A Chosen Sparrow Page 5

  “I could sell in a shop like Trudl.”

  Her parents were pleased that Trudl, who was frivolous and cared nothing for music, made good money selling handbags and gloves to rich foreign tourists in a smart shop on the Kohlmarkt. But Elfy? So innocent and so talented, “There will be no more of such talk,” decreed Herr Mayr. Although his voice was weak and his head trembled on his stringy neck, his authority was unquestioned. “Everything goes on as before. Elfy continues at the Conservatorium and you, Leni, will go on with your studies. And not another word out of either of you.”

  My only word had been the feeble suggestion that I change from the Gymnasium to the ordinary Bürgerschule. “We have promised to educate you,” Herr Mayr said in a voice miserly of breath. It was as if he could never make sufficient atonement for having joined the Nazi Party. He had not hurt anyone by playing the flute and supporting his family, but his conscience still plagued him so that all of his prayers and masses could not satisfy the penitent soul. He found a few private pupils who paid small fees but these, with his pension, were barely enough to keep us going on a reduced scale. We spoke of the past like millionaires once accustomed to sumptuous living.

  To be respectably poor is more difficult than to endure the lively poverty of the slums. In the Stompfer house there had been complaints and self-pity, but life had an adventurous quality. Mornings had been bright with schemes and promise, a few schillings to be gained by exciting dishonesty, fools to be cheated, loot to be found or stolen. Respectable poverty knew its income to the last groschen. Every bite was counted, small treats regarded as sin.

  In June, Heda came home to be married. You can imagine the state of Frau Mayr’s emotions. Her two older girls had been married hastily during the war and early in the days of the Allied Occupation. Sumptuous feasts had not been possible. Now that there was butter for the cakes, sugar, wine and flowers, there was not enough money to provide a grand wedding. The bride was less perturbed than her mother. She considered herself a modern girl and calmly announced that she meant to go on working in the Linz Orchestra. She and Johnni (his name was Hans but she considered it chic to call him Johnni in the English manner) had found a pleasant room in the house of a widow. Frau Mayr was shocked at such arrangements. She thought a properly married daughter ought to have plenty of linen, china and silver. “And what happens when the babies come? You will go on playing the harp?” Frau Mayr’s hands circled an imaginary instrument and swollen womb. She was even more appalled at Heda’s answer. “Perhaps we shan’t have babies so soon.”

  Since Heda had become independent and lived away from home, her ideas of life had changed. In our bedroom at night she told us many exciting tales of her friends, their love affairs and adventures. I was fascinated. I yearned to grow up, to fall in love. I thought about it all the time, read romantic novels and poetry, sang sentimental songs. In bed beside Elfy, I would lie awake wondering how long I should have to wait before the magic touched me.

  Heda’s mind was on marriage. She wanted to introduce us all to young men. Her sister Trudl considered herself too grand for the coffeehouse where Heda’s and Johnni’s friends gathered. Elfy was indifferent. “Please,” I faltered, “if I will not be in your way.” Heda and Johnni looked at each other like the parents of a problem child. “I will only take a small glass of mineral water. And pay for it myself.” I showed my few schillings.

  “Allow me to invite you, Big-Eyes.” Johnni kissed my hand with mock gallantry. “But you must not flirt, Lenchen, you are too young.”

  While I dreamed of attracting a rich, handsome young man (sick at heart, disgusted with superficial girls) I sat like a board while Heda’s friends laughed, chatted and flirted. How do musicians entertain themselves? Play music. Naturally. In the coffeehouse our group enjoyed the privilege of providing free entertainment. One young man brought a zither. I became bold and asked if he would allow me to play it. “She sings quite sweetly,” Heda said. So I sang, and the young man offered to give me lessons to improve my technique with the zither. My first conquest! As payment he asked a few kisses. It disappointed me that I was not more moved by his ardors.

  Most of the young musicians in that group were too cultivated for coffeehouse entertainments. My artless songs received greater applause. Immediately new dreams were conceived, dazzling images danced in my head; glamorous Leni in gowns studded with brilliants, adored by scores of young men (rich, handsome, disgusted with superficial girls), became the toast of Vienna.

  Heda and Johnni married and went off on a bicycle tour to the Tyrol. I dared not go to the coffeehouse alone, nor could I have afforded to buy myself cakes and ices. My admirer packed his zither and went to stay with his parents in Carinthia. None of the other young men pressed invitations upon me. Nothing but dreams could console the skinny schoolgirl.

  III

  It is one thing to be a student dreaming over the conjugation of French verbs or putting herself in the place of Becky Sharp (“How differently I would have acted!”) when the English teacher had given us the delightful task of reading Vanity Fair, and quite another to be an adult faced with the responsibility of earning a living. In the middle of the next winter Herr Mayr’s death put an abrupt end to foolish fantasies of a glamorous career and adoring noblemen.

  The dear man died after many weeks of suffering. Even his devoted wife admitted that the end came as a blessing. Elfy wept so ceaselessly that on the morning of the funeral her eyes were so blind and swollen that I had to comb her hair for her. I cried for poor Herr Mayr, too, but even while the priest prayed over his body I dismally considered the future. The pension of a musician’s widow would not be enough to keep us respectably in a cultured home. We could expect no help from Heda, living in Linz and, in spite of her bold resolutions, pregnant and forced to give up her work in the orchestra. Trudl, who had always helped with expenses, eloped with a shopkeeper. She who had dreamed of a prince or a cinema star went off to work with her bridegroom in a gift shop at Velden on the Worthersee.

  There were four of us to be fed, clothed and kept warm. The maid Pepperl, who had come to the Mayr family as a young girl from Styria and received small wages, now received none at all, but worked as zealously as ever. Frau Mayr could not complain of the cost of food to one who received only her meals and a mean little room as reward for such hard labors. Nor would she divert Elfy’s mind from her studies at the Conservatorium. Frau Mayr’s life was dedicated to her daughter’s talent as it had been to her husband’s. We all believed that Elfy would become a famous soloist or play in an important chamber group.

  “Leni!” Frau Mayr would seize me whenever I came into the apartment. “Do you know how much they are asking for potatoes, those Gesindel in the shops? And the cost of butter, Leni! We must learn to live without it again, like in the war. And what do you think Meinl’s are asking for the cheapest coffee?”

  Fortunately for us there was a scarcity of rooms in Vienna. The one which Trudl and Heda had used was quickly rented. Then Frau Mayr moved her clothes into the crowded wardrobe where Elfy and I kept our old things (nothing was ever thrown away in that house) and slept on a couch in the dining room, so that we would have room for another lodger. Our boarders were seldom seen. Pepperl brought rolls and coffee to their rooms in the morning; then they hurried out to work and took the rest of their meals in restaurants. One of the few luxuries that remained to us was privacy.

  This was the season of ardent self-pity; a long season that continued for almost two years. I had never before felt quite so sorry for myself for I had never before been forced to feel failure. Other people had been blamed for my deprivations. Poor people have no excuses. There are too many and the richer and more comfortable citizens hate them because the disease of poverty threatens contagion. Long, fruitless days of job-hunting are too similar and dreary to remember with clarity; the drama of rejection is better forgotten. I think I felt the weariness of the long walks that saved carfare, the bite of wind, the chill and dampness (why does i
t always rain on the jobless?) less than the pangs of unworthiness. I had no importance in the world. Who wanted me?

  I must have been a sorry applicant with my pallor and sad eyes, protruding bones and cut-down dresses hanging loosely on a flat body. What work could I do? Many and better qualified girls sought comfortable posts as governesses and companions. I had neither diploma nor a certificate of training as a teacher. I could not run a typewriter, keep a ledger, nor sew a straight seam. As spoiled as an aristocrat, as dreamy as an heiress, I went out to look for work in a poor country, one of the last to recover from the war. Jobs were scarce, employers demanding, prices rising.

  At last, on a happy evening, I hurried back to Frau Mayr with the news that I had been hired to run an elevator in a hotel. It was a small, seedy establishment in the neighborhood of the Westbahnhof. The elevator was old-fashioned, trembled on a shaky cable and was heavy to operate. Night after night I dreamed that it had fallen, and waking, I was sure that my head was bleeding, my hands crushed. The white gloves they gave me to wear were too big for my narrow hands, the gray uniform smelled of other girls’ sweat. Guests were mostly salesmen or ignorant country people who carried their own bags so that they would not have to give tips. Men who came to Vienna without their wives often tried to lure the young elevator girl to their bedrooms in the hope that pleasure would cost less than with a professional prostitute.

  “Oh, gnädiger Herr, I would like to very much but the doctor has told me to be very careful.”

  Where I found such a convenient excuse I cannot remember. It served me well and I congratulated myself for cleverness until an angry guest told the manager that he could not continue to patronize a hotel where syphilitics were employed.

  “But it is not syphilis,” I said, “merely tuberculosis.”

  Nevertheless I was fired.

  After many weeks of miserable job-hunting I found work even less suited to my nervous temperament. At a machine in an underwear factory. If the elevator had been a nightmare, the knitting machine was an instrument of torture. Beside me the braver, more stolid girls could joke and tease, even flirt with the foreman, but I could only keep my eyes and mind rigidly on the work of my hands. In spite of this fierce concentration I made an error which caused damage to one of the shuttles. It also broke my thumb. The boss was very angry. I fainted and someone called a neighborhood doctor who charged a high fee. The boss told the insurance agents that my deliberate malice had caused the accident, and while I received compensation, it was not much more than I had to pay the doctor.

  With a splint on my thumb, job-hunting seemed even more hopeless. My bones remember the dampness of pavements, wind stealing around corners, the distance between the office of an accountant who had advertised for a girl to file letters (“experience not necessary”) and the salon of a fashionable hairdresser who sought a tactful young lady with good manners to sit at a reception desk. Always the other applicants seemed older, wiser and better dressed so that I felt the inferiority of youth, shabbiness and inexperience and was often afraid to speak up smartly during interviews. I told many lies and caught many colds. I had hardly recovered from one set of sniffles when another began. In bed with fever, I feared tuberculosis as ironic punishment for my lie to the hotel manager. Getting well meant more interviews with prospective employers. Red nostrils, sunken cheeks and an inflamed nose did not convince them that I would be a steady worker. A cough or sneeze was fatal to the hope of a job.

  To exercise my thumb I began to play piano again. I needed practice sorely. My fingers were disobedient on the keys, and when I sang, my voice was rusty, my concept of tones untrue. Yet I found comfort in music and release from dreary days, and I practiced diligently. Buried dreams came alive.

  I had very little nourishment for my illusions that year. Days behind the counters of a linen store on the Mariahilferstrasse offered little promise for splendor in the future. Nevertheless I appreciated the steady job which helped me contribute to the Mayr household and to buy some badly needed clothes. This small portion of self-respect and the evening hours at the piano gave me courage to contemplate greater satisfactions than a successful sale at the tablecloth counter.

  The head clerk of the shop was attracted to me. He was thirty-four, a stringy man with an Adam’s apple that bounced up and down like a ball on an elastic string. Since I had no invitations from other men, I happily accepted his invitation to supper. We went to a cafe that had a small band and a girl singer. Her voice was terrible. “I sing much better than that,” I told my admirer.

  “I would love to hear you.”

  One Sunday afternoon I asked him to have coffee with us at the Mayr flat, and later did a small show for his benefit. “You’re very good, but don’t get ideas in your head, young lady. We like you at the store.” The apple bounced in his throat and he pulled me toward his hollow chest. Fortunately he was a man who made love without authority and could easily be discouraged. He continued these timid efforts and I allowed him to take me out several times, rewarding him with a few meager kisses so that I could observe the talents and repertoires of the entertainers.

  An enormously fat soprano with a shocking evening gown, pretentious repertoire, and tiny voice aroused me to action. The next evening after work, I went back to the dingy night club, asked to see the manager, offered to sing for him, or, if he preferred, to his patrons. His laughter was rude. “Who’d listen to such a scarecrow?” I told no one of this sorry effort, but resolved to improve my appearance and developed an appetite for noodles, dumplings and all fattening foods that were not costly.

  In the summer when our boarders went off on holiday, Heda and Johnni came from Linz with their new baby. Since they were professional musicians I told them I knew a young man who had a pleasant voice and wanted to sing in cafes. How would he go about getting a job? If Johnni guessed the identity of the young man, he said nothing, but told me about artists’ agents.

  More job-seeking, humiliations of a different kind; dark halls, unshaded light bulbs hanging over little platforms, the smell of stale cigars, the inevitable judgment…“That’ll do, who’s next?” At most auditions I was immediately rejected, but there were a few less hardened managers who told me I would be considered. In the end, these were the unkindest since they inspired hope and ceaseless waiting for the summons to appear for another trial. Auditions interrupted my work at the linen store and the head clerk warned that if I took any more days off or had any more colds (my usual excuse) I would be fired. I had to tell my agent that I could attend no more daytime auditions. He did not appear to be saddened by this news.

  On the bus one morning I read in the newspaper that a certain Heurigen entertainer had been injured in an accident. At the next stop I jumped off the bus, boarded one going in the opposite direction, hurried home to wash my hair and change my clothes. I went to the expense of hiring a zither before I applied for the job. My money was not wasted.

  I cannot say that I was an overnight success, but I sang and played at this Heurigen until the injured man came back in December. We were both kept on during the holidays and in the weeks that followed when there were Fasching balls and singing and dancing everywhere, I found it easy to get jobs on Saturday and Sunday nights. When Lent ended the festivities I was out of work with little money saved.

  Still determined to earn my living as a singer, I studied and worked with the zither, increased my repertoire and once again started the round of auditions. But not like that timid, bony child who had dared offer herself to the tough employers. With a bit of experience and better clothes I could laugh and flirt and show myself off as audaciously as any other aspiring performer. I no longer saw myself as a skinny waif, humble and shy. As my figure filled out and my breasts, which had been like hard little apricots, rounded out like ripe peaches, when hips curved below my small waist, I knew men looked at me with desire. My face was softer, the flesh had grown to fit my features, my eyes were not only large but expressive and I grew adept at practicing pre
ttiness before my mirror.

  In the late spring I was engaged to travel as part of a Tyrolean “family” group who sang at fairs and beer festivals. We were in the midst of a week’s celebration in Grein in the beautiful Wachau valley when my agent telephoned to say that there was an opening in a new Viennese night club. I left the “family” without giving notice, and the next night opened as star entertainer of the small pretentious club which impressed tourists with Viennese kitsch, discouraged the sale of local wines and sold the patrons imported liquors at outrageous prices. Three weeks after the tourist season ended, the night club closed.

  Once again I visited the dark halls, stood beneath unshaded bulbs, exhibited voice and body to dead-faced men with cigars, again heard the familiar, “That’ll do, who’s next?” until, at last, out of the smoky cavern a voice called, “How cheap can I get her?”

  The Königshimmel Bar and Nite Club had been an ordinary coffeehouse and retained much of that character in spite of fresh paint, modern chairs and tables, neon lights, an espresso machine, a tireless pianist and me. At the entrance hung my photograph, hideously lighted by blue neon and so enlarged that the pores of the paper pocked my face. Across the lower part of the photograph, covering the chest, a cardboard banner announced: ALLA-BENDLICH DIE BEZAUBERNDE LEONORA (Every Night the Enchanting Leonora). My boss attached this adjective to my name. We enjoyed good business that season and it became fashionable to admire my singing style. As always with a girl entertainer there was much curiosity about my lovers.

  A girl who sings in a public place receives many letters, bouquets and invitations. Gentlemen offered diversions of many kinds. I had friends willing to wait until I finished work at night and could eat supper with them. On Sundays I might drive to the country with some man who owned a car or allow an admirer to take me to the theatre on Monday nights when I was free. It was more for such entertainments than for their company that I flirted with these men. They were all after the same thing and wooed without subtlety. I teased, laughed easily, permitted a few caresses. None of these men excited me, physically or mentally.