Free Marlene by C. W. Gortner Page A

deflowering a girl on his classroom floor. I wanted to laugh at his contrition. How foolish he was. Hecould lie to me, to my mother, to his wife and the school at large, yet when he got what he wanted, he could only feel remorse. Like a child, I thought, who regrets breaking a cherished toy after he played with it too roughly.
    “Don’t resign because of me.” I unlocked the door. “I’ll never tell.”
    SO IT BEGAN.
    His shame ran its course; overcome by desire, he resumed my private instruction. And at his home whenever his wife went away to visit relatives, he bedded me. He was tender; he had a musician’s sensitivity, easily stoked. He played me as if strings vibrated beneath my flesh and taught me more than he ever could in the classroom. I learned I was not different. I was like every other girl. I had the same sensations and urges, the same hunger. And without realizing it, I began to see the fragility he carried inside him like an old wound.
    One time, he took up my violin—which had cost my mother 2,500 marks, a fortune that reproached me every time I locked it in its case and took him inside me—and he proceeded to coax from it a sonata of such pathos, such exquisite perfection, that he brought me to tears.
    “You are a maestro,” I told him, clutching my hands to my chest.
    He sighed. “No. I could have been. I loved this more than anything, but I gave it up—for marriage and respectability, for tenure and an income. I surrendered my soul.”
    He reminded me of poems by Goethe, of the melancholy we kept tethered because we were German and must not reveal weakness. With his thick dark hair tangled about his lined brow, silvery threads glinting in its depths, his mournful eyes and downcast mouth, which suckled me like a boy at his mother’s teat—he was so beautiful, so anguished, I could not help but fall in love.
    Or, what I thought must be love.
    For he was right about one thing. I was still barely a woman.

III
    B ertha suspected, and grilled me until I told her. The affair had emboldened me. I bobbed my hair, wore tighter sweaters, shortened my hems further, and rolled up my stockings. Forbidden sweets and cigarettes were no longer enough. I wanted to experience life beyond the boardinghouse and the conservatory, to explore Weimar itself, where under its stately veneer its boulevardier heart teemed with insouciance.
    At my instigation, Bertha and I skipped classes and sneaked out with the boys to the beer gardens, the cafés, or local kinos. On sticky seats while the flickers played, I let the boys creep their hands down my dress to fondle my breasts—but no further. In my own way, I stayed faithful to Reitz, who knew how to avoid pregnancy. He used his French letters, made sure never to spill inside me, while the boys’ hot pleas and clumsy gropes betrayed that they had less experience than I did. I learned the new American dances, kicking up my heels in grimy saloons to blaring saxophones. And while I danced, smoked, and guzzled schnapps, the world transformed. The old order crumbled as a revolutionary artistic movement dubbed the Bauhaus ripped down our pastel mask to construct a sleek minimalist facade. A new constitution gave birth to our Weimar Republic, providing all the necessary oratory and none of the stability.
    Yet in the midst of the upheaval, I remained careful. One mistake and I could find myself in trouble. Bertha warned me repeatedly that I risked disaster, consorting with a married professor, but I assured her I was taking precautions and had no illusions. While Reitz never mentioned his wife, except to cite whether she was at home, her very presence was an obstacle I could not breach. He also had a son and a daughter, I discovered from the pictures on his mantel, his son close to me in age; he rarely mentioned them, either, but his silence was enough. I had no idea if his marriage was happy or if he still loved his wife, but I knew it was not happy or loving enough. And he made