Marlene (5 page)

Had I begun with the piano instead of the violin, I might have been a good concert pianist. Yet when I practiced the violin, I became conscious of the difficulties, and I entertained no illusions. Besides, the social prejudices of that day stood in the way of a career as a professional performer. My teacher, however, had a different opinion; perhaps she wanted to encourage me. At any rate, this pale, slender, willowy woman with beautiful musical hands but an overly long nose (when she played, her head inclined leftward over the instrument, the violin became an endless extension of her nose) constantly predicted great fame for me on the podium in the music world. A fame that you couldn't buy, that could be achieved only through work, work, work. She always repeated this word three times.

She looked at me on one occasion and said: “You know if one isn't beautiful, life's not a bed of roses. But if one loves music, if one dedicates oneself to it with talent and perseverance, life becomes beautiful and appearance no longer counts.”

I was sure that by these words she was not only thinking of herself, but also of me. I was not beautiful, I know that, and I liked that woman who had the courage to talk to me that way.

Her name was Bertha and she looked like it. Or rather like a
bird named Bertha. She could also have been a fox called Bertha. Her red-brown hair was her most beautiful feature. Although she gave me violin lessons for years (later I had male teachers), I never learned whether she, like everyone during the war, had lost brothers, friends, or cousins. She never spoke about herself. In winter she would first warm herself the moment she stepped inside, rub her hands, breathe on them, and then hold them around the cup of tea that I would bring to her in the music room.

In summer she would bring us flowers that she grew in boxes on her balcony, or a tomato of which she was especially proud. At Christmas she gave us a pink-colored, pale blue, or green glass wrapped in colored paper. She would hold it out to me and say: “Here, put it under the Christmas tree for your mother. Let's see if she guesses from whom this gift is.” She allowed herself this pleasure every year. Her last name was Glass, and she always asked me if my mother saw the connection. I never dared to ask her whether she posed such riddles to all her pupils.

She was the first to suggest to my mother that I become a violinist.

My piano teacher was a plump lady whose appearance alone induced trust. She laughed and chuckled over every little thing. When we played four-handed waltzes, she would throw her head back in pleasure. She was pretty but never spoke about what beauty means for a woman. She had daughters, none of them married, and only female cousins, no males. Of all the women I knew, she was the only one who didn't have a husband in the war. I was convinced that this explained her
joie de vivre
and her cheerfulness. My mother said: “No, she was born that way and remained that way because she has no husband in the war.” She would send my mother taffeta scarves she had sewn herself and painted with pussy willows and the first bars of Chopin's waltzes. The material was stiff, the colors flaked from one Christmas to the other, so that many notes of the melody disappeared.

My mother had great respect for my teachers; she criticized none of their decisions, their methods, their habits, none of their gifts. She wrapped the scarves in tissue paper, placed the colored glasses in the first row of the buffet, and was always ready to show
off these presents and praise their great importance and usefulness.

My gym teacher never came to the house, she sent no gifts, but on every holiday she invited our families. She would stick my head in a leather collar with chin props, hoist me to the ceiling of the gym, and make me hang from there—I felt for an eternity. When I was down below again, I was made to lie down on a table and was massaged with a kind of bubble soap. All students received the same treatment, it was supposed to strengthen our neck and spinal column, which supposedly eliminated tendon and joint damage caused by bad posture.

My teacher wore her black hair tied in a thick braided bun on the nape of her neck, and she dressed in a black jersey costume with pleated skirt. With a shrill voice she would count one, two, three, one, two, three. She treated us all the same; to her we were only a row of bodies to be hung like sausages in a smokehouse.

Posture was a very important point of physical fitness. Of this we were all convinced. Nevertheless, we hated to be suspended from the ceiling in that way. Yet on the way home we felt in top form and quickly forgot the torments we had undergone.

Two concluding remarks on my teachers: There was also a small, shy woman who twice a week taught me knitting and crocheting. When she left our house, her pockets, crocheted out of red wool, always bulged with gifts. Where my mother conjured them from, as if by magic, was a mystery to me. She must have had a hiding place for such things. The small, shy woman's name was Martha. When she left without her presents, my mother would call her back with “Martha, Martha, you have vanished”—words of an aria from the opera
Martha
by Flotow. Those were the rare occasions when my teacher smiled. And when she climbed the steps to the front door, you could see her pointed teeth which looked all worn out.

Finally, my mother bought me a guitar, and a new teacher was added to the rest. But she was quite different from her colleagues, much younger, with straw blond hair and red cheeks. She adorned her head with braids, wore peasant blouses and skirts and short black cardigans that kept her warm. She spoke with a strong
Bavarian accent. She was taking care of a sick sister whose husband—a local doctor—was at the front.

This guitar player's name was Marianne, and she seemed to take no notice of the war. The dozens of colored silk ribbons that hung from her instrument were as joyful as the musician herself. She sang folk tunes and mountain songs. I deeply loved her clear, strong voice. And I, too, enthusiastically collected ribbons for my own guitar. Some were painted, others were embroidered with texts, songs, and poems. It made one think of a bouquet of field flowers swaying to the rhythm of a melody in a light breeze.

I sang short Bavarian and Austrian songs, my breathless, weak voice supported by powerful chords. I dedicated much time to my guitar and daydreamed about it. “Go ahead and dream,” my mother would say, “but be careful you don't become dizzy”

My guitar was coated with a dark brown lacquer, and a slim black stripe had been left around the sound board. I was head over heels in love with this instrument and hugged it every night before going to bed. I felt a little guilty for not feeling the same tenderness for my violin, perhaps it touched me less because it was smaller.

Despite the war I never lost heart during my youth. My mother protected me, and despite all the storms that descended on her and her principles, she overcame all difficulties—entirely by herself.

The war came to an end. I didn't know much about the events and the politics of that time. We went to school, to the tutoring sessions, to concerts, to literature courses—all that was supposed to benefit our education.

I had a wonderful childhood. And much happiness as well. Despite my mistakes, my father's death, despite the war-scarred childhood years, my early youth was beautiful. I learned to renounce many “good things” and nevertheless live. Result: At the end of my youth, “I stood firmly with both feet on the ground.” At that time young people knew nothing about the historic upheavals, and that was probably one of the reasons for my happy girlhood. Our defense mechanism, admittedly, did not prevent us from expressing foolish opinions about government policy with
utter naiveté. After all, it's easy to criticize; it's much more difficult to govern. That was made clear to us at the time. And also: “Be quiet, if you've got nothing of interest to say, never just be content with destroying what you don't like. Life is not a bed of roses. Nor does it have the sweet taste of honey or sugar, but life is good if you struggle to make it so.”

I saw my mother for the last time when I was with the occupation troops of the U.S. Army in Berlin. When I left Berlin, she brought me to my jeep, slammed the door shut, and said: “Now, for a change, think of yourself for once.”

T
HANKS TO MY MOTHER
my life was very pleasant.

One day I was shocked to hear the words “boarding school.” It was nighttime. My mother was discussing the matter with some aunts who were visiting us.

For a while my life went on unchanged. As usual, my violin case under my arm, I walked over to my new violin teacher, always accompanied, of course, by my governess.

She was an Englishwoman, and after some resistance on my part, I learned her language, perhaps to make up for my poor classroom instruction in English. My governess was a good woman, I suppose, but I didn't especially like her. Her guard dog expression bothered me, but I didn't really object to her doing her duty. The moment we arrived at my teachers flat, she would sit down in the living room and happily sip the cup of tea that the teacher's wife offered her.

I began to practice the violin tirelessly. This cut into my other activities and took up all my free time. When I didn't go to the violin teacher, there were piano lessons, gymnastic lessons, or the prescribed walks. By seven o'clock I was in bed. The days were short and usually crowded. Fortunately, some nights an exception was made: The visits to concerts and the theater were like sunbeams after a rainy day.

I saw performances of all the classics: Shakespeare, Greek tragedies, everything that might enrich a young mind. At other times I might be taken to the opera.

Life apparently had again returned to normal. But I found that a meaningless expression, since I didn't know what “normal” meant. Everything now seemed to be going smoothly at home. My mother still wore black, but like my aunts she had discarded her veil of mourning. The widows were slowly getting used to their lot. Their lamentations had ceased, but you could still sense a quiet, restrained pain. I already knew sorrow to be a personal thing.

I had taken part in many Protestant burials, and I learned not to cry in public. I later had occasion to observe rites at Jewish burials. I came to the conclusion that Jewish customs might be better than our own. Jews can express their grief, weep and lament over the corpse being interred. In the Christian world we are taught to hide our feelings. As an inheritor of this traditional practice, I continue to be a woman who never reveals her deepest feelings, a reserved and lonely woman, imprisoned by her most sacred beliefs.

The boarding school, which until then had been only a whispered threat, became a reality. I was to go to Weimar, the city of my idol, Goethe.

During my last year at school, I had begun to deify Goethe absolutely. It's no wonder that throughout my whole life I have devoutly honored his spirit and thought. His philosophy guided all of us, my schoolmates as well as myself, in our formative years. But I suppose it left an even deeper imprint on me. Since I had no father I needed a masculine model to relate to. So I raved about everything that revolved around Goethe.

I was happy when I was told I would be going to boarding school in Weimar, although the idea of leaving home made me very sad.

As always, I obeyed.

The boarding school was cold and unfriendly; the streets seemed foreign, and the smell in the air was different from that in
my big native city. No mother, nobody I knew, no refuge to which I could flee, no place where I could secretly cry, no warmth.

We slept six in a room. That was harder for me than for the other pupils. I was used to a private existence. (In the meantime, I've learned it's no different in the army.) There must be a hidden intention in this kind of education. While you may “enjoy” its benefits, you also, of course, suffer under it. You mope, and you lie awake all night and cry because you want to be at home with mother. But the school finally wins out. You no longer cry for “Mamma” but learn to manage on your own. You learn to do what you must and keep your personal feelings at arm's length.

You fall in line going down the street in twos; you lead the other pupils (I wonder why I was always at the head) and meet people who are busy shopping or gossiping on a street corner. You feel desperate, rejected, excluded. We read Goethe's
The Sorrows of Young Werther
and shed copious tears. We would have liked best of all, as young people do today, loudly to proclaim our joy at discovering that so famous a writer knew our young souls. All young people feel misunderstood. It is an old affliction of youth. When you're suffering the torments of loneliness, poetry and sentimentality help—violins that sing deep in our hearts, dreams that inspire us even though they cannot solve our problems. That was what I felt at the time. During my stay in Weimar, I came to know a wonderful love that suffused my whole being with excitement, indeed an ecstasy that guided my life with a divine light and shielded me from evil and mean experiences.

Strange as it may seem, Goethe had become a veritable god to me I read his books and followed all his teachings. Nothing could undo or harm me. His city became a refuge for me. His houses became my houses. The women he loved became rivals who made me mad with jealousy.

Many of my “biographers” make Weimar the city of my birth. This is simply not true. But what is true is that this city became the home of my choice.

It was a simple thing to do since almost all its inhabitants live under Goethe's spell.

His house on the Frauenplan, his Garden House, the house of his great friend Frau Charlotte von Stein were shrines—we would go there every day to cleanse our souls.

This admiration for a great poet and thinker bore fruit. It was a protective shield against all the temptations that threaten a young girl's heart, her body and soul. My passion for Goethe, along with the rest of my education, enclosed me in a complete circle full of solid moral values that I have preserved throughout my life.