Филип Керр - Metropolis

‘You’re alive,’ she said. ‘Thank God. I was thinking of sending out a search party.’

‘I’m beginning to think this is all a waste of time.’

‘What? And miss my professional care and attention?’

‘Coming here to see you has been the only real compensation. My last thought as Dr Gnadenschuss presses a pistol to my forehead will be: “I wonder if Brigitte can cover up this bullet hole and make me look like I’m still alive.” For the sake of my loved ones, of course.’

‘That’s a cheerful thought.’

‘Oh, I’ve got others. But here’s something that will make you laugh. Someone drew my portrait today. A man wearing plus fours and a pink bow tie. The poor misguided fool mistook me for a work of art.’

‘Since I dressed and painted you myself I should be flattered.’

‘I never thought of it that way. But yes, maybe you’re right. Like a student copying a picture in an art gallery.’

‘Not just any picture. Something by Velázquez, probably. A painting of one of those fashionable court dwarves owned by the King of Spain.’

‘Now, that’s the kind of fashion you’d think a German must have invented.’

Brigitte Mölbling helped me climb out of the klutz wagon and then knelt down and began rubbing my legs vigorously to get some feeling back into them while I washed my hands in the sink. She was wearing a very thin, clingy grey muslin dress with a matching scarf and a collection of South American silver jewellery that looked as if it was the understudy of the gold collection I’d met before. The dress was like a map since it showed every place I now wanted to explore.

‘How does that feel?’ she said.

‘Beats my mother’s coffee, I’ll tell you that much.’

‘You look as though you need something a little stronger,’ she said, taking off my army trousers. ‘Shall I fix you a drink?’

‘No, thanks. I’m leaving the hard stuff alone for a while.’

‘That sounds as if it’s a new thing.’

‘As a matter of fact it is. I want to be sure I can take it without being unable to leave it, if you know what I mean. Frankly, I was in danger of not liking the stuff anymore; it was beginning to taste a lot like medicine. The next time I have a drink I want it to taste like it’s something I’m doing only for pleasure.’

‘It sounds to me like you’ve had too much whisky or too much sun.’

‘In Berlin? That seems hardly possible.’

Brigitte slipped off my army tunic, and then steered me to the chair, where she began the business of removing my make-up. I was silent for a while, enjoying her breath and her scent and the brush of her breast against my shoulder and imagining the impression all of those might have on my pillow back home.

‘I was thinking,’ I told her. ‘I still don’t know much about you.’

‘I was born in Berlin. I’ve worked here for six months and I have an apartment on Luther Strasse, not so very far from you. I’m convent-educated. Studied art history and theatre in Paris. I was married for a while to a very minor Prussian aristocrat, but it didn’t stick. One day I came home and found him wearing my clothes, including the underwear. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like anyone wearing my clothes except me. Least of all my husband. He’s happier now. Lives with a very poor boy in Hamburg and writes queer poetry that no one wants to read. Frankly he isn’t much of a man. And I can’t remember why I married him. Probably to please my father. It was all my fault, of course. My psychoanalyst says my problem is I like real men and, certainly since the war, they’re in very short supply. That’s probably the reason I like you. I get the feeling you’ve never worn a dress in your life.’

‘Only because I can never find one that fits. And then?’

‘I told you. I used to work at UFA.’

‘That’s it?’

‘It is in Berlin. UFA opens all kinds of locked doors. I worked on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis . Which almost broke the studio. That’s why I’m working in the theatre now. UFA couldn’t afford to keep me.’

‘Then you must know Thea von Harbou.’

‘Sure. You know Thea?’

‘I helped her out with a story she’s writing for the cinema.’

‘It figures. She and Lang — they’re a strange couple. In many ways they’re not a couple at all. They have what you might call a free relationship and neither seems to mind what the other gets up to. She has an Indian lover who’s not much more than a boy. And by the way, she’s a Nazi, just in case you thought you liked her. As for him, he sees a lot of girls, mostly professionals, and not always with happy outcomes. I certainly wouldn’t put anything past Fritz. Including murder, by the way. His first wife is supposed to have killed herself but like a lot of other people, I’m not so sure it was suicide. Thea and Fritz are fascinated by violent crime. The library in their house looks like it was assembled by Jack the Ripper, who’s something of an obsession for them both. They even have objects related to the Ripper murders. They’re just strange. Kurt — that’s Kurt Weill, the composer of our little show — he hates Fritz. Don’t ask me why, but pretty much everyone in theatre and cinema hates Fritz Lang.’

‘What about Daisy Torrens? Do you know her?’

‘You certainly know some very peculiar people, Gunther. Yes, I know Daisy. Good-time girl. Yank. Plenty of money. Lives with the present minister of the interior. Albert Grzesinski. Even though he’s married. Still, he’s an improvement on her last boyfriend. Rudi. Rudi Geise. He was a swine.’

I’d heard this name before, but I couldn’t remember where.

‘Tell me about Rudi.’

‘He works for Reinhold Schünzel Films. Daisy said he was an assistant producer but the only thing I ever saw him produce was a knife. And a couple of grams of snow. Not sure why they were ever an item because Rudi hates women. Come to think of it, Rudi hates everyone. Something happened to him during the war. His boyfriend got killed, I think. Anyway, he told me that he got his revenge on the Tommies who killed him by mutilating their corpses whenever he got the chance. Cutting an ear off, he said. Slitting noses in half. I mean, he’d be a really horrible person even if none of that was true.’ She straightened up and looked at me critically. ‘There. I’ve finished. You look more or less normal. Or at least as normal as you’re ever going to look for now.’

After what Brigitte had said I could see no good reason not to add the names of Fritz Lang and Rudi Geise to my suspect file and, as soon as I was done playing the tethered goat, assuming I was still alive and hadn’t caught Dr Gnadenschuss, I resolved to go and interview both men. Especially Rudi. It was only a short step from slicing off ears to cutting off scalps. But right now I was more interested in Brigitte.

‘I was thinking. The next time you’re making me up, you should paint my toenails.’

‘Any particular colour?’

‘The same as yours. Whatever that is.’

‘Generally speaking, a woman chooses the same shade for fingers and toes.’ She kicked off one of her shoes and showed me her foot. There were five toes on the end of it and the nails were all painted lilac.

‘Satisfied?’

‘Not by a long way. It’s a lovely foot. I like it a lot. I imagine you’ve another just like it. But please don’t stop now you’ve started.’

‘You want to see the other one, too. Is that it?’

‘Just to check that the colours match.’

From the sound of things, rehearsals were going well; by now I knew the names of all the principal characters in the show and Polly and Macheath were presently singing a crappy love song. Maybe that’s what started all the sexuality between Brigitte and me. Sexuality : I don’t know what else to call this activity when it seems natural but also excessive. But it’s amazing how sexy a woman’s bare foot can look when the nails are painted lilac and there’s toe cleavage and you’ve been sitting in the sun all day and she’s locked the door, kicked off the second shoe, and is slowly gathering the grey dress at the hem and pulling it carefully over her head, and then draping it across the back of the chair I was still sitting on.