Chapter Forty-One
Dmitri had only seen Rosa in her tight black-and-white waitress’s uniform so he was somewhat taken aback when she met him for their dinner date wearing her own rather eccentric clothes. Her frock of a yellow and purple pattern was a couple of sizes too large, as if she had borrowed it from her grandmother’s wardrobe then belted it round the hips so it didn’t fall down. She wore strings of multi-coloured beads round her neck and multiple bracelets that clattered as she moved her arm, while on her head there was a cloche hat with a knitted purple flower attached. When he looked closely, he saw there was a knitted bee inside the flower. It was like a parody of the flapper style worn in the more expensive clubs of Charlottenburg, but somehow it worked. While they talked, her dress slipped down to reveal the creamy flesh of her shoulder and she ignored it for a while before pulling it up with a wink.
They ate in a medium-priced restaurant, and he ordered steak for them both, followed by a rather good apfeltorte. Rosa asked about his life in Russia but he didn’t feel like talking about that, so instead he questioned her about her own background. Born in the countryside, she said she had always longed to swap the sound of cows outside her bedroom window for the traffic and bustle of the city. She moved to Berlin when she was eighteen and shared a tiny apartment with three other girls, one of whom was her cousin, a dancer. She was now twenty-one and she loved dancing, eating good food, and meeting new people. Especially people.
‘So you enjoy waitressing?’ Dmitri asked.
She wrinkled her nose. ‘For now. The tips are good, but some customers are rude. They look down on me for the job I do without knowing anything about me. I could be a ballerina or a scientist, an artist or a pearl diver, but they don’t see past the uniform to my magnificent brain and sparkling personality.’ She flung her arms out dramatically like a compére at a cabaret announcing the star guest.
Dmitri laughed. ‘Tell me then, what are you?’
She cocked her head to one side and thought before answering. ‘I don’t entirely know yet, but I like looking after people. I want to have dozens of babies one day; hundreds of them.’
‘I sincerely hope you achieve your ambition.’
‘Well, at least I can have fun trying,’ she twinkled.
Dmitri marvelled at the freedom of this woman’s life, so unlike those of women in Russia. She could do what she wanted, say what she felt without fear of repression. It was refreshing.
After dinner they strolled through Charlottenberg, which she told him Germans were now calling Charlottengrad because of the high percentage of Russian immigrants.
‘How did you learn to speak such fluent Russian?’ Dmitri asked, because that was the language they conversed in, although she sometimes switched to English mid-sentence if she didn’t know a word.
‘I picked it up as I went along. You’ll find I’m very chatty. Some cruel folk say it’s hard to shut me up.’
‘Would you like to come back to my apartment?’ he asked.
‘That sounds mar-r-vellous,’ she replied in English, rolling her ‘r’ with a broad smile.
Soon after climbing the stairs, they were undressing each other and jumping into Dmitri’s bed. Rosa made love enthusiastically and expertly, rolling him over onto his back so she could sit on top. It was clear she was not a virgin and afterwards, he rather ungallantly asked about her previous lovers.
‘There was just one before you,’ she said. ‘He was also Russian. I liked him but he disappeared one day and several weeks later I got a postcard from Paris. He said he thought Bolshevik spies were following him and had to flee. I don’t know if it was true or not.’
‘You didn’t want to join him in Paris?’
‘He didn’t ask,’ she said in a small voice, and Dmitri felt compassion for her.
‘I apologise on behalf of my countryman,’ he said. ‘He was a fool to lose you.’
She turned and kissed him on the mouth, an urgent kiss that moved him deep down inside.
The next day, while he worked on his novel, Rosa went to the market and bought a cheap cut of meat and some vegetables from which she produced a delicious pot of stew. They ate bowls of it for lunch, along with big chunks of bread, and before leaving to start her shift in the café she even cleaned his bathroom. She hummed as she worked so Dmitri didn’t feel the need to stop her; or at least when the thought passed through his mind he was able to overrule it.
‘Will I see you later?’ she asked as she pulled on her coat.
A little warning bell rang in Dmitri’s head. He didn’t want to feel an obligation towards her. But at the same time, she was a cheerful soul and it was pleasant having her around. Besides, he could hardly say no after all she had done for him.
‘I’ll pick you up after your shift,’ he said, kissing her goodbye. As soon as the door shut, he went back to his novel.
Before long Dmitri and Rosa slipped into a pattern of sleeping together three or four evenings a week. On her night off, she liked to drag him along to the Eldorado nightclub, which had opened in Charlottenburg earlier that year. Her cousin worked there so they could usually secure a good table from which to watch the transvestite dancers, the striptease artists and the comedy burlesque acts. Rosa often got up to dance on the tiny dance floor and Dmitri laughed to watch her in her oversized frocks, like a little girl playing at being grown-up. She mimicked movie stars with flirtatious flicks of her hemline, her mouth rounded in pretend shock at her own audacity.
Berlin couldn’t have been less like the high society of St Petersburg with its unbreakable rules and strict formality. Dmitri didn’t think he had ever seen a homosexual man in Russia – perhaps they did not exist; perhaps it was not in the national character – but here they were everywhere. He felt a little uncomfortable around them, not sure how to talk to them so that they would know he wasn’t available. He’d often slip his arm around Rosa’s waist to be doubly sure they got the message.
Sometimes, after making love with Rosa, Dmitri lay awake feeling guilty about his affair. He was a married man; he should not be in bed with another woman. How could he be happy when his wife was missing? But there was no question that if Tatiana appeared one day he would quietly explain the situation to Rosa and beg her forgiveness for leading her on. He would have no hesitation in choosing between them.
Dmitri often asked Burtsev, his editor, if there was any further news of Anna Tschaikovsky. It seemed she had left Baron von Kleist’s apartment some time in the autumn and returned to hospital with a range of ailments that required medical treatment. She was not staying at the Dalldorf Asylum this time but at the Westend Hospital in Charlottenburg, not far from his apartment.
One evening, he asked Rosa if she ever heard any customers in the café talking about her, and straight away she replied: ‘No, but my friend Klara is a nurse at Westend. She tells me Anna Tschaikovsky is very timid and barely talks to anyone. She has a badly infected arm.’
Dmitri stared at her, eyes wide with excitement. ‘Do you think your friend would be able to get me into the hospital to see her? Can you ask?’
Rosa seemed surprised at the intensity with which he spoke. ‘Yes, of course, I’ll call on her tomorrow if it means so much to you.’
‘Thank you.’ He squeezed her hand tighter than he had meant to and she flinched.
Chapter Forty-Two
Berlin, January 1923
It transpired that Rosa’s friend Klara was unwilling to help Dmitri sneak into the hospital to spy on their famous patient.
‘It could cost her her job,’ Rosa explained.
‘I’ll make sure it doesn’t. Please – you have to convince her.’ Dmitri was determined. ‘Won’t you try again?’