Dark-haired, pale-complexioned females…Just as the Vienna of the day might have been created as a frame for Lucretia von Wolff, so, too, might Lucretia von Wolff have been created specifically for the film-makers.
It happened because of Conrad – Alice thought that everything in her life of any real importance happened because of Conrad – who was approached by a well-known German studio to write background music for two films. Music was important for setting a mood, for creating an atmosphere, they explained, as seriously as if Conrad would not know this. Someone at the studios had attended Conrad’s last concert, and had said why should they not secure the gifts of this rising young composer. Why not indeed?
Conrad was delighted to be approached, although he would not admit it. He told Alice that he was being offered an entirely contemptible sum for his beautiful compositions: did these plebeians, these groundlings, believe him to be a machine to churn out beautiful music at a button-press?
‘Press of a switch,’ said Alice, more or less automatically. ‘Will you do it?’ she asked, and Conrad hunched a shoulder and looked at her from the corners of his eyes like a mischievous child who knows it is being clever, and said he might as well. But the money was still an insult to an artist, he said, although to Alice, still juggling the damson frock with the black, the money seemed a very large amount indeed.
He shut himself away for several weeks, but when he emerged (a little thinner from not always bothering to eat, smudgy shadows around his eyes from fatigue and concentration), he was perfectly right about the music being superb. The film-makers were delighted with it, and they were delighted, as well, with the sultry baroness who appeared to be the composer’s frequent companion – it was best, perhaps, not to inquire too deeply into the precise nature of this companionship. They were all men of the world, yes?
They beamed at Alice across a table at the Café Sacher, which was where Conrad took them to celebrate, but which Alice, managing not to blink at the menu, thought might cost him most of the film-makers’ fee. (She had worn the damson gown for the occasion, and had added a narrow black velvet throat-band which was a new idea, and already being copied.)
The film-makers studied Lucretia, at first covertly and then, since she appeared not to notice their regard, more openly. There was the dark hair that was so much admired these days, and the smooth magnolia complexion. Very alluring. And would the baroness perhaps find it entertaining to see the inside of their studios? A very short journey – a car would of course be sent. And – perhaps while she was there, she might agree to a test for the screen? An experiment, an hour or so of amusement for her, probably nothing more.
This was unexpected. Alice thought: Do I want to do their screen-test? I don’t suppose anything will come of it, but I think I’d better agree, because those two frocks won’t last for much longer, and there’re other things to be bought. Underwear, shoes, food…And I won’t ask Conrad for money; I’ll hate it and it’ll put me under an obligation to be grateful to him, and I won’t do it.
And so Lucretia took the screen test, staring with seductive insolence into the camera lens, and the results were pronounced to be dazzling.
A film called Alraune – the story of a girl born in macabre circumstances, growing up with the burden of a dark legacy, growing up to be a wanton – went into production.
In the village where Alice had been a child, they had sometimes played games of Let’s Pretend. Let’s dress up and pretend to be somebody else for a while. I’ll be the queen or the empress, and you can be the servant, and for a few hours we’ll believe it’s real. Like that old poem, ‘When I was a King in Babylon, and you were a Christian slave…’