a pretty good jumping-off point, Teddy, we began to kiss—
“Ah, standing up.”
Yes, Teddy, but not for long. Pretty soon we were on the sofa, and we were doing some heavy necking. We called it “necking” then. I don’t know when “making out” came into the vernacular. And the necking was getting pretty hot, and suddenly Horst stopped, and he said, “I’m sorry, Sydney, I promised you that you could trust me.”
And let’s just say I did something then that upped the ante, and I said, “Well, I didn’t promise you that you could trust me.”
And he got this wonderful expression on his face—surprise and delight. It may be the most gratifying expression you ever see from another human being, Teddy: surprise and delight, together. And so I drew even closer to him, if that was possible, and I whispered: “I want to make love to you, Horst.” I knew exactly what I wanted, Teddy. I knew exactly what I was up to.
And he said, “Somehow, I didn’t think you ever had.”
And I said, “No.” Just that. But then I said, “Only not here. In your bed, Horst. Because when I’m gone, I want you to think of me every time you go to sleep.”
Well, I’ve gotta be honest with you, Teddy. That poetry wasn’t exactly spontaneous. I’d thought of that when he was out of the room, getting the drinks. I told you I knew what I was up to. I didn’t want to be a so-called nice girl anymore. I decided that I’d rather have it be nice instead. So I got up and put out my hand, and he took it, and we went upstairs to his room. I wasn’t the least bit nervous. I mean, here I was about to go to bed with a guy who’d screwed Leni Riefenstahl, the big movie star. But you know what? I figured he knew a lot of men had screwed Leni Riefenstahl, but I’d be very special.
So we made love in his bed. It was wonderful. You always hear how the first time isn’t so good. Well, I can’t speak for any other girl, but it sure was wonderful for this girl. So, in a while, of course, we made love again.
Don’t you hate it, Teddy, the way everybody nowadays just says “have sex” instead of “made love”? What a terrible devaluation of the language on the one hand and love on the other. I didn’t think at all: I’m having sex. I thought: Wow, I’m making love.
And we were lying there, then, and Horst said, “I better get you back to the dorm.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t there a curfew?”
“Not really,” I said. “They just sort of expect you back. But what’re they gonna do with me? Not let me swim in the Olympics? I’m not allowed to anyway.”
And so I went to sleep in his arms, in his bed. And I remember so well, Teddy, when I woke up the next morning, looking over at him, my own liebchen, lying there, his hair splayed out over the pillow. He was so handsome. And I thought to myself, Lord, but you sure are different now, Trixie Stringfellow. Only I didn’t mean that I was different because I was a woman now, because I’d had a man. No, I thought how different I was because I’d learned how to love, and I knew that someone magnificent loved me too, with all his heart and soul.
I turned off the tape recorder and said no more, departing, leaving Mother alone in the garden with her reveries—thinking back to the time of her life. That, I realized was what Berlin had been. People alwa
ys say: I had the time of my life. But I guess some people only have that one time that qualifies. And Mom did. And now that she was back there, I left her alone.
I was somewhat relieved, too, that she had come to what I concluded must be the romantic denouement of this saga. Of course, I remembered that the mysterious contents of that purple acetate folder were yet to be revealed. But what could be left? After all, young Sydney Stringfellow would have to be returning home from Germany in another week or so, and what further role could the incandescent Horst Gerhardt possibly play in her life? He had wooed my mother, given her the time of her life, fallen just as hard and fairly for her as she had for him, and acted with perfect honor even as he deflowered her and, to boot, escorted her to ecstasy.
Good grief, no wonder an old woman who was dying remembered this glorious idyll of her youth so vividly and so tenderly. Indeed, now I was able to restrain my earlier anger toward Horst. I knew that my mother had dearly adored my father and been devoted and true to him in her love for a half-century, till death did they part. It would be nothing short of spiteful of me to resent this one gloriously romantic interlude that my mother shared with another man in another time and place before my father materialized in her life.
Besides, by comparison, it made me recall my own ragged and unsatisfying admission into the realm of sexual congress, and I could only be envious that my dear mother had chosen so well for her debut and orchestrated the performance so neatly, down even to her dialogue that would have done justice to the most lush French novel. Only, how had she forgotten to hire the violins to play “Love in Bloom” and the cherubs to toss rose petals upon the bed?