Marlene (11 page)

After months of rejections that left me disconsolate, Uncle Willi intervened. He’d had lunch with the manager of a prospering chain of picture houses owned by the UFA—the Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft
,
a studio that had started by presenting short reels about the war and branched out into full productions, some of which featured my Weimar actress-idol, Henny Porten. The manager had complained of losing a violinist in one of his traveling orchestras that accompanied the films. The job, Uncle Willi assured me, was mine. UFA had no issue with hiring a woman, as I’d not be seen in the pit. But the pay was less than I’d heard theater managers offer, scarcely enough to put food in my mouth, much less get me out of Mutti’s flat.

“I told you,” Jolie sighed. “You can always move in here with us. We’d be delighted to have you. Wouldn’t we, Willi dearest?”

My uncle didn’t look delighted. Like me, he feared the wrath of the dragon, as I’d dubbed Mutti. “I’d have to consult with Josephine,” he said. “It would be the proper thing to do. She holds a share in the business. I wouldn’t want to cause her any more trouble.”

“Of course,” I said, before Jolie could protest. “There’s no need. If I have the job, it’s a start.” I forced out a smile, though I felt wretched as I envisioned delivering the news to Mutti.

She didn’t raise her voice. After I informed her that I’d accepted employment in a small orchestra accompanying the flickers, all she said was, “I see,” before she left for her work.

Unnerved, thinking I should also have told her I was moving into the family residence, I saw Liesel glance at me. “You’d best start looking for that new room soon,” she said.

I sighed. I should, indeed. Though how I’d manage it seemed as insurmountable as everything else.

THE JOB WAS TEDIOUS.
We had a set repertoire for each film that screened overhead, the music as trivial as the pictures themselves. I had to wonder why I’d been so entranced by Henny Porten. Watching her pantomime her way through convoluted plots six days a week, I thought her a rather poor actress. But she was famous everywhere she went, while I labored in a pit with other musicians who ogled me at intermission. I’d learned my lesson in Weimar. Despite numerous invitations, I declined. I needed the work and the pay, as Mutti’s pursed-lip response had turned out to be a percentage of my salary toward the rent, her punishment for what she deemed my willful rejection of a career as a concert soloist. The last thing I needed was a romantic mistake.

Even if I’d had the courage to tell her I was never going to earn acclaim for my violin, I lacked the time and energy. The job took us to various UFA picture houses in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich, where the scenery might change but the dismal hotel rooms and the repertoire remained the same. I learned every piece of music by heart and knew every film by rote; I could play my violin, watch the picture above, and hike up the edges of my skirt to get a draft of air on my sweltering stocking-clad legs without missing a note.

After four weeks in my employment, as I pulled on my coat one evening and prepared to trudge home with my violin in its now-battered case, the manager motioned me into his office. He slid an envelope across his desk. “Your final pay. I’m sorry, Fräulein Dietrich.”

“You’re dismissing me?” I was stunned. “But why? You told me I was doing very well.”

“You were. However, some of the others have complained.”

“Complained?” I knew at once which ones—all those whose invitations I’d refused. “Why should any of them complain? I’ve not missed an engagement. In fact, I should be the one complaining, as several of them fail to start with the picture or play the wrong score.”

“The legs.” He met my appalled stare. “They say you are too distracting. You pull up your skirt to show off your legs and confound them. It was a mistake to hire a woman.”

Infuriated, I grabbed the envelope and stormed out, but by the time I was on the boulevard, I was nearly in tears. I’d been fired for my legs, when all I’d been trying to do was catch some relief before I roasted to death in that hellhole of a pit. Now I was unemployed, and when I thought of what Mutti would say, the triumph in her voice as she reminded me I should have kept to housekeeping and lessons until the
appropriate
opportunity presented itself—

I dashed into the nearest café. I never bought myself anything. I would at least enjoy a decent meal with my own earnings before I handed over whatever was left to Frau Dragon.

It was early evening, when anyone with anything to spend took to the streets. After ordering the most inexpensive meal on the fixed-price menu, balancing my violin case in one hand and beer mug in the other (yes, I would drink and let Mutti smell it on me), I searched the crowded interior for an empty seat. I spotted one in the corner, but the table was occupied by a dark-haired woman writing in a notebook, a coffee cup and overflowing ashtray at her side.

“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 chuckled. “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.”