Marlene (25 page)

“He is. And you certainly can sing and perform. But in English?”

“I’ll learn. I’ll take up lessons again.” I looked eagerly at Tamara for reassurance; she nodded. “I can do this. I know I can. And the way he lit me. He has the eye of a painter. Wide distribution, he said. He’s here from Paramount. What if they distribute the picture in America? It could change everything for us.”

“It could.” Rudi still appeared hesitant, which puzzled me. As though she sensed our need for privacy, Tamara gathered up the cups and plates to retreat into the kitchen.

“What is it?” I sat beside him.

He tried to smile. “I’m just surprised. The lead in a von Sternberg
picture, the first UFA-produced talkie, opposite Emil Jannings—it’s incredible.”

Detecting the undertone in his voice, I set my hand on his. “If you miss working, I’ll ask him to hire you. He must need professionals and you know your way around a UFA set.”

“No.” His smile faded. “I’ve accepted a job with Terra Productions for three pictures as a script assistant. Tamara is here now, to look after Heidede,” he added, dampening my enthusiasm. “It’s not much paywise, but I must start doing something besides selling pigeons.”

“You do. You raise our daughter so I can work.” My euphoria over my newfound fortune allowed me to be benevolent. I never could begrudge him for long.

“I meant later. When you are gone.”

“Gone? I haven’t started shooting yet.”

“No, but it will happen. I always knew it would.” He leaned over to me, kissing me. “Von Sternberg is no fool,” he murmured against my lips. “He only sees what I saw from the start.”

I kissed him back.

It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to me.

II

I
went on a strict regimen. I exercised so much and ate so little, I almost fainted over my sparse meals of lean chicken and steamed carrots, without any bread, butter, or potatoes. I took up lessons again in English, too, determined to perfect it. When I returned to the studio for my fittings, I felt svelte and eager, until the efficient but harried costume matron, Resi, whom von Sternberg had obviously been nagging, along with everyone else he hired, presented the outfits for Lola-Lola.

I stared at them in dismay. “Beads and sequins? Feathered headpieces? But she’s a waterfront tart. That’s what he told me. This will make her look like an heiress.”

“Herr von Sternberg oversaw these costumes himself. He was very specific,” said Resi, with a sniff. “She may be a tart but she’s a glamorous one. Now, please. I have the entire cast to fit today. If you would undress and try on—”

“No,” I said. “Where is he?”

“No?” She regarded me as if she’d never heard the word before.

“I want to see him.” I met her offended stare. “None of this is right. Had I known, I could have just as easily used my costumes from the Berliner. Lola-Lola can’t afford these gewgaws. She has to dress like—like . . .”
My voice faded into uncomfortable silence. I hadn’t considered what she might wear, assuming von Sternberg and his wardrobe experts had.

“Yes?” Resi gave me the condescending look of an older professional, whose sole interest was to keep her job and had no patience for upstart actresses with opinions. “Please do enlighten me, Fräulein Dietrich. Seeing as you have met Herr von Sternberg, I’m sure you’ll wish to state your preferences to me first, before you inform our director.”

“I don’t know,” I retorted, stung by her supercilious tone. “But none of this is right.”

“Then by all means, you must wait for Herr von Sternberg. He’s at the UFA offices this morning for a meeting but is due back here by the afternoon. Shall I fetch you a stool?”

She spoke as if she relished the upcoming confrontation between me and von Sternberg over my costumes, which made me realize I should indeed have my preferences ready. Not just my preferences, I decided, taking up my handbag and coat, but the very garments themselves.

I had an idea of where to look.

Returning to the city, I went to see Rudi. He was on the rooftop, tending to his caged pigeons, a leather apron tied about his person to protect his suit. I had to smile. No one else but Rudi would feed birds while wearing a jacket, shirt, and onyx cuff links.

“Marlene.” He gave me a disconcerted look. “Back so soon? How did the fitting go? It must have gone well, if it only took—” He checked his wristwatch. “Less than an hour.”

“Is my theater trunk still in your closet?” I asked.

He nodded. “With everything from your various places of employment that you forgot to return. Do you want help? After this, I was going to take Heidede to the park but if you need me?”

“I can manage.” I turned around and paused, glancing over my shoulder. “They stink, you know. Your pigeons. It smells like a barnyard up here.”

“Yes, well. They’re food.” He waved me off. “Go. I can see you’re desperate.”

I scowled. “If you’d only seen what von Sternberg wants me to wear—” I shuddered.

He returned to his birds while I marched downstairs to yank my trunk from the closet, filled to the brim with things I’d stolen from my theater and movie engagements over the years to replenish my personal wardrobe.

Heidede was delighted to join in my scavenging, squealing as I tossed out furs and shawls and flimsy dresses, capes and satin shoes and posh hats, even my opera glasses from
Tragedy of Love
. It was all marvelous, perfect for nights in Berlin, though I’d grown more attached to my masculine attire, preferring trousers with smart jackets to these items that required coordination and care, and were never warm enough for our unpredictable rain or gusty winds.

But once I had everything strewn over the bed and floor, my daughter rolling around in it like a scone in flour, Tamara chuckling at the mess, I sighed. “None of this works, either,” I said, looking up at my husband’s mistress. “It’s too stylish. Lola-Lola isn’t a fashion plate. She’s—”

“Yes, we know what she is,” said Tamara quickly, widening her eyes at Heidede, who sat up to watch us with a five-year-old’s avid interest.

“What is she, Mutti?” asked my daughter, and I melted to hear her use that word with me.

“A naughty girl,” I growled, “like you.” And I swooped upon her, grabbing her about her chubby waist and smacking her with kisses, tickling her ribs until she shrieked.

When Rudi appeared, his apron gone and looking as if he’d just gone out for a cognac, he gave me an amused smile. “Not what you were looking for?”

“In the least. I need tawdry. Used. Tatty. I need—” I suddenly knew. “I need you to take me tonight to the Nollendorfplatz.”

“You do?” He was startled. “Why?”

“Because I need your car. It’s for Lola-Lola. I must find her clothes. At Das Silhouette.”

THE “GIRLS” WERE THRILLED
to see me again. I hadn’t been back in a while, not since my incident with Leni over the Nazis and winning my
role in
Two Bow Ties
(our friendship had cooled considerably after that, Leni claiming I’d stolen the part by showing too much leg). With Anna May’s departure shortly thereafter to shoot a picture in London, it put an end to our Sisters About Town act. But transvestites marked time differently. They were loyal even during absence, provided that one was loyal in return. When I told them what I needed, they hauled me backstage to show off their wares.

“What about these lamé wrist cuffs?” one asked, pulling them out from a drawer. “You told me they made no sense without the matching gloves, but maybe for her?”

“Perfect.” I stuffed them into the large tapestry bag I’d brought. I had left Rudi at the bar, where he was clearly enjoying our old ambience. “And that kimono. Whose is it?”

“Mine,
Liebchen
. And I’m very fond of it,” said Yvette Sans-Souci, a regular performer at the club with the voice of a baritone and the smoothest legs I’d ever seen on a man. He must wax them every day, I thought, as I made pleading eyes at him.

He harrumphed. “Fine. But I want it back.” He retrieved the kimono from its peg. “I mean it. I know how you are. ‘Yvette, darling, can I borrow this? Can you lend me that?’ And I never see any of it again. You took those beige gloves from me, remember, that time you were here with your friends and yours had a nasty stain. Where are those gloves now, I wonder?”

“I promise.” I bent over a trunk crammed with the rattiest items imaginable, things no one but them could wear and make seductive. “Oh.” I extracted a pair of oversize ruffled knickers. “I remember these. When I first came here, centuries ago,” I said, winking at Yvette, “boys were running around in these under pink peignoirs. Very fetching.”

The girls gave each other snide looks. “The dildo queens,” said Yvette. “Sluts.”

“Lola-Lola would wear them.” I stuffed the knickers into my valise. “She’s a slut.”

“Naturally,” said Yvette. “All of von Sternberg’s ladies are sluts. He hates women.”

I paused. “He does?”

“Oh, yes. Haven’t you seen his pictures? He
loathes
them. Must be because he’s so short. Little cock and all that.”

“I’d fuck him,” piped up Yvette’s sidekick, a very thin and nervous redhead who was probably addicted to everything. “For a role in his picture, I’d do him and his entire cast.”

Yvette slid his heavily mascaraed eyes at me. “Have you?”

I wagged my finger. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Now, is there anything else here you think I can use? Not shoes. I have plenty of those, and your feet are too big.”

“
Liebchen,
you’ll strip us as naked as urchins,” drawled Yvette. “What more do you want? She’s a cabaret girl. She makes do with what she has. Though,” he said, contemplating me, “you might think of giving her a little of you, as well.”

“Like what?” I said eagerly, and Yvette’s red lips widened in a knowing smile. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. You always did know how to please the customer.”

THE NEXT DAY
, Rudi took me to the studio in his car. After von Sternberg gave him a tour of the set, his congenial air masking his fury that I’d walked out on the fitting, he couldn’t resist raking his gaze over me and remarking, “I hear our costumes were not to your liking.”

“I thought they were lovely but hardly . . .” My confidence in my haul from Das Silhouette evaporated. He was watching me like a raptor, as if to convey that he had no idea who I thought I was, but he was considering gutting me for dinner.

Rudi said, “You realize, Herr von Sternberg, that Marlene has often selected her own costumes. She has an infallible instinct for character and has been working very hard to create your Lola-Lola. Perhaps if you can give her a moment to show you? I find that with Marlene, it’s easier to see than to listen.”

Von Sternberg frowned at my husband, who stood a foot taller and
was impeccable in his gray flannel suit. I remembered what Yvette had said,
He hates women,
and wondered if he might hate some men, as well. Rudi was everything he was not, at least physically.

“Very well,” he conceded, though he couldn’t curb the bite in his tone.

Shouldering my bag, I went behind a stack of crates containing props for the set, divesting myself of my trousers and coat to pull on the ruffled knickers, a sleeveless tunic top, tattered stockings, and low-heeled white shoes that I’d dunked in wine and then scraped with sandpaper to make them appear weathered. At the last moment, I grabbed my silk top hat. A touch of me, Yvette had suggested. What better than something from my cabaret look?

When I emerged, sauntering as the girls did, pelvis thrust forward in bawdy invitation, I glanced at Rudi’s reassuring smile and then I waited.

Von Sternberg looked as if he’d turned to stone. Then he said, “I see.”

I set my hand on my hip. “She’s poor. She can’t buy new things, so I thought—”

“Yes.” An indecipherable expression came over him. He turned his back to me. “You are right,” he told Rudi. “She has an infallible instinct. It’s why I hired her. Will you join me for lunch, Herr Sieber? I think it’s time we became better acquainted.”

They left me standing there, in Lola-Lola’s clothes.

Von Sternberg might never admit defeat, but I had still won.

III

S
he is every man’s forbidden fantasy. Blue silk top hat, sleeveless black dress slashed open to reveal schoolgirl knickers, a sequin-edged gold kerchief corralling her throat and thigh-high stockings molded to her thighs, held by suspenders to a garter belt, though she is so ripe, so unfettered, her audience waits breathlessly for one of those suspenders to snap. With her hands at her hips, she strides across the crowded stage, unique among her bedraggled companions—overpainted women in flouncy dresses, smoking cigarettes—before she gestures to one on a nearby barrel, who glares at her, indignant, but vacates her seat.

Lola-Lola assumes her perch, a stuffed seagull bobbing on a wire at her side. As she raises one leg and curls her arm about her knee, she leans back to croon in her smoke-and-dagger voice, “‘Falling in love again. Never wanted to. What’s a girl to do? I can’t help it . . .’”

And as she sings, she gazes to the balcony hung with life preservers, where Professor Rath sits, the unwitting guest of honor, pudgy hands clasped before him as if in prayer, flanked by the masthead of a bare-breasted siren as the siren on the gaudy stage below smiles with covert knowledge, as if she can feel his growing erection, beckoning with her eyes, promising—

“Sow!” bellowed von Sternberg. “Pull up your panties. I can see your gash.”

On his balcony, Jannings guffawed. “I can see it, too. From all the way up here.”

I hastily closed my thighs, almost tumbling off the barrel. With a beseeching look at von Sternberg as he emerged from behind the box camera, I said, “It’s the underwear. It stretches out. This is our hundredth take and—”

“A hundred and one now,” he interrupted. “Again. And try to remember this time that our censors won’t appreciate seeing your pubic hair, much as you like to show it.”

I avoided looking past the snickering crew to where Leni and her new director-friend Arnold Fanck stood. He had “discovered” her and turned her into an Alpine heroine in his grandiose landscape films. She had insisted on coming to see me on the set and now watched with sharp eyes, reveling in my humiliation. She’d wanted the part of course. She telephoned me as soon as she heard the news, though we’d not spoken in months. According to her, she and every other actress in Berlin had campaigned for it.