My Nine Lives (23 page)

Near our house, we could see that the party was still in progress. Lights and voices streamed out into the street and the shadows of people were moving against the windows. But inside we found that my aunt had left the party and was banging about in the basement kitchen, grumbling to herself:
”Why don't they go home instead of turning my house into God knows what.”

It was impossible for Kohl with his torn pants to return to his studio, which was full of people he didn't like. “Take them off,” La Plume said, “I'll sew them for you . . . Go on, you think I haven't seen anything like what you hide in there?” But when he stepped out of them, she shook her head: “What does she do all day that she can't wash her husband's underpants?”

I fetched a blanket for him to wrap around his legs, which were very white, unsunned. They trembled slightly, not used to being naked and ashamed of it. Looking back now, I'm glad I got the blanket and do not have to remember that great artist the way he was at that moment, trouserless in our kitchen.

When footsteps sounded on the basement stairs, he sat down quickly with his legs under the table where La Plume was sewing his pants. It was Mann who entered, to borrow more glasses for the party. “Cups will do,” he said and began to collect the few we had from our shelves. “And I'm not even asking for saucers.”

“Thank you very much,” La Plume said, “so in the morning we can drink our coffee from the saucer like cats and dogs.”

“Be a sport, Mummy,” he said.

“Who's your Mummy! And where do you get that sport business, as if you'd been to Eton and Oxford?”

“Better than Eton and Oxford, I've attended the School of Life,” he teased her—they were always on such easy terms.

“Yes, in the gutters of Cologne,” Kohl put in—not in a teasing way.

It was only then that Mann became aware of him: “So there you are. Everyone is asking for you: where is the husband, the famous artist?” Next moment his attention
shifted to the packet lying on the table: “Ah, her present that she's been asking for all day. I'll take it to her—I'll tell her you're busy down here, flirting with two ladies.”

Kohl instantly placed his hand on the packet, and wild-eyed, cornered, he glared up at Mann. Mann—a big man but a coward—retreated quickly with our cups held against his chest.

“Take care you bring them back washed, you lazy devil!” La Plume shouted after him. But when he had gone, she said, “He's not a bad sort though he gets on everyone's nerves. They say he was a great idealist and gave wonderful speeches to the workers at their rallies.”

“We've heard all about those wonderful speeches—from him. From no one else,” Kohl sneered. “And when the police came, he ran faster than anyone. It's only here he plays the great hero.”

“Ah well,” sighed La Plume, “everyone lives as best they can.” This was her motto. “Here—I wouldn't get very high marks for sewing, but they'll do.” She handed him his trousers and he got up to step into them—just in time, for while he was still buttoning them, Marta was heard calling from the stairs.

I had noticed that, whenever Marta came into a room, the air somehow shifted. I don't know if this was due to other people's reaction to her, or to some particular power in her of which she herself was unaware. I might mention here that she had a peculiar, very sweet smell—not of perfume, more of a fruit, ripe and juicy, not quite fresh.

“So where's my present? Mann says you have my present!” Her eager eyes were already fixed on it, but when Kohl held on to it, “Give,” she wheedled, “it's mine.”

He shook his head in refusal, while secretly smiling again. But when she began to tug at it—“Give, give”—he shouted, “Be careful!” and let go, so that it remained in her hands.

She untied it, the tip of her tongue slightly protruding. The paper came off and the drawing was revealed. She held it and looked at it: looked at herself looking out of it, and as she did so, he watched her, the expression on his face becoming anxious, like one waiting for a verdict.

At last she said, “Not bad.”

“Not bad!” he echoed indignantly.

“I mean me not you.” Her eyes darted to him with the same expression as in the drawing. She held it at another angle for careful study: “Yes,” was her verdict, “no wonder you fell madly in love with me.”

“I with you! Who was it chased me all over town, from café to café, from studio to studio, like a madwoman, and everyone laughing at both of us?”

“Me running after him?” She turned to La Plume: “Me in love with him? Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous in all your life?”

“No, not with me. With my fame.”

He spoke with dignity and pride, and then she too became proud. “Oh yes,” she said, “he was famous all right, and I wasn't the only one to run after him. Naturally: a famous artist.” She returned to the drawing, to his gift to her, and now she appeared to be studying not herself as before, but his work.

“So?” he asked, valuing her opinion and awaiting her compliment.

This compliment seemed to be hovering on her lips—when Mann came storming into our kitchen, followed by some other guests. As with one gesture, Kohl and Marta seized the wrapping paper to conceal the drawing—but Mann had already seen it: “So that's the present he's been hiding!”

“Don't touch!” Marta ordered, but she held it out, not only for him but high enough for others to see. They crowded
forward, there were admiring cries, and Mann whistled. It was a gratifying moment for both Kohl and Marta. La Plume glowed too, and so did I; we were proud to have an artist in our house.

The lawyer spoiled it. He peered at the drawing through his rimless glasses, thrusting out his white fingers to point out beauties, the way he had done with my portrait. He may even have said something similar about Youth with a capital Y, but Marta cut him short: “You really are a donkey,” and at once she wrapped up the drawing.

“You know what, children?” said La Plume. “It's long past my bedtime, and if you don't clear out, I'm going to miss my beauty sleep.”

Everyone clamored for Kohl to join them. Marta too said: “Come and drink champagne with us.
He
brought it, so he's good for something.” She pointed at the lawyer, who cheered up again briefly, but she had already returned to Kohl. She laid her hand on his shoulder in a familiar gesture we had never witnessed between them: “Come on—only don't give away any secrets. You're the only one who knows how old I am today.”

“We all know,” Mann said. “It's eighteen.” No one heard him. Marta still had her hand on Kohl's shoulder: “You used to like to drink,” she reminded him, “often a bit too much, both of us . . .”

“Maybe,” he said; he shook her hand off. “But next morning I was up at five, working, and you lay in bed till noon, sleeping it off.”

“I never had a hangover.”

“No, it's true—when you got up, you were fresh and fit and ready to start making my life a misery again.”

*

Marta may never have had a hangover, but there were days when she suffered a mysterious ailment about which she and La Plume whispered together. My aunt didn't want me to know about it, but when she wasn't there, Marta spoke to me as freely as she did to her. It was something very private to do with her womb—I really would have preferred not to know, these were matters I wanted to keep buried and pretend they had nothing to do with me. Marta went into unwelcome detail, though she always warned me, “For God's sake, don't tell Kohl. He can't stand women being ill.”

She did however confide in Mann and the lawyer and probably everyone else too. She even told all of us that her trouble was due to an abortion brought about by herself when she was married to Kohl. “I was nineteen years old, what did I know? With a knitting needle, can you believe it? As if I'd ever knitted a thing.” When we asked if she had told Kohl—“Are you crazy? He'd have run off very fast on his fat little legs. We were bohemians, for heaven's sake, not
parents
.”

Although she spoke this last sentence proudly, Mann stroked her hair with his big hand and said, “My poor little one.”

She jerked her head away from him: “Don't be a sentimental idiot. I wasn't going to ruin my career. I was on my way—listen, I'd already been an extra three times, the casting director at UFA was taking a tremendous interest in me, his name was Rosenbaum and he'd promised me a real part in the next production. And then of course he was fired.” She made the face—one of scorn and disdain—with which she looked back on that part of their past.

She was not the only one deprived of her future. The lawyer had had his own practice in Dresden; Mann, who was a trained engineer, had been a union leader and a delegate at an international labor conference. In England they were
earning their living in a humbler way, but Marta was never able to get started on anything. She said it was because her English was not good enough, but Kohl said it was because she was a lazy lump who couldn't get out of bed in the mornings. It was true that she usually slept late and had her first cup of coffee at noon.

It may have been her waiflike quality that made people want to serve her, but there was also something imperious in her personality that blurred the line between wishes and commands. During the day, I was often the only person available, and as soon as she heard me come home from school, she called down for me. She said she was too sick to get out of bed, she was starving, and though she had called and called, no one had answered. She wasn't sulky, just pathetic, so that I apologized for having been at school and my aunt on a shopping trip a tube-ride away where prices were cheaper. But there had been Kohl just across the landing—hadn't he heard her? She laughed at that: “Kohl! I could be screaming in my death agony, he'd stuff up his ears and not hear a thing.” But again she was not reproachful, only amused.

He too was often waiting for me to come home from school: either he needed to finish a drawing of me or he had an idea for a new one. Of course he never summoned me the way she did; he requested, suggested, timidly ready to withdraw. It was only when he saw that she had pre-empted me and was sending me about her business that his manner changed. Once he came into her room while I was washing her stockings in the basin and she was warming her hands before the gas-fire. His face swelled red as it always did in anger: “What is she—a queen to be served and waited on? . . . You should have seen where she's come from, before I pulled her out of the mire!”

She admitted it freely—that she came out of the mire—but
as for his pulling her out: oh there were plenty of others, bigger and better, to do that.

“Then why me? Why did I have to be made the fool that married her?”

“Because you wanted it more than anyone else. You said you'd die and kill yourself without me.”

“And now I'm dying with you!”

It began to happen that on the days when I was sitting with him in his room, she would call for me from hers. Then he kicked his door shut with his foot; but I could still hear her voice calling, weak and plaintive, and it made me restless. I wanted to help her; and also, I have to admit, I wanted to be more with her than with him. I was bored (God forgive me) with the long hours of sitting for him. And I was embarrassed by him, too young for his shy approaches, too unused to such respectful gallantry. I began to find excuses not to accompany him on his Sunday excursions, though I felt sorry when I saw him leave alone. Perhaps Marta felt sorry too: I heard her offer to go with him, and then his brusque, indignant refusal.

One day Kohl was waiting for me outside my school. He was standing beside someone's boy friend, a tall youth with straw-colored hair and a big adam's apple. But it was this little old man with his paunch who tucked his arm into mine and walked away with me. Next day I told everyone he was my uncle, and whenever he stood there again, people would announce that my uncle was waiting. I couldn't even tell him not to come—not only for fear of hurting his feelings (though that too) but not wanting anything significant to be read into his presence there. What could be significant? He was old,
old!
I wept into my pillow at night, ashamed and frustrated at some lack that it was ridiculous to think someone like him could fill.

On a Sunday when I had just told Kohl that I had too much homework to go with him, Marta called after me on the stairs to invite me to accompany her. I didn't dare accept there and then, with Kohl listening, but she knew how eager I was, and maybe he knew too: when we set out, I glanced up guiltily and there he was, standing at a window on the landing. It seemed she was as aware of him as I was: she put her arm around my shoulders and talked in the loud and lively way people do when they want to show others that they are having a good time.

After that first Sunday, I waited for her to invite me again, and sometimes she did and sometimes not. Outings with her were very different from those with Kohl. We were never alone, as I was with him, but Mann and the lawyer and later others joined us, and they conversed about art shows and films, and talked a lot about people they knew and seemed not to like. Although it hardly ever rained when I was with her—it inevitably did on Sundays with Kohl—they had little time for the birds and sunshine. They gathered in cafés for afternoon coffee and cake—never in the sort of depressing eating-holes which Kohl frequented but in large lavish places that doubtless imitated the luxury cafés they had once known. Their favorite was called the Old Vienna, which was not too expensive but was dense with atmosphere. There were chandeliers, carpets, red velvet banquettes, and richly looped creamy lace curtains under the red velvet drapes. Here many languages were spoken by both clients and waiters, and there were continental newspapers on poles for anyone who cared to read them. But few did—they were there to talk and laugh and pretend that everything was as it used to be. Some of the women were chic, with little hats and a lot of lipstick and costume jewelry. Yet Marta, not chic but bohemian with her red hair and
long trailing skirt, drew more attention than anyone—maybe because she was enjoying herself so recklessly, surrounded by a group of friends, all male and all eager to supply and then light the cigarettes from which she flicked ash in all directions.