The Artist’s Muse. Kerry Postle

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      I look at the bed and I’m about to suggest to Mama that she go and have a rest in it when there’s a knock on the door. It’s Frau Wittger, now quite flushed, perspiration around her nose and across her forehead. She’s made her way back up the stairs. It hasn’t been easy for her. And there, tucked under one arm, she has the prettiest white bedcover, embroidered with the daintiest of pink rosebuds. Dangling from the other arm is a basket so heavy she puts it down the minute I open the door.

      ‘For you and your mam,’ she says, offering the bedcover to me. As soon as I take it, she holds her side, clearly in physical discomfort, before bending down to pick up the basket. Once inside, she closes the door and sets the basket down. She hugs Mama before leading her to the bed and helping her to remove her boots.

      ‘Lie down and rest, dear,’ she says soothingly, though Mama casts a look of anguish over her daughters in protest. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ she assures her softly. ‘Now cover your dear mam up with that cover, why don’t you, girl,’ she tells me. ‘Then you little ones can bring that basket over and we can see what’s inside.’ By the time Olga lifts the cake out, Mama is asleep.

Chapter 2

      The first nine months are tough. To set the tone, Mama does not get out of bed for three weeks, and when she does she looks as though a noose has been placed around her neck. Exhausted, that’s what Frau Wittger tells us is the matter with her, but Mama’s not done a day’s work yet.

      The elderly woman we’ve only just met cooks, cleans, and cares for us as if we’re her own.

      Her rooms are on the same floor as ours and she opens them up to us with a joy that doesn’t blind us to Mama’s suffering but helps us see there’s something more. That Olga and Frieda play ‘searching’ in her drawers full of broken costume jewellery is a rare and unexpected pleasure for this woman with no children, as it is a welcome escape for the little ones from the groans our mother makes as she grapples with her own demons. She’s not a kind stranger for long.

      The rent on the room’s been paid in full for the first three months by my father’s sister, Aunt Klara, and Mama’s grateful to Frau Wittger for, well, just about everything else. Having four daughters is not for the financially challenged, ironic considering that’s what Mama is. Even Frau Wittger, no matter how lovely she thinks we are, will soon be struggling to maintain the support she so wants to give us and which she’s under no obligation to provide.

      Mama needs to get a job and so do I. I’m twelve, I live at number 12 Favoritenstrasse and I can do this. When I announce I won’t be going to school no one argues – not even Mama. Especially not Mama, when it turns out that the first job she herself gets is the wrong one. She takes it because it’s in a pretty building – all exotic. She thinks she’s crushing flowers when what she’s really doing is making insecticide. As she’s as delicate as a butterfly she was never going to last there for very long.

      As Mama leaves I start, but I may as well have kept going round the revolving door as two weeks later I’m out. I’m underage. Someone reported me. Children must receive eight years of school. It’s the law. Who knew? From the number of children in the factory, not many. Mother’s been sentenced to eighteen hours’ imprisonment. That’s certainly tightened the rope around her neck. We’re all worried about her. I’ve just got to get another job. These are fast-changing times.

      I go to school with the others for a month. Then I get another job, this time in a bronze factory where I work with the soldering irons. But they are powered by gas. Which makes me pale. Giddy. Ill. I have to see a doctor who tells my mother who’s weaker than me that I need a nourishing diet and plenty of fresh air (which is all that we have to live on).

      Mama has lost one job. I have lost two. We’re wasting time, not earning money. Frau Wittger whispers to Mama about the workhouse, the very mention of which is as effective as a dose of smelling salts on her.

      And that’s how Mama’s ended up in the glasspaper factory. It’s an unpleasant dirty job, but she does it without complaint. She gets me a job there as a counter, putting glasspaper sheets into packs ready for the salesman to take around the country.

      At home things are better for a month or two. We have money for food, bills, even ribbons.

      His name is Herr Bergman, the travelling salesman. He doesn’t come in that often. But when he does the other women and girls go into a flutter. Flapping, flirting. He has his favourites who giggle as he whispers in their ears, their dirty-fingernailed glass-dusty hands pressed against their oh-you-saucy-devil-you mouths.

      Herr Bergman, the popular travelling salesman.

      He’s so busy tending to his admiring flock that he doesn’t notice me at first. I’m quiet, conscientious, don’t even talk to the other girls, as what they like to discuss in hushed tones punctuated by ribald laughter does not interest me at all. But one day – it is the day when I tie my hair with the new shiny black satin ribbons I bought with some of the money Mother allowed me to spend from my wages – he demands a counter, ‘the one with the red hair and the black ribbons’, for the stock he has come in to collect.

      And he watches me while I re-count the pile of glasspaper that I set aside for him earlier in the day.

      ‘… forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty.’

      ‘Beautiful hands.’ No sooner has he said these words than jealous eyes pierce me. Eyes of women who know exactly what he means.

      I am even more silent than usual as I do my work that afternoon, and after a few sarcastic ‘nice hands’ remarks, by the time I go to find my mother to go home, the tense atmosphere has lifted.

      But, as I walk along the corridor towards my mother’s workroom, a man’s hand grabs me and pulls me into the stockroom. It’s Herr Bergman. He knows all about me. Feels so concerned for me. Wants to give me a fatherly kiss, because – sad creature that I am – he feels so sorry that I don’t have a father to look after me. I freeze. Can’t move as he gives me his fatherly kiss. Then he releases me. What should I do? What if I lose my job? Should I tell Mama?

      For the next few weeks I keep it to myself. Avoiding Herr Bergman. Until I can’t. He comes in one day, leans over to whisper in my ear the way I’ve seen him do to other girls before. But, unlike them, I do not giggle. I do not put my hand to my mouth in an oh-you-saucy-devil sort of way. And as he pushes himself hard against my shoulder I do not move.

      ‘I’ll see you later, Beautiful Hands! I’ve got a little something for you that I think you’re going to like.’

      For the rest of the day I don’t hear the other girls call me names. All I can think about is Herr Bergman.

      It’s late but I can’t delay any longer: it’s time to walk along the corridor. Within seconds he’s pulled me into the stockroom, so eager to shower me with paternal affection and give me my surprise that he doesn’t get round to closing the door.

      My mother screams. And screams. Her small hands pull at him. With a back sweep of his hand he knocks her to the ground, stepping over her while sneering, ‘I was doing you a favour, you silly cow.’

      See now why my voice is getting angrier, my words more knowing? Because I am angry. Shocked. Doing things I shouldn’t be doing, seeing things I shouldn’t be seeing. Forced to grow up quickly. I’d thought of painting my life better than it is, as I’d wished it to be – Lord knows it doesn’t СКАЧАТЬ