Caroline Woods - The Cigarette Girl

A housekeeper? Berni could barely stammer a greeting, she felt so overwhelmed. This woman would cook for her? Clean up after her? There had to be a catch. She put a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry, I—I’m not feeling well.”

“Do you need the toilet?” Sonje asked pleasantly, and Frau Pelzer grunted, “I’m not finished bleaching the tiles.”

Berni stumbled into the little hallway with its worn red rug. She opened the first door on her right, which turned out to be a linen closet. Instead of holding sheets and towels, the shelves were stacked with cigarettes, cartons of cigars, tins of loose tobacco with bright labels, like tea.

“You can stay in the bedroom on the left,” Sonje called to her. “But—ah—Berni—”

Berni put her hand on the knob. What she needed to do now was cry, loudly and messily, into a pillow. But there was already a girl with bright-red hair sitting on the bed reading a magazine, her long legs crossed at the kneecaps.

It was the perfume salesgirl, Berni realized in horror, from Fiedler’s. “You!” she cried.

The girl snapped her legs underneath her. “You? What are you doing here? Sonje!”

Sonje appeared on the threshold, arms crossed. “Berni, Anita, I hope you’ll at least try to be friends, or cordial roommates.”

Anita gawked. “She’s sleeping in here?”

“Only until I can convert the dining room to a third bedroom.”

“I need air,” Berni muttered, and she ran out of the room, past Frau Pelzer, who laughed throatily as she yanked open the main door to the apartment. She sat on the front steps of the building, her hands over her ears. A pile of yellow horse dung gathered flies in the road in front of her. Sonje’s street, which sloped downward at a steep angle, looked completely unfamiliar. Alien territory, though Berni had walked it with Sonje just minutes before.

• • •

For dinner Frau Pelzer served pickles, crackers, and tinned fish. “Sorry for the cold meal, girls,” Sonje said over a newspaper. She had several papers spread over the table.

Berni had to wring her hands to keep from grabbing all the food. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She’d have bolted it down if Anita hadn’t been watching her closely.

“Something to read, Berni?” asked Sonje. “Perhaps Germania , that’s the Catholic Center Party’s paper. Or Berliner Tageblatt , for Social Democrats. Ah, here’s Deutsche Zeitung , my personal favorite.” She smiled. “The rag of the anti-Semites.”

Berni recoiled. “Your favorite? That’s disgusting.”

Anita dabbed her mouth, leaving black cherry smudges on the tissue. “She’s Jewish, you pointy-head,” she said. “She’s joking when she says it’s her favorite.”

Berni considered this for a moment, wondering if she’d ever spoken to a Jew before. She knew better than to check for horns under Sonje’s hair; the sisters had told the girls this was a myth. It was Anita who interested Berni more. Powder coated her skin like new snow, making the landscape flawless but stark, a harsh contrast to the scarlet wig. Her eyebrows were delicate as cricket legs, her jaw broad and lips full; they became a deeper pink as she ate and abraded them with bread. She tossed her pilsner down and slammed the foam-laced glass on the table. “What the hell are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

Anita’s laugh was a high, nervous staccato, a bird’s warning. “Your new friend needs to practice her manners,” she told Sonje.

Sonje folded back a page of her paper. “Oh, you were staring, too.”

After dinner, Berni dallied in the parlor, waiting for Anita to go to sleep. It was out of the question for Grete to join her while they still had to share a room with Anita. She’d have to put her sister off until Sonje found a bed for the parlor.

Before Sonje turned in, she handed Berni a slim red hardcover. “You should fill your mind with genius before sleep. Have you read Rilke?”

Berni opened the book to a well-read page. “ Ich bin auf der Welt zu allein . . . ” She shut the book with a bang. “No.” She was feeling “too alone in the world,” far too alone to read Rilke.

“Hmm.” Sonje looked over the titles in the hallway bookcase. “Aha! Reliable Nesthäkchen.” She handed Berni Nesthäkchen and the World War by Else Ury. “I loved these as a child. But don’t stay up late. Tomorrow Anita will take you to the Medvedev, to learn to sell.”

“To sell?”

“Cigarettes.”

Berni shrugged. She took the book into the bedroom, where she was disappointed to find Anita fully dressed, glowering at her over the mattress. Her knobby fingers hovered over her buttons. “I bet you’d like to see me nude. You wait in the hall. I’m not a lesbian like you.”

“I’m no lezzie,” Berni said, familiar with the word; it was a favorite accusation among Lulus. She waited outside the bedroom, feeling Hannelore’s fist against her eye with every beat of her heart. When she went in she found Anita wearing a nightgown, her enormous eyes protruding from the top of the quilt. Not only had she left her wig on, but she also hadn’t taken any steps to excavate the makeup. Berni climbed in beside her, lying on the very edge of the bed.

“Aren’t you going to change your clothes?” Anita asked.

“Aren’t you going to remove your hair?” For years Berni had wanted nothing more than to get rid of this old dirndl, and now she clung to it. It was the last dress Grete had seen her in. She lay back and opened the book. A smudge of what looked like red jam sat in the upper corner of the page. Nesthäkchen, the doctor’s daughter, was complaining to her grandmother that only boys were allowed to fight in the war.

With every flip and flop Anita made, the mattress creaked. “My sister and I had a rule,” Berni said, yanking the quilt her way. “You choose a position and then you stay there.”

“Another word about your sister, and I’ll scream.”

Berni ignored her. She read until her eyelids drooped from exhaustion. She did not want to be alone with her thoughts for long.

• • •

The Medvedev, on the other side of a horseshoe-shaped park near Sonje’s apartment, was a dim Russian bar filled with more afternoon drinkers than Berni had expected. Men slumped on stools, and Anita prowled among them with a little tray. “Walkure . . . Walkure . . . Gold tips. Walkure No. 4,” she whispered in their ears. Berni watched in disgust as Anita’s fingers curled under the men’s hair. Some kissed her hand; some groaned, rolled their eyes, and pulled out the requisite bills. Most seemed more interested in the radio, which was tuned to a Socialist broadcast.

“I go home for supper,” Anita said later, counting her cash as they leaned against the wall, “then return for the evening shift. That’s when you get the good tips.” So far she seemed to enjoy playing Berni’s guide, treating her as if she knew nothing.

Nobody had mentioned Anita’s job as a perfume girl at Fiedler’s, and Berni felt a little bit of wicked satisfaction when she asked Anita why she wasn’t needed at Libations today.

Anita sniffed. “I don’t work there anymore. As they put it, ‘the novelty had worn off.’”

Berni was trying to figure out what this meant when she noticed Lev, the Medvedev’s owner, making sharp gestures at Anita from the front of the restaurant. Anita slipped her money back into her pocket and sighed. “He doesn’t like me counting it in front of customers.”

It was then Berni noticed the girl tucked inside the coat check. She had a round face and big, sad eyes; she looked like the littlest matryoshka doll in a set. Ignoring Anita’s protests, Berni crossed the room to talk to Lev. He eyed her suspiciously underneath wild eyebrows that fanned toward each other like dove’s wings.