29.

WHY NOT PAINT LILI?

By the time I reached Miss Boatwright's apartment in the Dorotheenstrasse I was such a mess that her maid didn't want to let me in. I was forming a puddle in the dark gloomy hallway when Miss Boatwright appeared, took one long look into my eyes, grasped my hand without a single word and dragged me down her corridor into a large, brightly lighted bathroom. She turned the taps; steamy water rushed into the iron tub.

"Miss Boatwright -"

"Peter Ellis, I want thee out of those clothes, all of them! Throw them into the corridor, and get in that tub and stay in it for fifteen minutes. In the meantime we will prepare a pot of tea and find something for thee to wear while Anna dries your things."

"Miss Boatwright, I've got to talk to you."

"I see that, but I won't listen to a word until thee's had a bath and a cup of tea!"

I didn't say anything about the circus in the beer hall. Barefoot, wrapped in large Turkish towels and Miss Boatwright's own mackintosh, I sat on the sofa beside the iron coal stove in the same plain living room where the First Day Meetings were held, and I poured out the story about Bobby and Dr. Strassburger's nephew and the Countess Kyra Aleksandrovna Kirsanoff.

Miss Boatwright drank her tea and watched me silently until I had talked myself out. Then she said, "Well, they've put thee in a very difficult position, I quite agree, but I'm not sure what else was to be done. Assuming..."

"Assuming what, Miss Boatwright?"

"Assuming thee is really that serious about Lili."

"Oh, but I am, Miss Boatwright."

"She's still in school. She's five years younger -"

"I think about her every minute -"

"Every minute? Gracious. Spend much time with her?"

"They won't let me! I'm never allowed to be alone with her-"

"So thee spends considerable time down in Neukölln?"

"Well, that's where I'm painting, Miss Boatwright. That's where I have my lessons."

"And of course that's where the models are."

"Yes, that's right, you've seen them."

"Yes, I've seen them. One very much in the flesh, the others most vividly portrayed in the galleries." A long thoughtful pause. Miss Boatwright drank her tea.

I felt better. She was right. What else could I have done? I owed it to Strassburger. I owed it to the Waldsteins, who were only doing it for Bobby's good. If she's carrying on with Strassburger's nephew while Bobby is supporting her, we're all doing him a favor by sending her to Los Angeles....

Aren't we?

Why didn't Miss Boatwright say something? These were the reassurances I wanted from her....

"Why not paint Lili?" Miss Boatwright put her cup and saucer on the table.

"Why not paint Lili?"

"Someone might suggest that Peter Ellis would like to attempt a portrait of Lili.... He's grateful for the Waldsteins' hospitality. ... When is the Baron's birthday? One might enlist her mother's support, and if it were to be a surprise then of course the painting couldn't be done at home.. .."

Helena set it up. Her apartment on the Lützowufer was only a few blocks from Lili's school, and somehow the Baroness was persuaded that Helena or at least her maid would be there all the time, and she liked the idea of a little portrait for the Baron's birthday, which turned out to be in August.

Helena really did stay with us, for the first sitting. It was in her kitchen, where she decided the smell of my paints and turpentine would bother her the least. Of course her maid didn't like it and Lili didn't like it either, but Helena was adamant.

"You're only going to work for a few hours after school, and Clara can do her shopping then. It's a large kitchen, there's a skylight-" so we sat in the kitchen.

"You want me to take my clothes off?"

"Lili!" I had never seen Helena shocked.

"He only paints women with their clothes off!"

"Nonsense. He's going to become our American Magnus, painting only beautiful rich ladies for enormous fees."

"Beautiful rich ladies sitting in their cousins' kitchens?"

I had never heard of Magnus.

"He was the painter of Berlin society," said Helena. "He painted the royal family, he painted Jenny Lind at least three times, he painted the wives of princes and the wives of bankers - and he painted the picture of my mother in the living room."

"All the ladies Magnus painted were beautiful," said Lili. "Apparently there were no ugly princesses in Berlin. No ugly bankers' wives."

"Well, my mother was beautiful," said Helena. "You've seen the photographs!"

"Yes, and a very successful actress ..."

While they chattered I began to block out a tentative charcoal sketch of Lili as she sat with her chin propped in her hand, her elbow on the kitchen table, her eyes firmly on me as she bantered with Helena, and after a while I didn't hear them anymore.

I guess I worked up the courage during the third or fourth sitting. I know it was still in Helena's kitchen, so it must have been at the end of April.

I had started on the actual painting, and I still had her in the same pose, with her chin in her hand and her elbow on the table and she still didn't like it. Claimed she didn't like it.

"Who ever saw a portrait of a lady with her elbow on the table?

"Well, that's how you were sitting when we started."

"You're the artist. You're supposed to tell me how to pose."

"I paint people the way they are."

"Yes, I have noticed that."

"Look, are you going to continue on that subject -"

"Not at this moment." She stood up. "I have to go to the bathroom." She walked out of the kitchen and I stood up too and rubbed my hands to loosen up the right one and paced around to stretch my legs and heard the toilet flushing at the other end of the hall, and I walked out to meet her in the half-light out there and took her in my arms and kissed her on the mouth and she put her arms around my neck and kissed me back as if it was the most natural thing in the world and when we stopped she said: "Well, it took you quite some time to get around to that!"

"Lili, I love you, I'm absolutely crazy about you -"

"Ach, you must love me passionately, it has taken you - how long? Almost a year? - To give me a little kiss!"

"Well, where was I supposed to kiss you?"

"Here on my mouth, to begin -"

"No, damn it, you know what I mean, I haven't seen you alone for one minute since last summer -"

"Because you are so occupied with your friends in Neukölln -"

"Oh for God's sake, won't you stop that? I'm really serious about this, I'm in love with you, I want to be with you for the rest of my life, I want you to marry me!"

She moved back a step, out of my arms. "Now really, Mr. Ellis, that is not required, at least not in Germany. You don't have to propose marriage just because you kiss a girl."

The only light was coming through the open kitchen door and I couldn't see her face very well. "Are you taking this as a joke?"

No reply. I reached forward, took her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen under the skylight.

"You find all this funny?" I asked again.

She lowered her eyes and shook her head.

"You want to marry me, Lili?"

She put her hands on my shoulders. "Just look at me. A school girl, in a stupid uniform. I'm not even allowed to cut my hair. You think I would be allowed to marry?"

"I didn't ask if you would be allowed to. I asked if you wanted to."

She swallowed, looked down, looked up again, closed her eyes - and nodded.

"You do! Oh my God, that's terrific - but there's one thing I've got to tell you. About myself."

The eyes came up.

"During the War ... something happened to me ... I sort of went crazy. They had to put me in the hospital -"

She smiled and shook her head and put her hand over my mouth. "We know all about that, Peter. Christoph told us before he brought you out."

"I think I'm all right now."

"Of course you are all right. Why don't you kiss me some more?"

"May I talk to your father this evening?"

"Talk to my father? Absolutely not!"

"But I've got to ask him."

"No-no-no-no-no! You don't ask him anything! Not one single word to anyone, or they will just lock me up or send me to school in Switzerland or something and you will not be allowed to come near me! We must be very careful and we must wait."

"Why? Wait for what?"

"First of all, my father is terribly upset just now - about the inflation, it is ruining the country, what will happen to the Bank, what will happen to Germany, is there going to be another revolution ... and he is deeply hurt by Sigrid's family, how they repaid his generosity with worthless money ... and then there is Bobby, who seems to be almost going crazy because of that Russian tramp. He's had one woman after another - chorus girls and opera singers and ballet dancers - and it's never made much difference to him, but this one leaves him and he just collapses. It's horrible. I don't think a man should hang that much on any woman. He won't even get out of bed in the morning, he hardly appears at the Bank, he stays out all night and gets drunk, and my father just doesn't know what to do about him."

"Well, I understand that your father has problems, but are we supposed to wait until all of Germany's problems are solved -"

"Of course not. We have to wait until I am out of school, until my family is entirely used to you - we have to wait for exactly the right moment."

"And how will we know when that is?"

"That is my job. When the right moment comes, I will tell you." She looked at the wristwatch I had given her. "Now in a few minutes Helena will come home, then a little later Christoph will appear, perhaps they would like to be alone together. If you want to take me home, I am sure my mother will invite you to stay for dinner."

"That sounds very nice."

"But there is time for you to kiss me again."


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PROLOGUE - THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
I. HOW I GOT THERE
1. PARIS 1922
2. VERDUN 1916
3. IT'S STEALING MONEY, ISN'T IT
4. WHERE WERE YOU IN 1919?
5. RELIABLE TROOPS
6. AN ISLAND
7. BISMARCK FOUND THEM USEFUL
8. INTRODUCTIONS
9. THE LITTLE HOUSE
10. INDIAN CROSSES
11. ANOTHER PART OF TOWN
12. A VIEW OF THE GENDARMENMARKT
13. TWO FOR TEA
14. ON THE TOWN
15. A VIEW OF THE HAVEL
16. REIGEN
II. WHAT HAPPENED
17. THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
18. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1922
19. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1922
20. FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1922
21. SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1922
22. WHAT HAPPENED?
III. THE WITCHES' SABBATH
23. SILENCE WITH VOICES
24. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
25. SAME SONGS, DIFFERENT SINGERS
26. THEY'RE ONLY GOING TO HIRE HIS VOICE
27. INFLATION WORKS IN DIFFERENT WAYS
28. SMALL CHANGE
>29. WHY NOT PAINT LILI?
30. COLD WIND IN MAY
31. ROLLING THUNDER
32. WALDSTEIN'S VOICE
33. THE MATTER OF A DOWRY
34. A RUSSIAN WORD AND A GERMAN WORD
35. THE MARCH ON BERLIN
36. A PIG LOSES MONEY ALL THE TIME
37. THE ARTISTS' BALL
IV. STRIKE TWELVE ZEROs
38. AMYTAL DREAMS
39. LETTERS
40. PROFESSOR JAFFA'S PROGNOSIS
41. THE OTHER SUBJECT
42. ROLLING HOME