That’s her all over, said Leontine, stroking Helene’s hair.
You’re discreet, aren’t you? Martha wrinkled her brow doubtfully.
That’s her all over too, repeated Leontine, still stroking Helene’s hair.
Pharmacists keep secrets. Fanny was not exactly whispering, but murmuring in her velvety voice. Mine, Bernard’s, Lucinde’s, half the city’s secrets.
Helene didn’t know what to say in reply. Unlike Martha, she had not managed to win Fanny’s affection and confidence. They had been living with their aunt for almost a year now, Fanny passed on her clothes to them and introduced them to her circle of friends, but it seemed as if she thought Helene a naïve child and would do all she could to ensure that didn’t change. Sometimes Helene thought she detected a kind of reserve towards her in Fanny. She discussed certain things only with Martha, whether they were to do with clothes or society gossip. Helene had seldom felt as much aware of the nine years’ age difference between herself and Martha as she did in their aunt’s presence. Usually all the doors on the ground floor stood open, but when Fanny called Martha into a room with her she often closed the door, and Helene guessed that behind it her little round box with the tiny spoon and the white powder was coming out, something she shared only with Martha and no one else. Then Helene would stand on tiptoe, listening, and hear her sniffing and sighing, and at those moments, when she stood on tiptoe with her cold feet in a dark corridor, with only the pendulum of the white English grandfather clock and its golden dial to keep her company, she was sorry she had come to Berlin with Martha. Fanny had never once asked if Helene would like to go out with them in the evening.
Only when Leontine and Martha visited the now rather faded Luna Park was Helene allowed to go too. The girls went in the old artificial wave pool there — the waves were generated only by the wind now — and splashed about, taking no notice of the gentlemen, both young and older, who strolled around the rim of the basin to watch them. The artificial wave pool was nicknamed the Nymphs’ Basin and the Tarts’ Aquarium in the city, which seemed to the girls poor ways of expressing the lively interest shown by the young and old gentlemen. The girls liked the waves and the slide into the lake, and paid for their own entrance. Didn’t that mean the male spectators had no right to regard themselves as pimps and potential customers?
I’ll tell you girls something: this is a small city. The world thinks it’s large because it’s such a beautiful soap bubble in our imagination. Fanny lit one of her English cigars and tilted her head back. Each fantastic bubble stretches, grows bigger, brighter, more fragile. Is it falling? Fanny drew on the thin cigar. Is it rising? Fanny puffed little smoke rings. Is it coming down? Fanny was enjoying her flight of fancy, but then her smile disappeared. Well, Helene, if you can keep secrets the pharmacist would appreciate that. So would I. I’ll ask him about the job. Fanny nodded as if to confirm her words and encourage herself. She drained the final drop of brandy from her small glass and dabbed her nose carefully with her handkerchief. A tear ran from the corner of her eye. Oh, dear children, how I love you. You do know that you don’t need to work, don’t you? Why should you be any worse off than Erich and Bernard? Stay with me, fill my home and my heart, she said, visibly moved. By her own loneliness, Helene wondered, or by the idea of her generous heart? Fanny blew her nose and caressed Cleo’s muzzle.
The doorbell rang. A little later Otta appeared to announce a visitor. Your friend the Baron, mademoiselle. He’s arrived with several suitcases. Shall I get a room ready for him?
Oh dear, did I forget that? Dear Otta, yes, please get a room ready, the gold room will be best. He’ll be staying some time, he wants to look around Berlin. Turning to Martha, Fanny said, He’s a painter, a real artist. Fanny opened her reddened eyes. The ash on her cigar was getting long. She looked around for something. She had lost track of the ashtray and knocked the ash off the cigar on to the plate of poppyseed cake. The Baron tried his luck in Paris, now he’s come here. It’s only here he thinks he can paint to his heart’s content. If only! These days everyone wants to found a club and be head of it. Fanny gave herself a little shake. Only recently, she said, she had met a lively little man who talked a lot about himself and had made a name for himself too, an artist who rejected any notion of meaningful content in his work. It was just the outer form he valued, the artist’s way of life, recognition and of course followers. Yes, he founded a club and made himself head of it. He was in earnest, that was what surprised Fanny. There must have been something about the encounter, she said, that displeased her in retrospect. Perhaps it was his claim to have a large following who loved, indeed idolized him.
The girls looked up, curious to see the visitor. Martha and Helene had never met an aristocrat in person before. But it soon turned out in conversation that he wasn’t a baron, that was only his surname: Baron, Heinrich Baron.
He didn’t have much of anything and in particular he didn’t have much money. What little he did have, he would like to share with a pretty young girl who would model for him and get him drawing and drawing until he dropped. The Baron was a small man; any man the same height as Helene wasn’t tall. His forehead was high, his hair sparse, with a parting from his hairline to the back of his head. She liked his eyes. Their sad, lost expression easily inspired confidence and yes, they could make a young girl like Helene seem larger, more important.
Even if Helene didn’t quite like the way the Baron’s eyes lingered on her, to be the object of his attention promised her some protection from tall Erich, who could hardly find a moment now when they wouldn’t be disturbed if he manoeuvred Helene into a dark corner, and while Fanny had popped into the kitchen to look for Otta and Martha was working at the hospital, and there was no one around to see it but Cleo with her watchful eyes and the trustful wagging of her tail, he put a hand on her breast and stuck his fat, wet tongue into her ear, breathing heavily as he moved it around inside. As soon as Helene, holding her breath in alarm — for it never occurred to her to cry out — heard first from the light padding of Cleo’s paws that Fanny was on her way back from the kitchen, and then Fanny’s own footsteps were audible, Erich would let go of her as suddenly as he had seized her and stroll easily away to meet Fanny. Why didn’t she get her tennis racket, he asked, and go to Grünewald with him? He had borrowed a car and he knew she liked driving.
One day the Baron took off his glasses, cleaned them and ran his hand lightly over his high forehead. He asked Helene if she would like to earn a little something. Helene felt flattered; no artist had ever wanted to draw her before. She also felt shy and ashamed. Who, aside from Martha, had ever seen her naked?
Shame was for other girls, not for beauties like her, said the Baron out loud from the other end of the room where they had agreed to meet, on a Sunday morning when no one was going to church or even thinking of God. He hoped that this remark would bring Helene out from behind the screen. She wasn’t being asked to show herself for nothing, she’d be paid for it. The Baron waved a banknote. He didn’t mind that her breasts were tiny, he took it as a sign of her youth. He liked her blonde hair. He laughed: why, she was still just a child. He liked that, and he drew and drew, though he never did drop from exhaustion. Helene felt tired. After several weeks he told her she was an enchantress who looked different every day, she helped him to see in a new way. The Baron said she presented him with new eyes daily. He gave her newly minted coins and banknotes fresh from the printer in the Reichsmark currency, superseding the Rentenmark notes first issued in 1923, and to Helene they seemed like tickets to a new life of her own choosing.