The Artist’s Muse. Kerry Postle

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 make me feel good to read over what has happened – but I can’t. No. I’ll not give this story a sugar coating, lay claim to an innocence that experience has already tarnished with its guilt-stained hands

      Bitterness. That’s its true taste. And if you have a daughter who’d never think or say what I commit to paper, pray she never has to endure what I have had to endure. Because if she does you’ll soon hear a change in her voice.

      We are out of work again.

      That night in bed, as I cuddle the sleeping Olga on one side and Frieda on the other, the atmosphere is dead calm. Katya is still awake, pretending to read in the corner because she doesn’t know what to say to me. Nor I to her. And so there we are, silently listening. No rain, nor wind to disguise the hysterical sounds of our mother falling apart in the other room.

      ‘So what am I to do, Frau Wittger? I have no strength left. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to protect them. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid girls. And after what I’ve done I might never get decent work again. She’ll end up on the streets. They all will. Oh my lovely stupid girls, what will become of them?’

      Katya and I, scorched souls silently screaming in the next room, cry tears that run over the molten lava of our mother’s love.

      As I listen to Frau Wittger console my mother while she sobs, I wish I’d been strong enough to let Herr Bergman give me what he thought I’d like. If my mother’s to be believed, somebody’s going to give it to me anyway.

      ‘There, there, dear. There, there. You need to sleep. Believe me, things won’t look so bad in the morning. Your Wally’s a good girl. None of this is her fault. Nor yours either. I’m not promising anything yet but I think I know how we can get over this. Your Wally’s a good girl, and a pretty one. But I think I’ve got a way to make that work for her. Again not promising anything but fingers crossed this could work out well for all of you. Now off you go to bed.’

      Mother sleeps on the floor that night, the noose so tight around her neck the next morning her eyes are bulging.

      Shot to bits by grief, pain, misfortune, and the challenge of bringing up girls in a city full of predators, Mama’s on the brink of giving up. And who could blame her for that? Not I. But I won’t. I won’t give up. Not ever. I will be strong and do whatever it is Frau Wittger has in mind.

Chapter 3

      It’s Tuesday the 5th of November, 1907, and nine months since we turned up at Frau Wittger’s door and gave her something to worry