Eugene Ganin
Translated from the original Russian
by M.A Ashot
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Vladimir Lazar - Director & Produser & Publisher
Offis: USA 1-414-665-7212 & 1-415-806-4402
E-mail: waltv 2000@yahoo.com
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PO BOX 16374
San Francisco,
CA 94116-0374
USA
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AN EYE FOR AN EYE
The Novel
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Chapter Two
MAGDA
5.Berlin: the Navel of the Planet
We won’t let German freedom
Go barefoot through the streets.
We’ll give her foul-weather stockings
And boots that protect her feet.
We’ll deck her out in plush velvet
To keep her head warm in the fall,
With a hat that covers her ears up
So she can’t feel the wind at all.
“The Great Promise,” by Heinrich Heine,
after a translation into Russian by Samuil Marshak.
* * *
Berlin would not have been Berlin, had it not, from time to time, aspired to regard itself as the proverbial bellybutton of the planet.
“But what on earth is a planet’s bellybutton?” a reader might ask.
Allow me to reply as a political wag might, using a suitably nimble tongue: “The navel – or bellybutton -- of the planet is the Reich, as the umbilical cord of global power.”
It was Friederich the Great who first conceived of the modern principles underlying the idea of power as a nourishing umbilicus. Friend to Voltaire, a crowned soldier, the flautist of Sans-Souci, who loved Bach and perhaps men more than women; poet, prose writer, philosopher, orator, actor; feisty combative field marshal who could keep his great boots on for days on end; devotee of liberty and of the whip, who managed to combine French insouciance with German precision, and who readily transmuted artists, poets, painters into military machines – as well as vice versa. His influence upon Berlin, and consequently upon all of Germany, extended even into her cumbersome speech patterns: Versailles’ famous guttural, unrolled R, once it had bounced off his affected tongue, installed itself forevermore in the Berlin dialect, thereby imparting to the people of Berlin an abundance of charm, of refined overeducated coarseness, that could not be adequately conveyed with any other inflection.
Friederich’s great, testicular egg of German grandeur yielded a hatchling, a century later: the Prussian Otto von Bismarck; and then, in the twentieth, out of the Kaiser’s considerably smaller generative contribution came forth the National Socialist Austrian dauber, Adolf Schicklgrueber, better known under the more self-effacing surname he adopted, as Hitler.
Ideas about Nation teetered and danced, and so did Berlin itself. If Paris and St. Petersburg, however, were perpetually sick to retching from revolutions, Berlin and London, on the other hand, between the pleasant little cups of coffee under the linden trees of Unter den Linden Strasse, and the downing of pints or bottles in a London pub, remained decadently stable. The myriad bodies of Europe’s young men that had been interred in tidy rows within the European soil, under their diminutive white cement markers, had had enough time to decay and become forgotten skeletons; while those who had made it back to their own front doors, only half-dead, poisoned with yprite, stabbed through with bayonets, shot through with bullets, torn apart by shrapnel and flying parts, with legs or arms lopped off, with broken vertebrae, with genitalia that would never work again, smiling dumbly took up heroin, drowned themselves in vodkas, shoved their heads in nooses, shot themselves dead to finish the job, swallowed rat poisons, and jumped, jumped, jumped from every tall bridge and Eiffel Tower.
Berlin, after the First World War, was drinking itself to death, revelling in its abject poverty, in its gangrenous hopelessness. The young cinema replaced bread and butter. Spiritual and physical masturbation was all the rage. The riotous feasting in time of pestilence had begun. The age of romantic love had ground to a halt. A bacchanal of self-indulgence through sexual fantasy and experimentation was unleashed. Lesbianism and homosexuality emerged out of the alleys, entryways and parks, to be celebrated in the pages of full-color magazines, in the villas of tycoons, bankers, gangsters, grifters of every variety; it ensconced itself in the boudoirs of beauties, and in the getaway cottages of writers, artists, directors… The cult of fast living and suicide attained the respectability of a school of philosophical thought.
The dreams of a golden age remained on the silver screens, on the stages of theatres, in countless cabarets and casinos, in their roulette wheels and their games… Gradually, life in Berlin turned into scenes from a street theatre: the people rushed to complete the requisite costume change, as they donned red, black, brown, white uniform shirts and ties; as they quickly painted over the grey walls of their houses with red swastikas, with hammers and sickles, with six-pointed stars, with five-pointed stars; as they pasted up flyers, posters, slogans, portraits of fuehrers on their utility poles; or ran around, chanting and shouting as they brandished the anarchists’ flag, buck naked, terrorizing little old ladies who might have stepped out of the poetic tales of Schiller, Goethe, Heine. Business meetings were conducted in brothels.
Theatre actresses and film stars became the wives of the political beau monde. The average Berlin buergher drank his Bavarian beer, cursed, and suffered from an unquenchable thirst for order, for clean streets, for clean people, for a pure life, for a pure race:
“So what did we fight for? Look at ‘em all, everywhere, no end in sight! Where do they come from?”
6.In Search of a Genius
A woman makes a man not only in the explicit physical sense; she shapes him with her beauty, her kindness, her tenderness, her nurturing care, her love, her sexiness – and with one other mysterious, inexplicable emanation that poets can only describe as a kind of sunstroke. Just this ability to strike below the belt was a trait of Johanna Maria Magdalena Behrend, or Magda for short. Wherever Magda might enter, in whatever society she should appear, men became smitten, women dropped their purses, and surrounding objects lost their appeal. The graceful blonde with a lissom body, with intelligent hazel eyes, she instantly won over everyone she came across. She had a superb mastery of German, French and English; dressed at great cost with exquisite taste; knew how to refrain from comment as she hung upon every word of a speaker, and had an innate, natural gift for acting, and beautifully articulated speech. With a talent for improvisation, she could give short, vivid speeches full of profound meaning. The cherished dream of her youth, which she kept safely in the secret hiding places of her soul, was to find a famous, wealthy genius, marry him, and then to mother a brood of adorable brilliant children to his delight.
She herself had been illegitimately conceived in the womb of a beautiful twenty-year old serving woman, Auguste Behrend. The cause of her birth, the engineer Oskar Rietschell, transfixed by the perfection of the tiny newborn, soon married her mother and made her an honest woman.
Rietschell moved to Belgium to pursue his career interests. Magda was placed in an exclusive strict convent school near Brussels. She was an excellent student, who mastered her subjects with ease, with pleasure, in the process developing a strong will, poise, determination, and the ability to know how to teach herself independently. It was here, within the convent walls, that Magda first conceived of the notion of searching for and finding the genius of her dreams. By the time Magda completed her convent studies, her mother was getting married again, this time to her very first lover, Richard Friedlaender. Her stapefather adopted Magda; she was issued a new passport, with her new Jewish surname: Magda Friedlaender. But Fraeulein Friedlander continued her search for a wealthy genius for personal use.
The veracity of that ancient folk saying, “ The right hunter will summon forth the right game,” was confirmed.
One winter, already as a student of a boarding college for young ladies in Holzhausen, Magda was travelling in a train going from Goslar to Berlin. At some station, an imposing gentleman whose bearing and demeanor bespoke good breeding stepped into the small compartment for two of the better class of carriage, in which she rode:
“May I?” said the hushed-thunder bass that belonged to the gentleman standing in the doorway.
“Yes, please, come in!” Magda tore herself away from her book and lifted up her radiant gaze to the face of the gentleman with the velvet voice. That gentleman, try as he might, could not for the life of him conceal his overwhelming pleasure and surprise.
“Guenther Quandt! I am Guenther Quandt!”
It was Magda’s turn to be astonished: “Wha-a-… Wha-a-a-t, what did you say? Quandt? That Quandt?”
“What do you mean, ‘that Quandt’?”
“Well, you know, the one that ranks next to Rockefeller, Krup, Rothschild, Morgan? The millionaire?”
“Quite possibly!” smiled Guenther. “I am a capitalist, as they are! I make Germany wealthy!”
Suddenly, Magda raised her leg and lifting up the hem of her skirt a little, showed the gentleman the sole of her stylish, well-made winter boot. The sole of the boot bore the distinctive embossed imprint of the QUANDT brand of footwear.
“Is that you?”
“It is!”
Five days later, Guenther Quandt – the wealthiest leather goods manufacturing proprietor in all of Germany—proposed to Magda. The very next Sunday they celebrated their engagement. It was her very first prize catch. She had found the genius of capitalism – and no mean genius at that: a multimillionaire of a genius.
Very, very quickly, she began to cover the traces of her past: she changed the new, Jewish surname for her own father’s, Rietschell; she converted from Catholicism to Protestantism; she gave her capitalist a son and heir, Harold. But having given birth to her firstborn, Magda found herself the mother of six children at once: Guenther had two sons from a first marriage, and another three boys who were the sons of his deceased friend, whom he had adopted. At all of nineteen, Magda was instantly transformed into the mother of a large family. Moreover, as a prisoner in a gilded cage, possessing millions in her husband’s pockets, she could not spend any of portion of that fortune! The dream of her youth had turned out to be a trap, fools’ gold, nothing else! The millionaire, as it turned out, was a wretched miser. To make matters worse, he was dreary, tiresome, a dreadful bore. Guenther was her father’s age; his body contained every possible ailment described the medical encyclopaedia. Right in the very first act of the Berlin Opera, he would be snoring! Oh, the horror of it! Her hopes for an interesting social life were dashed into bits. Consumed with regret, she would wander for hours on end through the many rooms of the ancient old palace that was their home; with increasing frequency, she chose to retire for the night to a bedroom other than her husband’s.
Consolation came quite unexpectedly, in the form of a new love. Rather, the love was not new: it was her first. It originated in her first innocent experience with infatuation, as a thirteen-year old girl enamored of the fifteen-year old Victor Arlasaroff. At that time, Magdalena was still a pupil of the Werner von Siemens school in Berlin. This private gymnasium was a prestigious institution. She shared one of its desks with a merry, prattling Jewish girl called Lisa. During recess, they would race upstairs to the third floor, to visit the boys, including Victor, Lisa’s brother. Magdalena fell for him straight away. Victor had been born in distant, scary Russia, in the small provincial city of Rovno, in the family of a rabbi. The entire Arlasaroff family had made a hasty escape from the Russian Empire during the pogroms against Jews, travelling first to Koenigsberg, and then to Berlin.
Victor was a brilliant student who earned perfect marks, and a handsome boy besides. He started a Zionist youth organization at the school. Her love for Victor quite naturally drew Magda into the ranks of youthful militant champions for a free and sovereign Jewish homeland in Palestine. She removed her Catholic cross from around her neck and replaced it with a gold star of David; she sang Jewish songs with glee, and attended synagogue; she went on hikes and field trips as part of the Zionist youth marches, sleeping in haystacks, and experiencing, for the first time – perfumed by the heady scents of freshly mowed grasses mingled with wildflowers – the tender sweetness of first kisses.
Strolling with Vitya, their arms wrapped around each other, along a beach on the Baltic Sea, she listened with enormous sympathy and understanding to his every patriotic word:
“I am not a German. I am a Jew, and I am infinitely proud of that fact. I think about Palestine constantly! I love you Magda, but I also love the homeland of my ancestors, our historic motherland, Israel! I cannot give up either my love for you, or my love for my people! So why don’t we just take the plunge, and move to Israel as soon as we finish up school here!”
Magda, gazing with worshipful eyes at Vitya from Rovno, meekly nodded her consent:
“Yes! We’ll take the plunge! Of course we will! We’ll go to Israel! We’ll fight there together against those accused English!”
All the memories came flooding back as soon as she picked up the telephone and suddenly found herself hearing Victor’s familiar voice:
“May I speak with Magda Friedlaender?”
“You may speak with Magda Quandt.”
“You’re married?”
“Yes!”
“I dream of meeting you, Mrs. Quandt.”
“Tell me where to meet you, Victor, and I will be there.”
“The Hotel Adlon, on Unter den Linden.”
“You can expect me to be there in one hour.”
7.Sexual Magnetism
Only the rarest if sovereign women, and certainly not all empresses and queens, born in the harmonious interplay of beauty and intelligence, having received the best of educations, living in possession of all the attributes of power, have known and possessed in a physical reality the magical force of erotic magnetism. In recent history, the first ones to have mastered the art of controlling and directing that power have been film and television actresses. But only the most intelligent, the most passionate and the most exceptional beauties in their own right have been endowed with that enchanting, mysterious ability to captivate powerful and intelligent men from the very first look.
It was that very mysterious charm that the enchantress Magda possessed and commanded utterly. Over the forty-four years of her life, Johanna Maria Magdalena, out-of-wedlock daughter of a common Berlin house wench, lived under five different surnames: Behrend, Friedlaender, Rietschell, Quandt, Goebbels; she gave birth to seven children: one son and six daughters; she practiced five different religions in turn: Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Judaism, Hitlerism; she was a millionaires, a Zionist, a Nazi; she was the mistress of Victor Arlasaroff, one of the founding fathers of Israel – and of Herbert Hoover, nephew to the American President – and of Adolf Hitler, supreme Nazi leader, Reichskanzler of Germany’s Third Reich.
At the end of her life, she became a murderess.
With her own hands, she poisoned her six adorable little daughters, flesh of her own flesh: Helga, Hilda, Helmut, Hoelde, Hedda, Haide. And then she killed herself.
When they sifted the ashes of her corpse, in the pile of charred bones they found a shapeless little chunk of blackened gold – the Fuehrer’s own personal party insignia, their private emblem of eternal allegiance to each other, the last gift of the last enamored devil – and, naturally enough, the first symbol of their eternal allegiance in the zigzagged course of their capricious love. It was the only reminder left to confirm that the pile of filthy soot belonged to the first lady of Nazi Germany.
Naturally enough, two years before her wedding to Berlin’s own Gauleiter, Joseph Goebbels, Magda could not foresee the tragedy of her own destiny. But she could always predict when new amorous delights would be appearing on the horizon. These premonitions of sexual luxury to come all but worked wonders with her, by all accounts: her gait acquired the sensuous cadence of a serpent’s mesmerising journey; her eyes, full of deception, gave off voluptuous sparks; the mysterious smile of the Gioconda began to play upon her lips; her body seemed to overflow with intense erotic desire, yet, at the same time, it expressed the complete and irrevocable impossibility of being easily attained, that is the hallmark of the easy conquest.
Victor awaited her in a state of heightened sexual excitement. Fourteen years had passed since their last chaste kisses, but he could not forget the magnetic effect she had had on his responsive, susceptible youthful masculinity. Even the mere recollection of her instantly caused him to become visibly aroused to a degree that was indecent.
He had married long before. His daughter was six now. He lived in Palestine and had taken a new name, Haim. Officially, he was in Berlin for an international conference where he was representing the Mapai Party, on business pertaining to the Zionist movement, and travelling under a British diplomatic passport; but unofficially, in reality, he was being summoned back to the city of his youth by the love call, inaudible to others, of the enchanting Magda. He believed in the certainty of her coming. He stood on the sidewalk of the avenue, scrutinizing every passing expensive automobile, and carefully shielding the protruding fly of his fashionable narrow trousers with a newspaper. He missed seeing her red Mercedes approach. The luxury motorcar rolled right past him to the entrance, and drew up to a stop right in front of the crystal doors of the Hotel Adlon. She waved to him, her hand sheathed to the elbow in a white glove. Forgetting all about his diplomatic status, Victor came racing towards the car like a schoolboy, and courteously opened her door. He was burning up with impatience. She took note of his Levantine susceptibility, and held out her hand for him to kiss, according to the custom. As he bowed over it, he noticed a small note held out between her fingers. Without a word, she turned, the wide hem of her sweeping sky-blue dress swaying, and walked straight towards the entrance of the swanky hotel, known the world over for its stratospheric prices.
With shaking hands, Victor opened the note and read: “No. 235.”
He waited for a short time, and then flew inside, like a bullet, heading straight for the second floor. She was already waiting for him. The door was ajar. He came charging in without knocking, and a moment later they were breathlessly entwined in a dizzying French kiss. Carefully, he began to remove her dress. She did not resist.
8.New York
An aging jealous husband, even if he does not see it, will inevitably smell the faithlessness of a young wife. For some time, Guenther had not felt the yielding softness of Magda’s lips. She applied them to his own with the same degree of interest and pressure that women usually exhibit when touching their lips to the foreheads of the corpses of the elderly. This alarmed him: he began sniffing around her. Then, one evening, as he kissed Magda on the back of her head, he detected the scent of expensive cigars. He did not smoke; neither did Magda, ever. A furious rage came over him:
“Exactly who have you been fucking with?”
“I went to see my father.”
“Which one? The Jew or the Belgian?”
Magda couldn’t think of a riposte. She jumped up, acting outraged, and fled to her half of the house. It was perfectly clear to her that the divorce was inevitable.
Guenther walked into her bedroom, deflated, hunched over: “Never mind, then! Friday we sail for New York! Pack your things!”
“What? Where?” Magda asked, surprised.
“To the United States. We’ll talk once we get back. I have a number of important trade agreements to sign with some American companies. The tickets are already booked.”
The ocean voyage aboard the snowy white luxury liner Bremen dampened the heat of the Quandts’ domestic discord, somewhat. Guenther had underestimated the feminine cunning of his wife, however. In the grip of jealousy’s fever, raging, he had vowed that upon their return he would “cast out the faithless wife, drive her out into the streets without any financial support: “I’ll leave you standing in the clothes on your back!”
But it was not to be quite so simple to divorce the soon-to-be ‘darling of the Third Reich.’ Proud, distinguished, well-bred he might be, but he had not stumbled upon some brainless beauty…
The millionaire Quandt had a multitude of villas and estates. In one such love nest, she had discovered, hidden away in the tycoon’s writing desk, a collection of pornographic photo postcards from his youth. They immortalized the sexual escapades of Guenther in every conceivable genre and style. Magda brought these piquant snapshots with her on board the Bremen.
The ship was just passing the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World when Frau Quandt nonchalantly unlocked her personal sac de voyage and produced, seemingly without malice aforethought, a large, thick photo album bound in crocodile leather, revealing, as she opened it up before the very nose of her astounded husband, the peccadilloes of his riotous amorous heyday.
“There! See? Now, look, and don’t say a word: just listen closely, my darling!”
“That was a long time ago. It has no legal effect whatsoever!”
“ You think not? Dozens of reporters from the free press will be waiting for us at the New York pier. I’ll just give them these photos! Think anyone’ll still be interested in doing business with such a filthy German aristoctrat?”
“All right, you’ve made your point! You’re a real devil in a skirt! I’ll buy that from you! How much money do you want for it? I’ll make a check out right here and now! Tell me how much you want for it, in marks!”
“Oh, no, dear. I don’t ask. I demand what is rightfully mine, but not now. When we get back to Germany. I can’t live with you like this anymore. I will petition the courts for a divorce. And I only request, please, right here, that you stop making scenes, stop throwing these jealous fits. In the United States of America, I intend to lead the life of a free woman! So you just stay out of my way!”
One of the wealthiest men in all of Germany was afraid of becoming embroiled in a huge public scandal. “The German leather king,” Guenther Quandt agreed to give Magda back her freedom, plus an excellent financial settlement that would assure her comfort: 4000 Reichmarks each and every month for as long as she lived; a magnificent apartment to be bought for her in the center of Berlin; defrayal of all their son’s educational expenses; complete medical insurance; and the right for Frau Quandt to enter into any other marital union of her own free will, as she might please.
Husband and wife set foot on American soil satisfied with the terms of the agreement they had entered into. The personal interests of each side were safe.
The incomparable Magda flitted over New York like a glittering butterfly capable of discerning, from a passing glance, the hidden physical, financial, emotional potency of the famous males she encountered. Yet again she turned on, full blast, her magical erotic magnetism of aristocratic promiscuity while projecting the outward appearance of unattainability. The monumental success in America of her fellow countrywoman, Marlene Dietrich, consumed her with envy. Now that she had left Quandt, Magda embarked on a dedicated search for personal happiness among the ranks of the elite of the United States of America. “USA! Oh, what a vast, rich, as yet untilled field of male potential this is, for a German woman such as I am!” mused Magda, and smiled dreamily.
9.German Women in America
Across the silky surface of the waters of New York Harbor, like so many sacred scarab beetles, the Port Authority tugboats whistled, chugged, blew steam, churned the water, maneouvering, as if it were some precious ball of dung, the gigantic white-as-snow ship that had been named after the city famous for its minstrels, Bremen. Other historians, it is true, aver that the ocean liner had acquired the baggage of this name, renowned the whole over, in honor of the superb beer that originates in the same municipality. Whichever version one might lean to, everywhere in the luxurious restaurants of the ship, the hearing of its passengers was pandered to by its extraordinary musicians, while in its staterooms, suites and lounges the distinctively-shaped bottles of its bright German lager never ever ran out.
The tugboats continued to fuss anxiously around the enormous twin-stacked liner, struggling to haul up its carcass to the cement piers of the New York Ship Terminal by means of heavy thick steel cables. The passengers prepared to disembark on American soil, as they checked and rechecked the condition and safety of their baggage, their passports, the banknotes in their billfolds, the obligatory visas and entry documents, medical certificates…
The luxury class deck was uncrowded. Very Important Persons are different from the common man: their movements are unhurried; their speech hushed; their affairs in order. There is a general lack of agitation in their midst. The personnel that serves their needs – the cabin stewards, secretaries, dressers, valets, guards – stand by, watching trolleys laden with luggage, ready to respond instantly even to the barely perceptible turn of a lady’s, or gentleman’s, head. In his business travel, Guenther was accompanied by his personal secretary, Fritz Cross; as for Magda, she was getting by with just one of the ship’s stewardesses to assist her.
Many passengers had already caught sight of the familiar faces of family or friends, amongst the colourful crowd awaiting the arrival of the ship – but Magda had yet even to appear on the deck. Guenther turned his head to his secretary in annoyance:
“Hans, wo ist die Meine?”
“Einen Moment, bitte!” reacted the secretary, and rushed to her stateroom.
He was just preparing to knock on her polished-lacquer door, when Magdalena appeared upon its threshold.
Fritz did not immediately recognize Frau Quandt.
“Was its das?” Caught by surprise, his arms flew outward in a gesture of disbelief. “Unmoeglich!”
An improbably beautiful woman stood in the doorway leading to the stateroom. “Yes, undoubtedly, it must be Magda… But something about her bears a striking resemblance to someone else, someone everyone recognizes instantly. But whom?”
All at once it came to Fritz:
“Wait, that’s Marlene Dietrich!”
The stunning woman was not immediately recognized by her own husband, either. But he was careful not to give any indication of that fact.
* * *
Just before she sailed from Hamburg for New York, Frau Quandt went to see a new film everyone was talking about, Blonde Women, starring Marlene Dietrich as “Lola.”
Therafter, The Blue Angel left such a powerful impression on Magda, that she decided: “I will conquer America as myself, as I – Magdalena. But I will dress like Marlene!”
For a woman of her aristocratic circles, who knew her own worth, there was no possibility of simply putting on any kind of look – of decking herself out in the bits and pieces of some fashion or other that had caught her fancy. But an opportunity did present itself: the ocean voyage was sufficiently long, and the mammoth bowels of the Bremen contained an unbelievable number of restaurants, bars, cafes, musical lounges with or without dancing, cinemas, shops, as well as a considerable library with a comfortable reading lounge. This last feature in particular attracted Magda’s attention.
She began by perusing magazines and periodicals which featured photos with their news reports. She was looking for a suitable shot of Marlene. It was not such an easy image to locate. And yet, as the saying goes: “They who seek, also find!” Eureka! There it was, precisely what she wanted: Marlene, in a frivolous pose, wearing a beige suit, with a trendy hat perched sideways; in a shirt with French cuffs; the cuffs joined by gold cufflinks. And then, the most amazing element of all! A black scarf of soft satin with tiny white polka dots. It was this scarf, so casually thrown about the neck, that gave the whole look its specifically tender German charm! Without a second thought, Magda headed for the ship’s couture salon and commissioned a copy of Marlene’s outfit. Within four days, the Dietrich remake had been made to order, expertly tailored to Magdalena’s figure. But she was adept at keeping the secrets of her own choices and actions.
* * *
10.God Bless America!
At last the mighty hydraulic lifts had drawn the Bremen to its mooring. Broad gangways were lowered from the giant’s deck to the terra firma of the ‘New World.’ A Marine brass band, the maws of their Sousaphones blazing in the son, struck up God bless America.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam:
God bless America,
My home, sweet home!
Pandemonium had been unleashed. Joyful eyes overflowed with tears at long-awaited reunions. The terminal rang with the din of names in each and every language of the world being shouted at the top of the lungs. Hugs, slaps on the back, hearty handshakes, spontaneous snatches of song – the whole of it most nearly resembled one vast, festive Brazilian carnival. The raucous din, the extraordinary roar and uncontrollable self-expression of the multinational, colourful crowd amazed Magdalena:
“So many inferior people here!” she remarked to herself in wonder. “I’m not going to have an easy time of it here.”
Mr. and Mrs. Quandt were met by representatives of the German consulate. Ceremony and officiousness was the order of the day: flowers, bows, gallant assistance getting seated in the diplomatic automobile: “Willkommen! Bienvenus! Welcome to America!”
Everyone took particular note of Frau Quandt. The ambassador himself leaned closer to the tycoon, speaking softly into his ear:
“You have an absolutely staggering wife!”
“Oh, yes, she staggered me all right, absolutely, just this morning!” came Guenther’s sad reply.
* * *
Slowly but surely these two German women began their lightning-force intervention in the American scene. Marlene triumphed. Magda retreated. Both of them were at first glance mistaken for angels. Then, later, in the awareness of many they gradually underwent a transformation into the iconic figure of the Nordic vamp.
All manner of contradictory legends, rumors and gossip always shrouded their names. Common to both was their deliberate, determined, adamant, independent, conceited, assiduous shaping of their own image, eliciting by turn love and respect, or enmity and hatred. For millions of people, leach became an unattainable, mystical idol. But the differences between them rested only in the secrets of their distinctive feminine personalities. Magdalena worshipped men devoutly, and believed in them, as if they were gods. Marlene only believed in volcanic explosive passion, without regard for gender, time or space. They were born in the same year. Their doting parents had chosen for their precious daughters the same double name, Maria Magdalene – in honor of the great woman saint who was an eminent disciple of Jesus Christ. Yet they both chose to cast off the faith of their ancestors. Dietrich consciously combined her two Christian names, Maria and Magdalene, into a single word, arriving at: Marlene. The Communists of Germany insisted that Marlene had concocted her star’s name out of the names of Communism’s two fuehrers, Marx and Lenin. But, all jesting and conjecture aside, the life and death of these two charming women demonstrates that their souls had yielded to the vise-like grip of the occult: Marlene was enthralled with the kabbalah, while Magdalena submitted to Satanism. The one would live 91 years; the other, would be burned to ashes at 44. They were first destined to meet and become acquainted at a diplomatic reception given at the White House by the thirty-first President of the United States of America, Herbert Clark Hoover. But for now, flanked by an impressive escort of police on motorcycles, the limousine of Mr. Quandt, the German multimillionaire, having torn through Manhattan with sirens blaring, was gentling up to the entrance of the Commodore Hotel. Its monumental, antiquated building, with skyscrapers towering over it from all sides, stood as a reminder to its guests that New York City, the capital of the world, had been founded by Europeans.
“The Commodore, a commercial hotel for businessmen and conventioneers that never captured the loyalties of New Yorkers as a meeting place. It was perfectly located, but regarded as charmless and pedestrian inside.”
They moved into the Royal Suite.
Guenther left straight away to see about his business, while Magda decided go for a little stroll on the East Side. In contrast to Das Vaterland, here everything happened on the run: eating, drinking, lovemaking, marrying, fighting, raping, killing, thieving; steering the business of democracy and collapsing from cardiac arrests, from diabetes, quickly, instantaneously and irreversibly. But what was strangest of all was that the educated European inevitably succumbed to the rhythms of this cosmopolitan city, and almost imperceptibly adopted them as his own, falling in love with its vistas; developing an acceptance of its frustrations, humor, infrequent tears; emulating the style, mannerisms and character of its inhabitants.
* * *
Looking over her shoulder, Magda regained her composure and crossed the street, using the pedestrian overpass that lead towards signs reading GRAND CENTRAL STATION and AIRLINE TERMINALS.
Happenstance, having brought her thus far, seemed to be suggesting she seek her fortune in sunny California. Stumbling across the Office of Buffalo Central – the ticketing bureau for one of the biggest railway stations on the globe, she perused the timetables for trains bound in an easterly [???] direction. A clerk immediately approached:
“ May I help you?”
“ I am interested in the train for Los Angeles.”
“ Oh, yes! A most comfortable journey, indeed, with only one change of trains in San Francisco. Our special Empire State Express will be departing this coming Monday, at 2:10 p.m., from the city of Buffalo. If you like, we will be happy to take you personally directly to the train station at Buffalo Service. Would you like to purchase your tickets right now?”
“Please!”
“You’re certainly welcome!”
* * *
Magda booked her train ticket and paid for the special private limousne service that would deliver her to the Buffalo terminal. She then went straight back to the Royal Suite, also known as the Deluxe King Rooms at the Commodore Hotel. As soon as she had shut the door, the phone rang. It was Guenther on the line:
“ Good day, Ma! The President of the German Imperial Bank, Jalmar Schacht, arrives in the US tomorrow. The White House is hosting an official state dinner with the entire diplomatic corps. Since we aren’t divorced yet, I’m asking you, my dear, that you attend this reception with me and play the part of my loving and devoted wife.”
“ For our Great Germany, darling, I’m ready to do anything!”
“ Please don’t mock! This is serious.”
“And I’ve made up my mind to visit Los Angeles, to see my Aunt Rosalie, who lives there. I’ve booked a ticket for Monday on the Western Express!”
“Now that’s just great. I’m quite fed up with you, you know!”
“ Don’t be such a boor, husband! We’re part of the diplomatic corps now, remember?”