“Come on, hurry up and pass me the glasses. No, not these, the pink ones, please. You seem a bit dreamy today. Thank you. What are you thinking about? Be careful, don’t fall off ”, he warned her indifferently.
“About the same thing I always do,” she replied, handing Klaus two heavy glasses from the top shelf.
“Krieg?*”. Klaus asked in surprise as if it was something of little importance, in a peaceful and bustling Berlin, the existence of the war was out of place and strange, like a long-healed scar that left no trace.
“Is your family safe?” he asked, but continued, not waiting for a reply. “Tonight we open the doors at seven, the show starts at eight. After the first intermission, I’ll need to change quickly. Do you remember what dress I’ll be wearing in the final act? “
“The black silk one, with glitters?”, the girl asked, wiping the dishes with a white towel.
“Yes, genau, bitte, don’t forget to bring it to me but don’t be late. Okay, schnell?” “Schnell,” she repeated slowly, on purpose, with a hint of irritation in her voice, turning her eyes from Klaus’s intense gaze to the hastily made poster of tonight’s show. “Your German is getting better”, Klaus said sarcastically. Before she could reply, he continued, “Do you plan on going back home when the war is finished?” She was asked this question quite often, usually at the end of a conversation, it seemed as if she was participating in some kind of social survey. At first, this question surprised her, after six months, it annoyed her, and now it just triggered anger in her, with its regularity and the simple truth that she couldn’t answer it. When she came to Berlin as a refugee, she immediately started looking for a job. She found one. She was also lucky to find a small room in a WG* on the outskirts of Berlin. She came to this country and has accepted the rules: working for minimum wage, paying taxes, paying overpriced rent, being grateful, being quiet, and not complaining, on the side learning German. She has let the question slip, acknowledging it with a quick nod, giving no reply. Instead, she focused on the poster hanging in crumbled waves from the bar’s countertop
“But Marlene also introduced men’s suits into fashion”, added the girl, still thinking about the dress she must quickly bring into Klaus’s closet. She works here as a waitress, not as Klaus’s assistant. Ironing, washing, and taking care of costumes has now become part of her duties, something she didn’t like, but couldn’t protest against, she needed the job. In addition, she had hated dresses since childhood when she was forced to wear them.
“Marlene was a Diva! Legend !”, Klaus exclaimed enthusiastically, stretching out his long bony arms into the air. “But what can I do, if dresses look so good on me!”, he laughed viciously, revealing tobacco-yellowed teeth.
“Marlene was also a brave woman”, she started from afar, having firmly made up her mind to bring the question that had been burning her, to light. “So, why don’t you like her so much?”, she asked abruptly.
“Who doesn’t like her? She was the biggest movie star of her time! Diva!”, Klaus declared theatrically, even though the show hadn’t started yet.
“She was against the war, against Nazism, her radio shows were very brave, her opposition to the regime too. But when her body was brought for burial here, to Berlin, where she had lived for many years, people protested with signs like “whore in furs”, and “Marlene, go home”. Do you think she was a bad German because of her position?” Klaus looked astonished, the nonchalant expression on his face rapidly went off like a light bulb in the dark cellar, transforming his face into a closed cover. But she didn’t let him answer just yet, and added, “I don’t see any Marlene Dietrichs in Russia now”, she said, with a trace of bitterness in her voice. “A diva, a brave woman who went publicly against the regime until this day, doesn’t have the street where she lived named after her. That’s why I’m wondering, why don’t Germans like her?”
She may have sounded naive, but her curiosity, and desire to understand, were genuine. Although, some part of her knew that there could be no answer. It was also naive of her to think that Klaus could provide a ground explanation, but she had to try.
“Tja”, Klaus started carefully, like a cat trying to sneak back into the house unnoticed, moving carefully in the dark, so as not to hit an old porcelain vase or a bronze eagle. “Marlene was brave, it is so.”, he said, his forehead wrinkled as he was contemplating his next thought. After a short pause, he added, “I don’t know why the street isn’t named after her. It should be. Why some Germans don’t like her? Not me. Maybe because she gave up her German passport for American. I can’t say.”
“But she had to give it up during that time, it didn’t make her a traitor, or did it ?”, she was pursuing Klaus.
“Looks like you know her biography quite well, Lily? She was also a symbol of gay men and women.”, he paused and looked at her with playful lights lit in his eyes again as if he knew the secret, but there was no secret. “Oh no, look! It’s almost seven, and we still don’t have all the glasses ready. Lily, please hurry up”.
The show ended at eleven. Four glasses were broken. Approximately forty liters of foamy beer were poured into glasses, occasionally it flowed from the shabby wooden tables onto the red synthetic carpet. At midnight, she came out of the stifling bar. Cold, damp air swiftly washed her face with a stream of pleasant coolness. It was an hour’s drive to the twelve-meter room, she has rented on the city’s outskirts, and an hour and a half at night. Her head was still heavy, as a kettlebell, from the sound of applause, poor quality of the old speakers, and bulky constructions of the German language.
On the dark silver wall, which at nighttime looked like it was inlaid with gems, a poster for tonight’s show hung,
“I kiss your hand, madam!”, it said, in large letters. Below it, a black-and-white photo of Marlene Dietrich, pressing up two men’s hands to her lips, looking at the camera. “Love, only love”, in italics. The font was shrinking in size as it was approaching the bottom of the poster. “With songs from the 20s and 30s”, it read, “such as, “On Sunday, my sweetie wants to go sailing with me”, “Bananas above all”, “Lily Marlene”, and many others”, in small letters. At the bottom, there was a color photo of Klaus, in a long black dress, theatrically holding a microphone, bathed in red light, standing on a stage, that looked bigger than it actually was.
On the subway, opposite her, a guy was cursing loudly on the phone. She checked the air raid site, some of the regions in Ukraine were marked red, which meant that they were being targeted by drones or rockets. Then she checked when her mother was last online. An hour ago. It was too late to call, late-night calls always irritated her mother. Her black leather jacket carried a lingering, musky smell of tobacco. Klaus sang “Lily Marlene” twice that evening, including one encore. He also included “Where have all the flowers gone?” in his program, an unusual selection for him. This was a well-known anti-war song that Marlene Dietrich performed in English and German. The German version is thought to be her more emotional performance.
The S-Bahn made a winding turn through big inky smudges of the lush, overgrown bushes. An old steel streetlight lamp cast light for none, her train was passing empty platforms.
She was thinking of a black and white photo from the 1960s. Tempelhof airport, Berlin. Men in round-border hats, women in gray skirts, below their knees, children looking tired and lost, not understanding where and for what purpose their parents have brought them there. When the “Arrivals” door opened, a star of the golden age of Hollywood, stepped out, smiling broadly and looking fabulous in her sixties. The crowd rushed to the door, throwing shouts and signs into the air. “Marlene, go home!”, they screamed angrily. A child even spits at her.
“Lily, go back home.” She whispered to herself. The voice in the speakers announced the end station. She stepped out of the train into the crisp, dimly lit streets, feeling safe. The sky was a black velvet cloth, embroidered with scarce stars. Safety, that is what she came here for. Her physical body was safe, at least from the immediate danger of a war-torn country, but everything else, her mind, her spirit, her consciousness was in a constant fight against two realities, separated by a two-hour airplane flight. She felt like a bird trapped between two window screens, one was her country, the other one – Berlin. With short dark hair, skinny legs, and a tiny figure, she resembled a little blackbird.
“This war was so unnecessary”, people would shrug and tell her sometimes. What war is ever necessary?
Lily, quietly, entered her dark room. Her cat was curled up on her bed. She lay beside him, trying not to wake him up. The cat acknowledged her, his amber eyes sparkled with dark neon, but he didn’t move.
Under a white blanket, on a white bed, as if on a piece of ice torn from an iceberg, they drifted along a black sea, sinking into a deep sleep, a bird and a cat.
“Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them every one
Oh, when will they ever learn?”
(“Where have all the flowers gone”, 1962)
* Krieg – war.
* Genau- exactly, right
* Bitte – please
* Schnell – quickly
* Tja – So
* S-Bahn (Stadtschnellbahn) – city express train