Now Ulrike remembers her inability to breathe, like you remember your grandmother’s birthday: you splash some rosewater on a card, put it in an envelope, drop the envelope in the nearest postbox, and there’s your happy birthday liebe Bettina! Something very strange is happening. Rosa, obviously, has bodily reached the heart of the mystery. Like a plaster statue, Rosa the White is still visible against the white background if you look carefully. She seems to stare at them calmly, devoid of any panic. From her eyes they can tell that consciousness remains behind her apparent stasis.
Rosa really is now one with the substance surrounding them!
Ulrike decides to take a risk. What does she have to lose? If she could choose—and why can’t she, since she still has her own free will?—she would much rather be with tranquil Rosa than these other women. So Ulrike opens her mouth. She feels how, by only the force of will, with no air current, sound comes out, her very own voice, now metallic, electrical:
Oooon . . .
And instantly there is a terrible, nearly simultaneous wave of horror around her:
No!
Non!
Non, s’il te plaît, non!
But why not? There is no reason why not! They can each finally move on. Suddenly Ulrike has no fear. It is the courage of Fräulein Kehlsteinhaus, a madcap, hysterical bravado that everyone loved (except for bitter old maids). So why not indeed? Like a dung beetle, her lack of fear rolls a growing, hardening feeling beneath articulated legs, a knowledge that however she has done it, Rosa Imaculada has moved forward. Rosa has reached enlightenment. The calm of her death-mask expression conceals within itself everything that matters. Her waxwork face closes the gate of knowledge before them. Ulrike is sure of that. Ulrike knows that Rosa is traveling somewhere. She can see Rosa grinning at them through her matt membrane: Come with me if you dare! But no. They prefer to stand here, gawping at each other. Soon they will go back to fiddling with the wig, apathetic as wilted rutabagas. God, it is exasperating!
Ulrike opens her mouth again and utters the most obvious fact that separates Rosa Imaculada from the other women: Rosa really showed her feelings! Rosa shouted when she felt like shouting, smiled when she felt like smiling, showed her fears without restraint and her joys without calculation. Rosa had let it rip even though it had often been irritating for the other women to watch. Was this Rosa Imaculada’s secret? Was this why she had been allowed to escape this place?
Or had Rosa’s transition been a prize for the best acting? Her gesticulation must have been at least partially theatrical, because big feelings shrank here. Ulrike had already experienced that personally. Her own horror had shriveled and vanished too quickly. And her lack of fear, her Fräulein Kehlsteinhaus bravado was just a nimble creature with segmented legs. It wasn’t her own, like the horror and inconsolability were. It just appeared from somewhere, from outside, and started rolling things up underneath itself. It was lacking in history. Empty of big emotions. And besides, it only knew command words: Go. Do. Say. Be direct.
A sudden longing for Rosa strikes Ulrike. Rosa had held her in her arms. Rosa had pressed her against herself, very instinctively, just as mothers who love their children do. Some mothers. Not all. Not the ones who are jealous of their daughters instead of loving them. Some mothers are sowers of discord. Some mothers are worn out and cantankerous. Some mothers are simply unable to discuss anything rationally with a toxic wave of envy washing over them. How small they are then! When she mentioned the name Ulrich B. Zinnemann at home, when she told her parents about U.B.Z.’s ambitious, uncompleted film project, when she told them about Scott Walker, who created music by beating his fists against raw meat, her mother, her very own mother, standing at the sink, wrinkled her nose. She slumped as if someone had pressed down on her shoulders. And as if the bitter lemon expression weren’t enough, her mother also had to give a snort and huff: “Oh, so your new coworker at the Eagle’s Nest is an aaaartiste.” And as if the huff weren’t enough, her mother had to go on huffing: “Just be careful, little girl. Aaaartistes, especially failed aaaartistes, can be unpredictable!”
It didn’t help things at all that her father took her side, as fathers often do, because it is the duty of fathers to defend their beautiful daughters when mothers attempt to put them down. That was why Ulrike’s father pulled out of the mothballs of his mind a tidbit of information: Ulrich B. Zinnemann’s fifteen-year-old film War Painting, which received an award at the Chicago International Film Festival. It was a marvelous directorial debut! A strong showing from a first-timer. U.B.Z. had given statements to every German-language paper, and there had even been talk of a collaboration with Werner Herzog. What ever happened to that project? Had Herr Zinnemann told Ulrike anything about it?
Those mothers who don’t want to pull together with their daughters completely lose their minds when they discover their spouse choosing a side that isn’t their side, instead the opposing side, the disobedient daughter’s side. The girl’s enthusiasm needed crushing not fanning! Didn’t he see that? An ugly fact had been shoved under their noses: their daughter was going to end up being used. Why on earth would a man who was nearly thirty years her senior devote so much time to a scatterbrained teenager? What drives failed aaaartistes who press elevator buttons for a living? Tell me that!
The mother, Ulrike’s very own bitter mother, sent a scowl scorched in the
