Marlene (7 page)

“
Imprisoned Soul
!” cried out one of the girls, before Bertha, who knew all my tricks, could. I adjusted the sheet into a shroud and assumed a forlorn expression. “I must die for my honor.”

“
Anna Bolena,
” said Bertha. She gave me a snide look. “That was too easy, Marlene. Do another—and make it less obvious this time.”

As I twined the sheet about my waist, considering which of Porten’s male lovers to evoke, I didn’t hear the footsteps coming down the corridor until they were at the door.

“
Hausmutter
!” I hissed.

The girls scrambled in a panic, waving their hands frantically in the air to dispel the smoke. Then they raced to the armoire by the wall. In our haste to eat cake, we’d forgotten to push it against the door as we usually did.

“What in heaven is this abominable racket?” boomed Frau Arnoldi. She was so fat, she could usually be heard coming from a distance, only this time she must have made an effort to tiptoe up the stairs. The door cracked open just as the girls slid the armoire into place, blocking her entry. With only her eyes and her beak of a nose visible, she spat out, “Remove that furnishing at once. I can see you, Marlene Dietrich. I know what you are about. You are a disgrace to my house.”

It was so absurd, I started to laugh, helplessly entangled in my sheet.

Bertha guffawed, too, until Frau Arnoldi cried, “And you, Bertha Schiller. You are as much to blame.” She banged on the door. “Let me in this instant.”

My laughter faded. The others looked horrified. Our housemother was notorious for searching our rooms while we were in class, confiscating our caches of sweets and cigarettes, and anything else she deemed indecent, but she had never actually caught us in the act.

With the sheet yanked to my chin, I retrieved my discarded nightgown. The girls hauled back the armoire to reveal Frau Arnoldi on the threshold, her multiple chins quivering and her large bosom heaving with indignation.

She raked her stare over me. “So.
This
is how you repay your mother’s
hard work and concern, the private teacher she has hired for you, all her hopes for your future—by parading about your room in front of everyone like—like . . .”

“Henny Porten,” muttered Bertha. “She was doing imitations of Henny Porten for us.” As soon as she spoke, she tried and failed to stifle her giggle.

Frau Arnoldi glared. “I’ll not stand for it.” She wagged her finger. “I shall write to both your mothers. Telephone them, if I must.” She swerved from Bertha to me. “You think you’re so clever, fräulein, so sly—but I know what I know. And now so shall Frau von Losch. I’ve held my tongue for too long.”

The girls cowered. Bertha shot me a strange look. Ignoring Frau Arnoldi’s gasp, I dropped the sheet and, as naked as the day I was born, slipped into my nightgown. As I buttoned it up, I said, “I have no idea what you mean.”

“You don’t?” Frau Arnoldi’s tone turned malignant. From the moment I’d arrived, she had taken an inexplicable antipathy to me. I once heard her comment to another matron who came to visit, as I flew past them on my way to class, “That one. You should see her eyes.
Such
eyes. Salome herself could not be more brazen.”

But Mutti footed my bill. I was a paying guest and a student at the conservatory. Whether she liked me or not was of no concern. Until now.

I forced myself to remain calm. In my experience, Frau Arnoldi was mostly bombast. She often flew into tirades if too much butter was served at breakfast—it was expensive, she never tired of chiding the maid, and Germany had a fat shortage—but she couldn’t afford to scold too much. She relied on the income generated by her so-called house. Without us, her boarders, there would be no butter to waste or maid to serve it.

“If I’ve offended, you must allow me to make amends,” I finally said, as the silence grew taut. “There’s no reason to involve my mother in a simple misunderstanding—”

Frau Arnoldi snorted. “I daresay Frau Reitz would not call it that.”

I went still. “Frau Reitz? I’ve never even met her.”

“She might wish she could say the same about you and her husband.” Frau Arnoldi suddenly looked very pleased with herself.

Her insinuation alarmed me. “What are you saying?” I demanded.

She laughed. “Don’t play the virgin with me. All those high marks on your last report card! Do you think the entire faculty is stupid? Do you think this entire town is blind? I’m not the only one who’s seen you leaving this house, dressed in chiffon with your hem hiked to
here,
and enough rouge to make Henny Porten herself blush. I’ve seen a hundred girls just like you, fräulein. And let me assure you, girls like you never come to any good.”

If she’d struck a blow to my face, I couldn’t have been more enraged. It was true that I dressed with flair, but only because I had better clothes. And the professor—was she insane? He was married, with children. And at least twenty years older than me. He gave me high marks because I worked hard. Never once had he—

That one. You should see her eyes.
Such
eyes!

Frau Arnoldi’s smile cut across her mouth. “It seems you’re not entirely without shame. That is as it should be. Men may do as they please when their wives look the other way, but when an unmarried girl does the same, it is another matter entirely.”

I took a furious step toward her, even as Bertha hissed, “Marlene, no.”

Meeting Frau Arnoldi’s glare, I said slowly, with deliberate menace, “You must not worry my mother. She will think that you,
Hausmutter,
have been remiss or tell lies. She’ll resort to compensation from the conservatory itself.”

That did the trick. The last thing Frau Arnoldi wanted was the conservatory inquiring about her premises. She got a stipend from them for her boarders, in addition to our weekly rate.

Her jaw clenched. “Sweets,” she said through her teeth. “You bring sweets into this house. And tobacco. And heaven knows what else. It is verboten.”

“Then I won’t do it again.”

“No. You will not.” Turning about, she barked at the others: “Out. Now.” Throwing another glare at me over her shoulder as she herded the girls out, she left me with no doubt that financial concerns aside, she had set her eye on me and I was now on probation.

Bertha and I set the room to rights and sat facing each other on our twin beds. We should have laughed. Frau Arnoldi couldn’t do any harm. Her purse strings didn’t allow it. But it wasn’t funny. I was so disturbed that I eventually said, “Is it true? Do they talk about me and the professor?”

Bertha sighed. “Of course they do. You’re the only one who doesn’t know.”

“Know what?”

She went quiet, kneading her hands.

“What?” I persisted. “What don’t I know?”

“How you are. How you look. How you move. There is
something
about you, Marlene. You are different.”

“I am not,” I declared, bristling at once. Different meant bad, as Mutti would have informed me. Different meant I was not being a well-bred girl from an upstanding family, and I did not want to be that. “How can you say that? I’m not different. I’m just like everyone else.”

“That’s only what you want to think.” She tried to smile. “Some girls just have it, like a flame inside them. It’s not your fault. You can’t help it. You attract attention.” She paused, her voice lowering. “Have you truly never . . . ?”

I didn’t know what to reply. I recalled my passion for Mademoiselle. She, too, had told me I wasn’t like other girls, and though I’d been too young at the time to understand, as I grew older I began to wonder if perhaps I might prefer women. I wasn’t ignorant. Mutti had never instructed me on the facts of sex, but her warning had stayed with me, and living in the boardinghouse provided ample education. I’d heard stories of girls who’d been sent home in disgrace and knew some of the girls here were more than friends, their giggling and sharing of clothes turning into furtive explorations. It didn’t bother me. But neither had it incited me to join them. Oh, I liked to dress up and sway my hips. I liked the way my body had bloomed and enjoyed admiring myself in the mirror, cupping my breasts and extending the length of my legs. I knew I was pretty. I could see it. But I avoided entanglements because I feared the repercussions.

“You do know how boys look at you?” Bertha pressed on. “You’re
almost nineteen, Lena. And most boys in the conservatory are desperate to take you out.”

I was aware of how they looked at me. Male students in the conservatory weren’t shy. I’d received my share of covert whistles and invitations to the dance hall. “Boys want to take out every girl,” I replied. “They’re always looking. I pay them no mind. I don’t want . . . complications.” My voice wavered. “Have you ever . . . done it?”

Bertha shook her head. “It’s not easy for us. How can we protect ourselves? Some boys will use prophylactics if they can get them, but it’s too risky. I am curious, though. Aren’t you?”

Was I? I wasn’t sure, or at least I hadn’t met a boy I liked enough. Perhaps I was indeed attracted to women? I enjoyed coaxing pleasure from my body with my fingers while Bertha snored. But surely that wasn’t unusual. The entire conversation made me wonder. Was there something wrong with me? Was this why I was different?

“I suppose I am curious,” I said warily.

“Well. Frau Arnoldi thinks you’re more than curious. She thinks you’re sleeping with Professor Reitz. She thinks you’re
loose
. And you have a way about you that doesn’t help.”

“Loose? I’ve never even had a boyfriend!”

Bertha gave me a look. “See? You flirt, you wear fancy clothes, but you’re not running about with boys. You therefore must have a man instead.”

“But it’s not true. My mother pays Professor Reitz for private lessons. I’d never be so reckless. You must believe me. He’s never made an improper gesture or remark to me.”

“Oh, I believe you. I believe you don’t notice. But if Frau Arnoldi said something, then something there must be. She said he gives you high marks. Are you improving so much? Maybe you should pay more attention the next time you go to see him.”

“
If
there is a next time,” I grumbled. “If Frau Arnoldi gets her way, I doubt it.”

Bertha sighed. “There’ll be a next time. How can there not be?”

II

I
went to class every day and practiced every night. I avoided rambunctious gatherings at the house, sneaking cigarettes while leaning out my bedroom window. On the appointed Thursday of my private instruction, I dressed with such modesty that I thought I resembled a nun as I left the boardinghouse under Frau Arnoldi’s baleful stare to make my way to the conservatory, where, after daily sessions, select classrooms were reserved for private use.

As I passed other students en route to their own lessons, I thought again of how ridiculous it was that anyone could think I’d take up with the very man my mother had hired to instruct me. Yet when I entered the room to find him waiting, a lean figure with tousled dark hair and ascetic features, whose most marked characteristic was his limpid gray eyes, my breath faltered. Now that I knew what had been said about us, I couldn’t stop thinking about his hands—long and veined, his fingers as delicate as stems—as he watched me practice the Abel sonata he’d assigned, tapping the cadence on his trouser leg as he paced behind me, his head tilted to detect any errors.

“No.” His voice, gravelly from smoking, halted me. “Your finger is on the wrong string. Again. And slower this time. You needn’t rush through it.”

I resumed playing, stumbling over the first chords. Catching myself, I
regained my equilibrium, hearing the sonata in my head, so that my hand on the bow and my hand on the fingerboard worked in tandem.

He did not stop me again. When I finished, lowering the instrument to await his critique, he stood silent for a long moment before he said, “You have been coming here for how long?”

“Almost a year, except during the Christmas and Easter breaks.”

“That long? Fräulein, much as it pains me, you are not improving.”

I felt a sudden drop in my stomach. “But I practice every day.”

“I know. And you are accomplished. You might eventually perform as part of an orchestra if you continue practicing. But as a soloist . . . I fear that’s out of the question.”

His eyes were fixed on me. I had to bite back a rush of tears. Of all the things I’d imagined might happen, this was not one of them. I had come to Weimar uncertain as to whether I could succeed, but then my desire to prove myself overcame my doubt. I wanted a life I chose, as Mutti said, and when I envisioned returning to Berlin without it, I couldn’t bear it. She would never forgive me or let me forget I’d failed, after everything she had done to get me here.

“Can’t you teach me to be better?” I said. “My mother wants me to be a musician, and—”

He interrupted me. “I know your Mutti has placed much hope in you. You don’t want to disappoint, but it would be dishonest to give false assurance. Indeed, I shouldn’t even be taking her money. No amount of instruction can create talent where there is none. You are a good violinist but not a superb one. You never will be.”

To my horror, a single tear leaked out. Setting aside the violin and averting my face, I rummaged in my skirt pocket for a handkerchief. “Here,” he said.

As I dabbed my eyes with his handkerchief, I detected a strong scent of tobacco, mingled with tweed and something indefinable, like musk. Was this what a man smelled like?

“But you—you gave me high marks,” I said, my voice wavering. “You reported that I was improving. Why would you say that?”

“I . . . I thought—” He cut himself short. And then I saw it: that
look,
which Bertha had told me to watch for. His eyes lingered on me for a moment too long before he tore his gaze away, as if he’d been scalded. “You know why,” he said, and he moved across the room from me, staking his meager distance.

Frau Arnoldi thinks you’re sleeping with Professor Reitz. She thinks you’re loose.