Pierre Frei: Berlin: A Novel

By now the yard had filled with curious onlookers. Half the village watched with bated breath as de Winter bent to kiss Karin's hand. Her heart was thudding, but she didn't let it show. 'See you this evening, then,' she said loud enough for everyone to hear, and ran back to the henhouse with a spring in her step.

Later, in the kitchen, she asked her aunt's permission. 'Take them a few roses from the garden, and don't be back too late,' was Anna Werneisen's only comment. 'It won't hurt the child to meet someone new for a change.' she said later, justifying her decision to her husband.

The play was a drawing-room comedy, with witty dialogue that went right over the heads of most of the audience. But Karin instinctively understood its subtle irony and double-entendres, and she loved the actors' elegant costumes. She wanted to be like them too.

She felt ashamed of her thin summer dress with its little white collar when she went to see her new friends after the show. They had been given the two best rooms in the inn.

'Oh, how sweet of you, my dear.' Nadja Horn came towards her with outstretched arms. She was wearing a flowing house dress. She had taken off her blonde wig, and was black-haired again. 'What lovely roses! Thank you so much. Did you like the play?'

'Oh yes, specially the scene where Verena van Bergen pretends not to have seen Armand for ages, even though he's waiting for her just next door.' Karin picked up a long cigarette-holder from the table and posed, her hand held at a casual angle. 'My dear, whatever are you thinking of? I'm about as interested in Armand as I am in Dr Dupont's dachshund. Or was it a Dobermann?' She'd captured Nadja Horn's tone of voice.

'Bravo!' Erik de Winter applauded. He had exchanged his evening dress for a silk dressing gown and a cravat, and looked captivating. A little champagne?' He poured some and handed Karin the glass.

It tickled her nose. Karin couldn't help sneezing. She laughed, not at all embarrassed. 'I never drank anything like this before.' She took another sip, without sneezing this time.

He raised his glass to her. 'I really like your village. Delightful people.' It sounded slightly patronizing.

And he doesn't even know the name of this dump, thought Nadja, putting the roses in a jug, since there was no vase available.

'It's not my village. I'm from Cuxhaven.'

Nadja sipped from her own glass. 'So you're visiting your family and helping out on the farm a little?'

'No, I've lived and worked here since Mutti died. But I'm soon going to Berlin.' She believed it as she said it. There was a determined set to her beautiful, full-lipped mouth.

Nadja Horn was observing the girl attentively. She heard her educated German, registered her natural, self-confident bearing. This was no naive rustic, there was more to her than that. Erik had spotted it, and he was right. She rose to her feet. 'Come with me a moment, my dear. Erik darling, top up our glasses, would you?'

Karin followed her into the next room, where Nadja opened the two halves of a large wardrobe trunk containing a dozen evening dresses. She chose one and tossed it to Karin. 'Try that on.' Karin had never undressed in front of a strange woman, and went into the bathroom, but her hostess followed. She took off her thin summer dress. 'Good heavens, how frightful!' cried Nadja, horrified at the sight of the blue jersey knickers. 'Wait a moment.' She disappeared and came back with a pair of diaphanous camiknickers and other delicious items. 'Come on, child, you want to look pretty,' she enticed her. Karin overcame her shyness and took off her dismal underclothes.

Nadja saw a fully developed young woman with long, slim thighs and beautifully shaped breasts. 'Now, sit down in front of the mirror.' She undid Karin's plaits and brushed her hair until it fell to her shoulders in golden waves. Then she carefully pencilled in the line of the girl's eyebrows and added just a touch of lipstick. That regular young face with its perfect complexion needed nothing more.

'Now stand up.' A cool, fragrant mist of perfume from Nadja's atomizer surrounded her naked body, making her nipples erect. Nadja helped her with the suspender belt and silk stockings. The long dress rustled as Karin drew it over her shoulders and hips. A few hooks and eyes completed the operation. Everything fitted, including the high-heeled silver pumps. Enchanted, Nadja clapped her hands.

'You took your time,' Erik de Winter complained in good-humoured tones. Then he said no more, so overwhelmed was he by the blonde young woman in the close-fitting black evening dress, high-necked in front and plunging right down to her waist at the back. Incredulous, Karin realized that she had bowled him right over.

Armand, where's that champagne? I'm dying of thirst,' she said, mimicking Nadja's lines from the second act, and she perched on the arm of a chair just like her model, ensuring that the slit in her skirt fell open all the way to her knee.

Erik regained his composure. Only if you'll dance with me, my love,' he quoted from his own lines, and wound up the gramophone.

Karin had seen him and Nadja dancing on stage. Now she just melted into his arms and they drifted over the creaking floorboards. She smelled his astringent eau-de-Cologne and felt the silk of his dressing gown. He felt her young body next to his and stopped thinking at all.

There was a knock. Theodor Alberti put his leonine head round the door. 'Come in, Theo. A glass of champagne?' Nadja asked the director in honeyed tones.

The monocle flashed. He looked Karin up and down with pleasure. 'So whom have we here, then? A charming new colleague, by any chance?'

Nadja Horn looked at her protegee. 'Maybe.'

Karin danced home over the cobblestones of the village street in an exuberant mood. Aunt Anna had left the door in the farmyard gate open. As she reached for the doorknob, a hand shot out of the dark and grabbed her arm. 'So you don't mind dancing with that actor fellow,' growled Hans Gorke. She could smell the alcohol on his breath. 'You wait, he'll get what's coming to him.' He let her go and moved away, his footsteps heavy.

By the time she was in her bedroom she had forgotten this encounter. She took off her thin summer dress. Nadja Horn had made her a present of the undies. She went to bed in those delicate wisps of nothing, thought of Erik de Winter, and fell happily asleep.

The second and final performance was on Saturday. Gorke had put his son under house arrest when Theodor Alberti told him of the young man's threats to a member of his company, and held out the prospect of'measures that could be taken by the Reich Chamber of Culture. And then, my dear fellow, you'd be kicked out of the Party,' Alberti had said, exaggerating wildly.

So Erik de Winter remained unscathed, and the final performance was another great success. Erik didn't get to see Karin again. On Theo's orders,' Nadja told him. 'It's better this way, believe me. For now, anyway.' He thought he detected the hint of a promise in her voice.

On Sunday morning Nadja Horn called on the Werneisens. She was invited into the parlour and asked to sit on the sofa. The Werneisens sat opposite her, waiting to see what she wanted.

The actress came straight to the point. 'I'd like to take your niece to Berlin. Not at once, but next spring. She can stay at my place and keep house for me, and the job will leave her enough time for drama school. The Stage Employees' Co-Operative will send you my character reference.'

'Drama school? That's the idea, is it?' Werneisen repeated, suspicion in his voice.

'Karin doesn't belong in the cowshed, you know that as well as I do. She has talent, and it must be trained.' Acting on intuition, Nadja Horn turned to Anna Werneisen. 'Do please give her this chance.'