Lisi’s look was hateful. “Over my dead body.”
Annamarie forced herself to be cheerful. “So, Lisi, what are you playing now?”
“Jessie Damm in The Great Unknown.”
Sepp slurred, “She’s the unsuspected suspect.”
Annamarie hesitated, and Lisi narrowed her eyes.
“Axel Ivers?” Lisi checked. “It was a film too?”
Annamarie smiled meekly, wishing for more water.
Franz refilled her schnapps glass from a flask, and her stomach churned. Sepp was leaning on her shoulder, obviously drunk or so desperate to crawl into Lisi’s lap, he was prepared to go over Annamarie to get there. She shrugged her shoulder hard, but to no avail.
“What else?” she asked Lisi.
“Well…” Lisi dragged out the word as if there were so many she could not count. “I played Polly in The Threepenny Opera.”
Sepp leaned in, booming, “First the grub!”
Two other boys at the table looked up and finished with him, “Then the morality!”
Lisi clapped slowly, but this time her laugh was stilted. She scowled as she lit another cigarette. Then she scrutinised Annamarie, decided something, and leaned in, voice low. “Bertolt Brecht? Surely you know at least him? My goodness, do you even go to the theatre? Mind you, Brecht is as left as you can go without falling off the earth, but these idiots”—she jabbed her cigarette at the air around them—“don’t know that. They interpret what they want when they want. I know. I grew up with all of these boys here. I’m their main source of entertainment.” She laughed abruptly. “That ought to tell you something.”
Annamarie smiled back.
“Sometimes,” Lisi said, leaning in even closer, “I’m afraid of them. But what’s a girl to do? Our chancellor abandoned us. These boys? Except for Sepp, who’s got his own agenda, they’re here on a power-feeding frenzy.” She leaned back, exhaled, and grinned. “This too shall pass.”
Annamarie tried again. “You like films? Have you ever seen anything with Myrna Loy?”
Lisi shuddered dramatically. “I’m a stage actress, dear, not a film star. Real art. For the real people.”
“Lisi, Annamarie is an actress,” Franz shouted over the noisy party. “Did she tell you that?”
“Are you?” Lisi exclaimed. She looked Annamarie over. “Where?”
“Nowhere,” she sputtered. “At the moment, I mean. I’m looking for work.”
The big man, the one who always called for the barmaid, elbowed Franz next to him. “I’ve got some ideas on how she could earn her keep.”
Another one, with a mean mouth, said to Annamarie. “What are you? Jewish?”
Annamarie shook her head. “Not at all.”
“Couldn’t tell with that dark hair. Dark skin.”
Sepp said loudly, his eyes drooping as if he was fighting to keep them open, “Her name is Thaler. That’s not Jewish. At the very most, she might pass off as Italian.”
Mean Mouth shrugged. “All they’re good for anyway, to dip your whistle in.”
Lisi groaned. “Shut your trap, Simon. I mean it. Franz, rein your man in there, will you?”
Franz made to punch Mean Mouth Simon, but instead reached up and tousled his hair, laughing while Simon sulked.
Lisi turned back to Annamarie. “So where do you come from?”
Annamarie swallowed. She was trapped. She would never be able to redeem herself, but Sepp said, “Nauders, she’s from Nauders.”
Lisi scoffed, her eyes crinkling. “How sweet. Young too. What are you? Sixteen?”
“Nineteen.” Annamarie’s tongue was really loose. She needed air. Time to figure out her story. Could she even pass for nineteen?
“Really? And what experience have you had then? Besides productions held in some farmer’s stable?”
“There you go,” Sepp said, looking dead serious. “She could go to the Breinößlbühne.”
Someone laughed. Annamarie could not be sure whether anyone else could even hear their conversation. Her face got hot.
“I…uh…” She couldn’t say she’d acted in Bolzano and certainly not with a Fascist party production. “Never mind.”
“Come now,” Lisi cooed. She reached over and squeezed Annamarie’s hand. “You’re obviously interested in film. Do you sing? Do you dance?”
Annamarie nodded, but she swallowed hard.
“Don’t let me get the best of you, dear,” Lisi said. “I can be such a snob. Besides, we all need to be thick skinned in this business. Listen, I’ve got a friend. She’s in a cabaret troupe. Maybe they could use a backup singer or something. Either way, I’ll get you an audition. Of course, we’ll have to find you something more inspiring to wear than that drab dress of yours.”
Annamarie looked down, her face hot, her head clouded.
“However…” Lisi tucked a finger under Annamarie’s chin and lifted her head until they had eye contact. “Don’t imagine you can just walk into the State Theatre and ask for a role, dear. That’s for professionals only. You need years of training. But the cabaret? You got to start somewhere, and it’s a good way to get into film, if any. Are you funny at all?”
Annamarie was taken aback. Funny? Was she comical? Impressions. She had always been good at making impressions. She could take on the mannerisms of her father, and she had made her classmates roar with laughter when she imitated old Mrs Foglio at the chalkboard. She had acted her way through Bolzano—through life—hadn’t she? And what of her impression of Benito Mussolini? She glanced around the pub and finally spotted something she could use.
Annamarie rose from her seat, got the bartender’s attention, and gestured to a large, round empty tin on the counter behind the bar. “May I borrow that?”
He lifted it. “This? It’s empty.”
“It’s perfect.”
She grabbed her black woollen scarf, wrapped it around the five-litre can, and tucked the ends in. After examining it, she placed it on top of her head and balanced it as she carefully went back. She stood at the end of the tables in the open space. Then Annamarie puffed out her chest, put her arms on her hips, and jutted
