Marlene: A Novel Page 3

  She did? I hadn’t noticed. But then I never noticed anything at school these days, except Mademoiselle.

  “A girl like you,” she said, “so pretty and intelligent. Why, you could have a hundred friends if you wanted them. But you never try, do you?”

  The conversation had taken an awkward turn. I didn’t want to talk about my lack of friends; I wanted—

  She pointed at my cup. “You should drink that before it gets cold.”

  As I gulped down the now-lukewarm coffee, she regarded me with that disconcerting blend of sincerity and insight that made me think she could read my deepest thoughts.

  “Have you ever been to a cinématographe?” she abruptly asked.

  “A what?” Her question was so disconcerting, I had no idea what she meant.

  “A moving picture. A flicker.”

  I knew the term but had never seen one. Mutti did not approve.

  “You haven’t. Marvelous! There’s one near here. It’s not grand like those in Berlin, but not as expensive, either. It’s in a cabaret hall, where they show flickers on weekday evenings. Would you like to go? I adore the cinema. I believe it’s the new entertainment for our modern age, which will make even the theater seem passé. They’re showing Der Untergang der Titanic. Do you know what it’s about?”

  I nodded. “The Titanic sank after striking an iceberg.” I remembered because when it happened two years earlier, every newspaper boy had blared the headline for days on end.

  “Indeed. Many lives were lost. This moving picture is supposed to be amazing. Continental-Kunstfilm in Berlin produced it. They’re building entire studios dedicated to the cinema.” She gestured to the waiter for the check. “If we hurry, we can make the first showing.”

  I knew I should decline, thank her for the coffee and advice, and make my way back before it was too late. Liesel would worry. She’d tell Mutti I’d been late coming home, and—

  Mademoiselle ladled coins onto the platter with the bill and stood, holding out her hand. “Quickly, Marlene. Before we miss the Stadtbahn!”

  How could I resist? Grasping her hand, I let Mademoiselle Bréguand lead me astray.

  I WEPT.

  I couldn’t help it, my sorrow and amazement overcoming me as the grainy images on the warped sheet hung on the wall as a screen came to life, depicting a titan lost at sea, the forlorn men waiting on deck while the orchestra played and the tragic women huddled in lifeboats, witnesses to catastrophe. At one point, I even grabbed Mademoiselle’s knee, so overwhelmed that I forgot we were in public, albeit in a darkened hall that stank of beer and stale cigarettes, with others seated around us, their gasps and whispered commentary enhancing the mute display.

  Afterward, I was in a daze.

  “Wasn’t it sublime?” Mademoiselle’s face was luminous. “I want to be there one day.”

  “On the Titanic?” I managed to say, trying to shake off the sensation of being stranded on the open sea, watching my loved ones sink under cold black water.

  “No, silly. Up there. On the screen. I want to be an actress; it’s why I left Paris to come here. I’m working as a teacher until I earn enough to rent a room in Berlin. It’s terribly expensive to live in Berlin these days—it’s the fastest city in the world and I need extra money to pay for my rent and dramatic classes.” She took my hand again as we waited for the overhead Stadtbahn tram. “Now, we both have secrets to keep. I’ve just told you mine.”

  I longed to ask her if there was someone she loved or missed, whom she’d left behind in France to pursue her dream. But I couldn’t untangle the words from my mouth, and all too soon we reached the boulevard, where the new electrical lighting shed a sulfuric glow over the populace as they milled about the beer gardens and cafés.

  We hurried toward the shuttered school.

  By the gates, she halted. “I live this way,” she said, motioning to a side street that wound between ramshackle older buildings. “But I can accompany you home and explain why you’re late.” Her mischievous smile crinkled her mouth. “We’ll have to say you didn’t finish your assignment in time. It might mean your mother will be displeased.”

  Displeasure, I thought, was the least I could expect.

  “There’s no need. She’s working late today. She might not be home yet.” Though it seemed as if an eternity had passed, the picture had lasted only forty minutes. I’d get a scolding from Liesel, no doubt, but Mutti wouldn’t be back until nine at the earliest.

  “Ah, yes. I forgot. She’s in Dessau. Well, then. If you’re quite sure you’ll be safe?”

  “I am.” I began to curtsy, but she reached out and embraced me. She smelled of perspiration, with a faint trace of lavender water and coffee, and the acrid stink of the cabaret hall, which permeated her clothes. I melted against her. “Merci, Mademoiselle.”

  “Mais non, ma fille.” She cupped my chin in her hands, kissing both my cheeks. “You must call me Marguerite when we’re alone. Women with secrets must also be friends, oui?”

  Swirling around, she walked away. As the shadows of the encroaching buildings darkened her passage, she half-turned, raising her hand. “À bientôt, mon amie Marlene!”

  I didn’t want her to go. I might never bathe again, lest I erased her scent from my hands. On my way home, I kept lifting my palms to inhale her, ignoring the sharp chill in the air.

  Our warm July had forsaken us.

  I would never see Marguerite Bréguand again.

  IV

  She left,” Hilde said. We were sitting outside in the courtyard after Frau Becker had informed us there would be no French lesson today or in the foreseeable future. “I don’t know why.”

  Dismayed by Mademoiselle’s unexplained absence, I’d accosted Hilde, the thin, dark-haired girl who’d told me parfait meant “perfect” and longed to catch my eye. She leaped at the chance to be my confidante, but to my frustration, she didn’t seem to know anything that might shed light on this bewildering change in events.

  As we sat together while the other girls skipped rope, overjoyed to be free for the afternoon, I fingered the last marzipan in my pocket. I drew it out, handing it to Hilde. “Here.”

  “Oh.” She accepted it as if I’d offered her a pearl. “Thank you, Maria.”

  “Marlene,” I said, scouring the area for Mademoiselle. “My name is Marlene.”

  “It is? But I thought it was Maria . . . ? Marlene is such an odd name, but pretty, too.” She shrugged, munching on the marzipan.

  “You really haven’t heard anything?” I asked again. “How can she have just left? She was Madame’s replacement; it took weeks to hire her and she’s only been here a few weeks.”

  Hilde paused, considering. “Perhaps it has something to do with the war.”

  “War?” I stared at her. “There is no war.”

  “Not yet.” She took on the avid look of someone with important news, something her new friend didn’t know. “But there’ve been rumors about the kaiser declaring war against—” She frowned. “Well, I’m not sure against whom, but my father’s in the infantry and he wrote to my mother last week to tell us his regiment had been mobilized and war was imminent.”

  “Well, I’ve not heard anything about it,” I declared, with more certainty than I felt. I wouldn’t have. War could erupt in the very street outside our flat and unless the enemy came pounding at our door, Mutti would remain impervious.

  I dreaded the thought that someone had seen us together and reported Mademoiselle to our Schulleiterin, the headmistress. Keeping a student after hours to correct deficiencies was acceptable, but to take that student out for coffee and an excursion to the flickers—that would be grounds for dismissal. Had I been the unwitting cause of her mysterious disappearance?

  If so, I couldn’t sit here. “Tu etwas,” I said, and I bolted to my feet, grabbing my satchel.

  Hilde gaped at me, marzipan crumbs on her chin. “Where are you going?”

  “Out.” I was starting across the courtyard when Hilde yank
ed me back by my satchel strap. “Marlene, you can’t. The closing bell hasn’t rung yet. The gates are locked.”

  “Dumme Kühe,” I cursed. “Stupid cows. Is this a school or a prison?”

  “Both,” said Hilde, and I found myself smiling. Despite her ordinary appearance, she had a certain wit. “But the back gate is never locked. The fire marshal told them they must keep it open in case of emergency. Since everyone’s out here . . .” She grinned.

  I crept with her through the nearly empty building to the back gate, which let out onto a muddy path bordering abandoned pasturelands that not long ago had been Schöneberg’s main attraction. Now tenements were rising where potatoes and lettuce had grown—cheap block edifices to house the population spilling over from Berlin. I recalled what Mademoiselle had told me about her aspirations. Had our experience last night prompted her to toss caution to the winds and leave for the city she’d dubbed “the fastest” in the world?

  The path led to the side street where she’d told me she lived. But as we emerged onto uneven cobbles where stray dogs lolled and puny children squatted, playing with marbles, my heart sank. I hadn’t seen her make her way to her actual building; I had no idea which of these decrepit tenement boardinghouses was hers.

  “Well?” Hilde said. I had to admire her pluck. She hadn’t hesitated a moment, guiding us to our escape without compunction, though she risked punishment as much as I did.

  I blew out an exasperated breath. “She went this way, but . . .” My voice faded as a distant rumble reached us, the sound of marching feet and shouting. I turned in bewilderment to Hilde, who cried out, “It’s begun!”

  She raced down the side street toward the avenue, obliging me to follow. I cast a quick look over my shoulder, hoping the commotion would alert denizens in the buildings, but only the lazy dogs pricked up their ears. Laundry sagged outside windows that no one looked out from.

  I came to a panting halt beside Hilde. Before us, pedestrians crowded on the sidewalks as a horde tromped down the middle of the street, waving banners and flags emblazoned with the kaiser’s black eagle. Most of the demonstrators were youths, with rough hands and shirtsleeves rolled to their elbows, laborers and such from the nearby factories—common riffraff, Mutti would sniff—chanting, “‘Holy flame, glow! Glow and expire not. For the Fatherland we stand, valiant for one man. Gladly fighting for our empire!’”

  “It’s the ‘Heil dir im Siegerkranz,’” Hilde shouted in my ear. “See? We’re at war!”

  I couldn’t believe it. As the demonstrators amassed, I saw the ladies with their parasols and little dogs on leashes, the gentlemen in their bowler hats, and the governesses with openmouthed children, applauding and lifting their fists in salute, as though this were some circus come to town.

  “Are they insane?” I said, but no one was listening to me. The chanting had grown deafening, echoing through the avenue and into the cloud-ruffled sky, so that we almost didn’t hear the faint ringing of the school bell.

  Hilde gasped, “They’re letting us out early. Hurry!”

  She hauled me through the crowd, pushing and shoving until we reached the gates, which stood ajar, the girls clustered there to observe the parade with wide eyes, their oversize hair bows quivering as the teachers held them back.

  Frau Becker spotted us. “Hilde, Maria,” she barked. “Get inside this instant.”

  We crammed past the girls and earned a sharp pinch on our respective ears from the teachers. “How dare you slip out?” demanded Frau Becker. “What on earth were you thinking?”

  Hilde slid her eyes at me. They thought we’d gotten out when the gates opened, so I quickly said, “We wanted to see what was happening. We didn’t go far.”

  “You went entirely too far,” retorted Frau Becker. “I shall inform the headmistress. The cheek of you, sneaking out when the world is about to explode.”

  “Explode?” All of a sudden, this alleged war became frighteningly real.

  “Yes. His imperial majesty vows to avenge the archduke Ferdinand of Austria’s assassination. Germany must defend her honor. But never you mind that; war or not, no girl can be allowed such insubordination.”

  She marched us directly to the headmistress’s office. While Hilde and I endured a severe tongue-lashing followed by a week of extra study and no free time in the courtyard, just outside the gates, our entire nation plunged headlong into disaster.

  V

  Must I?” My fingers were freezing; as I looked down at my feet at the basket of wool unraveled from old sweaters, which I must convert into mittens and scarves and caps, despair overwhelmed my permanently ravenous stomach.

  “Would you have our brave men suffer frostbite or chilblains because you are tired?” said Mutti. “This is what we must do, our sacrifice for theirs. Cease your moping and finish that scarf. I must convey these to the front with the auxiliary nurses.”

  I resisted rolling my eyes at Liesel. She, too, sat sewing in the cavernous living room of the von Losch residence in Dessau, where we’d moved after the kaiser declared war.

  To my relief, we’d barely interacted with the colonel before he had to depart for duty, but from the little that we had, I found him a prim, humorless man who invariably addressed Mutti as “Frau” and gave us a vague appraisal, as though we were extra suitcases she’d brought. We had taken care in those first weeks to avoid getting in his way, adhering to his rigid schedule for meals that required all of us to sit at the table and say as little as possible while he pontificated about Prussian honor and our need to defend it. Mutti, in turn, deferred to him as if she was still his servant, not the woman he intended to wed. To my surprise, when he left they still had not married. I wondered why Mutti had insisted on moving us here, even if I did not dare ask. How could Josephine Felsing reside with a man before the banns or church blessing? But then, she wasn’t really residing with him, was she? He was gone, fighting for the empire, and to all outward appearances, she was his housekeeper, only she now oversaw his house in Dessau. Money, I thought, must be the reason, even if she’d die before she admitted it. We couldn’t afford our flat without her employment, so we had to go wherever Herr von Losch ordained. I did not like it. I found Mutti’s joyless subservience disturbing, as though I’d inadvertently caught her desperately mending her worn underclothes. I now began to understand what Liesel had said about a woman alone: Despite Mutti’s extolling of our family name and the exacting propriety for it, we were not privileged at all, but rather, dependent on the whims of her employer.

  And in truth, Mutti didn’t have much to manage in Dessau. Besides a cantankerous Catholic cook, there was one anxious maid who dwelled in daily terror of Mutti’s inspections and a lame coachman who, as far as I could tell, had nothing useful to do, as the stables were empty. All horses had been requisitioned for the war, and if the rumors were true, were now being slaughtered for the soup pot.

  It was dismal and boring. I missed Schöneberg, even my school, for here we lived like prisoners, with mourning bands constricting our arms as we knitted, sewed, and assembled care packages, even as our own rations dwindled. Meat, milk, and flour had become impossible to obtain, so that our bread was mostly made with sawdust and entire menus revolved around turnips. My enrollment in Dessau’s parochial academy got me out of the house every day, but between the obligatory studies, we performed much the same tasks as at home, supporting the war effort with our sweat and bleeding fingertips, along with weekly visits to city hall to sing patriotic choruses as the mayor read out names from the interminable lists of the fallen.

  “When are Uncle Willi and Oma coming?” I ventured after another half hour passed and the clicking of knitting needles gnawed at my nerves. “Didn’t you say they would visit soon?”

  These days, my sole reprieve from the monotony was my relatives. Mutti’s younger brother Max had died in combat, a tragedy that had us reciting prayers for days on end, although I’d barely known Max. More exciting was the fact that one of my paternal uncles had
flown a daring zeppelin raid over London and earned a newspaper mention for it. Uncle Willi, however, had avoided the draft because he oversaw the Felsing business and the kaiser had requisitioned the clock-making factory as a munitions facility. To earn money, Willi had also rented out the top floor of the main store to a man who’d invented a revolutionary new optical device for film projection, which the kaiser commissioned to document the war. I looked forward to hearing about my uncle’s ventures, eagerly awaiting his occasional visits with my grandmother, who resided with Willi at the Berlin family home. Regardless of the tribulations, they always brought a tangible sophistication when they came to see us, my uncle exuding the scent of his Russian cigarettes—a luxury he refused to part with—and Oma as pristine as ever in her sable and pearls. It never failed to strike me, as well, that had Mutti only asked for their help, we might have moved in with them in Berlin instead of a stranger’s house.

  “Travel is difficult now. You will stay with them when I depart for the front,” replied Mutti, with a sharp glance at me that preempted my exclamation.

  “We . . . we will stay with them in Berlin?” I asked, trying to subdue my excitement.

  “Of course.” Mutti’s voice was terse. I might not have dared question, but she knew I saw far more than she wanted me to see. “I cannot leave you alone here, can I? Now,” she said, lifting her voice to forestall my questions as to when we were leaving, “have you finished your work? No, I see you have not. Lena, this intolerable malaise reflects poorly on us all. There is a war going on. Now, tu etwas.”

  I gritted my teeth and resumed my knitting. I couldn’t wait for her to leave for the front, wherever that might be, if only so I’d be spared another reminder of the war. It had been going on for four years now, consuming everything in sight. But I knew little about it besides the fact that while thousands died, blown apart by artillery or gassed in trenches, Mutti believed that delivering boxes of mittens could somehow hasten its resolution. Mittens! As if the kaiser could offer them by the truckload to appease our foes.