Read Marlene for Free Online Page B

fall, lank and in dire need of a wash, but with a more pronounced coppery tint than in my childhood.
    “Do you really think I’m . . . ?” I met my grandmother’s gaze in theglass. She had been beautiful once. Everyone said so. The portraits on the staircase landing attested to it. One of the most beautiful women in Berlin. The vestiges of her beauty lingered under her crepelike skin, in the glow of her plum-colored eyes and immaculate coiffure, now streaked with silver. When I was a child, Oma had been the most sublime being I knew, an apparition of elegance in her appliquéd coats and dresses from Paris; her feathered hats from Vienna; and her Italian gloves made to measure, fastened by tiny mother-of-pearl buttons—with everything saturated in her lilac parfum.
    “You are,” she said. “A beautiful young girl. Lift your skirt for me.”
    Though her request was odd, we were alone. Why not? She surveyed me with frank appraisal, her gaze roving behind her spectacles. “You have my legs.” She chortled. “Or my legs when I was your age. Legs like ours can make fortunes, Liebchen .”
    “You never showed off your legs, Oma!”
    “Not where anyone but my admirer could see,” she replied. “I think it’s time I showed you what you would look like if Josephine, bless her heart, wasn’t so preoccupied with propriety and this tedious war.”
    Liesel was napping. From the moment we’d arrived at our grandmother’s house, my sister had collapsed, betraying the fact that her fortitude had been for Mutti’s sake. Surely, there could be no harm in a little fun?
    “Go to my closet.” She gestured to the carpeted area separating her dressing area from her bedroom, where racks of garments in silk and satin, velvet, wool, linen, and cloth of gold hung over bureaus crammed with Brussels lace undergarments—chemises, petticoats, corsets, and stockings. “Go on,” she urged when I hesitated. “Choose something. You are right that you have our Felsing blood. You are almost the same height and weight as I was at sixteen.”
    “Not the same weight,” I countered. “I’ve lost too much.”
    “Just enough.” She sniffed. “You were getting rather fat, if I recall. All those cream cakes from the confiserie . This new diet of sawdust and turnips might be the cure for our overweight matrons. Look at me. Though I’m almost sixty-three, I’ve not gained an ounce.”
    “Not because you subsist on turnips.” I laughed.
    I selected an evening gown of gray silk chiffon draped over blue silk, with a fitted bodice, pleated cap sleeves, and a long skirt embroidered with beads. As I turned to her with the dress in hand, she sighed. “Ah. My Worth. He hand-fitted it for me at his Paris atelier. What a perfectionist. He oversaw every detail—and he charged for it, too. Try it on.”
    As I turned my back to her, she said irritably, “What is this prudishness? Are you in my home or Josephine’s? There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Your body is a gift from God, not something you must be ashamed of.”
    Having undressed before my sister all my life, I decided this was much the same. I unhooked my worn-out dress and let it slip to my ankles.
    “What are you wearing?” Oma might require spectacles, but her horror was unfeigned. “What is that . . . hideous thing?”
    I glanced down at my all-in-one knit underwear. “Drawers,” I said.
    She shuddered. “No, no. You cannot wear your first Worth over those ghastly bloomers. It’ll ruin the line. Fetch a chemise and corset from the drawer, and stockings as well.”
    Once I managed to position the corset, I had to return to her on her settee and stand still while she laced me up. It was so tight, I could barely breathe.
    “I’m not sure—”
    “If you feel as if you might faint, it’s perfect,” she said. “Fetch the dress.”
    As I stepped past the mirror, I caught a glimpse of myself—svelte, my skin chalky under the sheer chemise, the satin corset with its rosebud