Autobiographie von Aiden O'Callahan

Artiste

Vienna January 23rd 1970

I think it is time to finally write this and get rid of the weight of the past, which is heavy and it threatens to suffocate me, even though I don't even breath any more. I stopped breathing in 1933, but still I live. Now ladies and gentleman, in assumption, that somebody might read this when I am long since gone. When I am erased from the world, judged for my sins, which are plenty. I might look like an innocent lad. But I'm not. I'm way older than I seem, since the kiss caught me young.
I also might look not that dangerous. But be certain, I am.
I hold the ace. Nobody expects me to be what I am.
Sill, I'm going ahead of myself, ahead of this story.
Let's begin this where it's suppose to begin.
I'm going to tell you my life, which is ironical in and of itself.
I've been born into a wealthy family. My father was an Irish diplomat.
I was his only son and my mother had me late in life.
I glimpsed the world's light on March 13th 1913.
I could bore you now with all this stuff that I had a humanistic education and found my favour for art early.... blahblahblah.... No. This is not necessary.
First of all, do never pity me.
I hate pity. Pity is for the defeated. I'm not defeated.
I'm strong. Ever was, always will be.
I was abducted in Vienna, when my father was doing his duty there. We were sent to Vienna when I was eight years old. So I may say, even though English is my mother tongue, Vienna is my home. I don't even remember living in Dublin any more.
I was abducted when I was seventeen, means 1928.
For to put pressure on my father. It didn't work, because the letter my abductors had written never reached him. I was one of many disappearances in that time. That my father was an important Irish diplomat didn't hurt any.
And so as my father didn't pay for my release from captivity, my abductors were too much of cowards to kill me. I killed them later when I became what I am now, in order to finally forget their faces. I can't stand closed doors, they make me go insane.
I must smile when I remember bathing in their blood.
However. They sold me.
I was sold around like I wasn't human but something so worthless people spit at me, as if I was something disgusting...
I ended up in a theatre.
One of my 'owners' which I killed, later, as well, noticed that I had a beautiful voice... And well... they made that it was kept that way. The fantasy of the reader may play the part here, which I refuse to describe.
The owner of the theatre bought me for a price which must have been so inexplicably low that he thought he made the deal of his life. However.
Life at this theatre wasn't good.
Instead of roses and warm beds, only a pallet waited for me to sleep on. And if I was lucky something to eat.
This continued for four years. I will not whine about this time, it's not the way I am.
But then in that fateful night in the year of 1932 , in winter. I met the women who 'made' me.
Therese d'Orleans. A French woman who had lived on Vienna for almost a century, which I hadn't known in that time.
I had sung the Cherobino in the opera: The wedding of Figaro. Which is still my favourite opera.
She saved me.
She made me what I am in a blind dash of lust, though.
But I don't hate her... I like what I am... I owe her my life and still...
I am tortured night after night, since the day I became what I was, that I am worthless. A being only defining itself by art. Empty.
After all... we're all damned... Aren't we?

Artiste Chapter 1

24th of January 1970, Vienna

This story begins as most do. With a lad who had no idea of how the world worked, until it struck him with all its might.
Right into heart and head.
Well I guess I should be a more thankful host and give you a little more information than I have given you the last time you read a piece from me.
That's precisely why I will go back to the story at a point far before the one where the Prologue of this... book, in lack of a better word, started.
Let me tell you about what happened before and awhile my abduction in Vienna.
As already mentioned my parents came to Vienna when I was seven years old, a cheery lad... though I've always been a little strange, if that is what you can call it... I never had quite a favour for children of my age. Where other boys went to play in the dirt, I stood neatly at my mothers side, preferring to read or some-such things.
I was an atypical child, but being atypical is an indicator for a highly developed intellect.
Well and there I was. I spoke English and German fluently, French with difficulties and learned Latin in school. A shining and nice youth in the Vienna of the roaring twenties followed.
I adored the twenties.
I learned early that my favour wasn't meant for women, which though didn't keep me from flattering them with charming words and impeccable manners of a lad, educated and schooled in nobility.
No my favour were men.
There were quite few expressing their favour for the same gender openly, that's why most people are more than surprised when I reach that degree of honesty with them. I mimed their behaviour.
That was when I met Wilhelm.
Wilhelm was twenty-two and I was sixteen.
My parents, for the blasted heaven's sake, had no conflicts with me, being what I was, not that my father knew, but think what you will, a mother does.
And they gave me much freedom, as long as I didn't compromise the position of the family or my father with inappropriate behaviour.
I was free to attend in art and to spend nights in the lively streets of Vienna. I was allowed to sleep long in the mornings, as long- and there follows the regimentation- as I didn't overdo it, and continued to learn, to one day inherit my father's position as the Irish ambassador in Vienna.
Well, back to Wilhelm- Wilhelm was stunning, he came from Munich to Vienna to attend at the institute for acting in Vienna.
And god help me, though I don't believe in him, he was a genius.
I saw him for the first time, when I was watching a staging of Don Carlos by Schiller. The students of the academy had produced that by themselves and it was so impressive, that it is still the best staging of the piece I can recall, and I've seen quite many.
Wilhelm played the Marquis of Posa- and I've never seen such a performance.
I reckon that not all of you are familiar with the dramatis persona of the Marquis, are you?
Well for the philistines who don't- The Marquis of Posa is the hero of the piece of Don Carlos if you may say so. It's obvious that Schiller used to identify with Carlos at the beginning of the play, but his sympathy changes, and he starts to identify with Posa somewhere in the middle.
This has two reason's: 1) Carlos baths in self-pity because he is unhappily in love and such and he has conflicts with his father, the king of Spain... blahblah.. all in all a rather blank figure with no appeal for me personally. 2)Posa is the character mirroring the time's spirit.
Don Carlos- the play- was written shortly after the French revolution. And Posa is the embodying of revolutionary spirit and self-confidence. He wants to sacrifice himself for the sake of his friend Carlos- it's a noble position through and through.
However, Wilhelm didn't play Posa- He WAS Posa- on stage.
The most important thing if you talk about acting is that the actor believes himself, because only then the audience can believe him as well.
I managed to meet up with the actors after the performance, I knew a person or two in that theatre, and since I had a certain position people didn't ask that much as usual.
“You were splendid.” I told Wilhelm without any talking around and I still can remember his face, humanly confused but flattered.
“Thank you, young Sir, and you are?”
I introduced to him. Do you know those moments when something is completely perfect?
When there is a wonderful moment where everything fits?
This was that kind of moment, once our eyes met we knew that there was something more than politeness.
“Would you go with us for a drink?”
He invited me and I said yes, though I just wanted him. I didn't have the slightest interest in the other members of the ensemble.
Both of us knew that everything else around had become tangible. Both of us knew that we needed to get time alone.. and fast... But we couldn't just leave like this...
We had some kind of duty to fulfil, that may sound foolish for you who don't know this times. Those were times shortly after the first World War... Yes, I know the roaring twenties, where women didn't have to marry necessarily and where life was large and good. Well but not for us with other taste. We needed to be quite careful, since we could go to the prison for just being what we are. Austria was one of the stricter countries in this question. We needed to masquerade what we were and though everyone knew that something like homosexuality existed, nobody spoke about it. And I don't want to know how many artists and actors were imprisoned, simply for the fact that they preferred strong manly shoulders over bosoms...
It's sad. Still back to the story, so we needed to find a place alone. We went for a drink in a bar with the rest of the ensemble. And it was one of the most blissful evenings of my entire life. You can say that it is my brightest memory, which I will forever keep in the depths of my heart, even though it long since stopped beating.
My body knew that I loved Wilhelm, long before my mind did, but that's what it is with love, is it not?
There were tricks to make people think everything was well. The evening drowned in alcohol after a while, not for Wilhelm and me. We were still sipping at our first drinks and because the rest of the ensemble was well filled and a full-bosomed princess Evoli was trying to please, we took our chance. Wilhelm said that he was tired and I offered to let the bartender call my fathers home and send us the chauffeur.
None of that we did though.
We left by feet and we were so relieved when we could leave the boozing, smoking atmosphere of the bar in the first area of Vienna.
It was a hotspot of artists and actors and so it was always well visited.
I hate to admit but as much as actors work they too booze that much. I guess it's due to the stress they do have all the time, because they are always working beneath extreme pressure.
We were almost completely silent on the way to Wilhelm's home. He had been born and raised in a family with old money and had therefore been able to afford a small apartment in the heart of Vienna. I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to walk that much, exited as I was.
I drowned myself in his appearance on the way. Dark hair, handsome and adult face. Like rare others he had gotten the looks early. He'd stopped having the childish looks at sixteen, I guess.
Blue eyes, that were so deep I couldn't see their bottom...
When I read this over again, I must say that this sounds very kitschy, but I was sixteen, human and in love, so forgive me.
Once the door closed behind us he pressed me against the back of the door with brute force and I was scare of myself because I liked it.
“So?” (This way?) my voice was breathless. For better detailing I will give you the following dialogues in German with English translation.
His eyes gleamed when he looked at me and then I first saw that man, that I really saw HIM, not Posa... And it was breathtaking.
“Genau so.” (This way.) he as well sounded breathless. I could feel a bulge between his legs, as he pressed the full length of his body to mine, which was wee against him, since he was older and taller and more muscular.
He kissed me and yes, I must admit that it was my fist kiss. I was inexperienced, though I acted as if I was sovereign in any area.
He almost ate me, or that was how it felt like. He made love to my lips with the promise of things to follow which I couldn't fathom.
//It's my first time// I needed to tell him that... any minute now... I needed to tell him... any minute.
I grew careless and it frightened me, as he put a hand between my legs and massaged the sensible spot there through the thin fabric of my trousers.
“Ich....-Ich... weißt du denn auch was du tust...” (Do you know what you are doing?) I tried to make him do it more slowly, but I was so naïve it almost hurt.
I trembled and I almost gulped for air, but Wilhelm was still kissing me, I had the feeling that every fucking nerve in my whole body was standing on end.
“Ich will nicht so, mach langsam.” (I don't want it like this, go more slowly) I finally managed between moans of excitement.
I never saw a man stop that fast, before and afterwards.
But he looked at me with a plea for apology which I didn't understand. I later should understand it though.
“Ich... Es tut mir leid.” (I'm sorry...) he said and pulled me close into an embrace which I couldn't understand. “Ich hab mich hinreißen lassen.” (I lost control)
“Wieso entschuldigst du dich?” (Why are you apologizing?) I asked him and he rose my face to look me deep into the eyes.
“Weil ich zu grob war.” (Because I was too rough.) He pulled me towards the bed and sat down on it my hands in his and I couldn't else but feel like a cherished woman.
“Es ist sehr wichtig, dass wir genau die Grenzen des anderen berücksichtigen, wenn wir soetwas tun...” (It's very important to respect the other's borderlines when we do something like this.)
“Wieso, Paare machen das doch ständig?” (Why, Couples do that all the time?)
“Aber das was wir tun ist ganz anders... du hast überhaupt keine Ahnung wie das funktioniert oder?” (Because what we do is something completely different, you're not having any idea how that works, have you?)
And again I realize that this is inappropriate to continue... because this memory is forever mine, let your fantasy play, for what happened next because I will not tell you.
Let us continue at the following morning which should certainly be one of the last happy once in my human life.
How ironic, I know... I laid next to Wilhelm for a long time, while he was sleeping and the soft and sunny morning shone through the high windows of the bedroom.
I saw him awakening and smiled... I had been a good night. I kissed him once more... “Ich muss gehen, wir sehen uns wieder. Ich lasse dir meine Adresse auf dem Nachttisch zurück.” (I have to go, we'll see again. I leave you my address.)
I rose and dressed and turned once more.
In retrospect I wish that I'd just stayed for a little while longer.

Artiste Chapter 2

'If only...those must be the two saddest words in the world'-Mercedes Lackey.
It's funny how life sometimes plays.
Sometimes I think that life is a big theatre play and that the clueless actors are given chances to either fail or win...
To survive or to die.
To fear or to hope.
I once read very wise words: Hope strengthens, fear kills.
Every day we get to choose between those two options.
We either choose or we take what comes of it... I always was the latter type of decisions... Given the fact that I actually never had a real choice. Slave to my father's will, slave to my mother's tears, slave to all the BLOODY DAMN expectations you have to fulfill when you are born in one of the better situated families.
'If only...' I often think.
If only... I've stayed a little longer this morn... with Wilhelm.
If only... I've slept a little longer... One can say that I was an early bird. I could go to bed at four in the morning and wake up at seven all the same...
If only.... I pulled my head out of my ass and told him that I loved him on the spot.
Love is a strange thing.
It strikes you and you're not even prepared for it to have such impact for you. I was in way over my head, and I should have stayed in way over my head... I might have had a happy life with him...
If only.... I stayed...
We would have lived, loved, played.... and I wouldn't have gotten in this mess.
I'm not whining... it's just... you know... having all eternity to think about your mistakes.... makes a man... bitter.
The morn was bright any shiny and I should have been at home for a long time already, but since it was sunday and my parents were off to somewhere else anyway, I actually don't even remember, where to, I had some kind of freedom for a while.
Don't get me wrong, I've mentioned earlier that I had pretty much freedom for a lad of my age in that time... but still...
It was the first time I actually slept somewhere else...without planning...

My life was planned in that time. Scheduled through. Planned and fully under control.
I was floating with happiness in this very moment when it was shattered from one moment to the next.
Someone hit the back of my skull, what I felt was blood running down my nape into the collar of my white shirt and then I fell, stone beneath me, my world went black.
Pretty unspectacular, hah?
I could have died.... I could have simply died and be done with it.
Being what I was I don't fear death anymore. If it gets me one day, be it soulless and final, I'll embrace it. But I'm not going to end this life myself. Let's say my existence is too less to live but too much to die. Not that I live but unlive... it's killing me sometimes to think about my existence, since I have no accurate words to describe it.
That's the bitch when you are an undead.
I sometimes ask myself in retrospect how I could manage to survive this long, given my certain longing for death or my... well bad luck.
I am never the lucky one... But you know, when you've got no honor then you've got no shame... I live with that... or rather exist.
In this damn society of predators I'm in they call me scum. But I'm fine with that.
My time will come because I am a scavenger.
And again I'm getting ahead of myself, where was I?
Ah yeah... well.

I must have needed hours to come to, because when I did I had one of these headaches that last for days.
It was dark around me and cold and my clothes were dirty. If there is anything I can't take then when I don't look good. When I look good I have the certainty that I can survive the interaction with people. I don't like people... they make me nervous... I was always like this... Maybe a little sociopathic and a big deal of uncertain, even though I didn't show that so often.
I didn't know where I was...
I didn't know who had brought me here.
The floor was covered with litter and shattered glass...
I struggled to get up in a sitting position. My head hurt I must have had concussion. I was dizzy and I couldn't focus well in the darkness.
I had lost my feeling for time.
It felt like a small eternity until the door opened with a loud lock and a creek.
I couldn't get up.. the man that got in, I will never forget his face looked at me like I was a rat.
"Hallo, Bursche" (Hello, lad.)
I asked him where I was, fully unaware and maybe a little careless for the whole situation because my perception was clouded.
"Sagen wir an einem Ort an dem du nicht sein willst." (Let's say in a place where you don't want to be.)
"Gebitte, das ... was wollen Sie?" (What do you want?) I was asking....
My instincts kicked in. I could think again.
"Du bist doch der Sohn von diesem korrupten Botschafter... Mal sehen wie viel er zahlt um dich wieder zu bekommen."
(You're this corrupt ambassador's son, aren't you- Let's see how much he pays to get you back."
"Who wants to know that?" I had spoken without really realizing it.
"Wir wissen wer du bist, Junge... Der Schwuchtel-Sohn von dem korrupten irischen Botschafter... er wird zurücktreten müssen, Österreich gehört den Österreichern." (We know who you are, boy... The faggot-son of the corrupt Irish ambassador. He will have to abandon his position. And pretty fine thing, because Austria belongs to the Austrians.)
So this man was a fascist.... Fuck.
I was fucked... Fuck... this man was about to kill me.
He didn't work alone, of that I was certain... but God... this was so surreal...
Sorry dear reader... this is the best I can offer, because I was not really at my best.
So to conclude:
I was kidnapped by some fascists who wanted my family out of Vienna... probably wasn't the only diplomat's child to be kidnapped by them, but certainly the last.
It stroke me like a thunderstorm.
FUCK ME!
It had been all over the newspapers... I face palmed myself inwardly.
'Serienentführungen von Botschafterkindern in Wien...' (Kidnappings of ambassador's children in Vienna)
They wanted to put pressure on the diplomates to make them leave and I had been dragged into this....
I felt that I was as good as dead.
What followed was the most lonely and probably the most dangerous time of my life. But I don't know since I.... seem to be quite good at adapting and taking things like they came to me... I maybe got a little slaphappy, too. Because in my head I saw the news written, there had been murders as a warning in this particular matter.
I was as good as dead....
If only I've stayed at Wilhelm's....
Whom am I joking? They would have gotten me anyway.
But this isn't the end of my story... no my story has just begun....

I later learned that the message that was send to my father never reached him, because he already had been murdered, being in Paris at that time...
Once my kidnappers learned that... they didn't have the courage to kill me.... but they sold me.
Sold me like I was no human being.
This is where the prelude actually ands and the first act of my story starts.

The red theatre was to become my fate...

Artiste Chapter 3

In retrospect I actually can't even fathom how I really survived the years in Vienna which I like to describe as my 'Years of Apprenticeship'... Though they were anything but an apprenticeship, even though I learned the lessons of life my family had failed to educate me in.
I learned that men are cruel.
I learned that people love to see others suffer.
Let's continue this story where it is supposed to.
At the gates of the 'Red Theatre' in Vienna and the manager of it: Theordor Specht.
A cruel man in every damn certain bloody way.
I never met a man alike... and that means something since I'm existing for roughly seventy years already...
He bought me.
Yes he bought me... you can imagine that like a slave marked, well not quite like it, but a lot like it.
I had been on an odyssey through Viennas underground for half a year, I was dirty and I almost lost my humanity in these circumstances, which must sound quite strange given the fact that I write this words cultivated and with good grammar.
So I'm certifiably no stuttering idiot... but...Probably this half of a ear drove me mad.
A person who doesn't get a certain amount of freedom is driven mad by it. Especially when you see people die, or raped or whatever... the things that happen in such kinds of undergrounds.
That's why I speak about this matters with distance of a mere report, because I cannot describe what I felt...
I can't... Because the feelings I had were so bloody compromising.
I didn't even feel like a human anymore... that was... why... you know I was..... thankful of being bought... because everything was better than that cage where my abductors had kept me by that time... I've been with them for two months.
I would so kick my own arse later for that.
I've often thought of my childhood and wished these times back, these thoughts were my only anchor.
As a child I've lived in the Münzwardeingasse in Vienna... until we moved to the first district. And it was idyllic...
Vienna is such a beautiful city and I still love this city, even though its more than blazed.
Is it idiotic when I say that these thoughts are to painful to write about them?
It's funny, most Vampires say that they feel less than a human does, but I think that I feel things more intense... being an actor and such things... and I think it's because my kind looses the ability to forget. These memories are more than vivid in my mind and haunt me in my dreams.
If I dream? In my state of being?
I do.
But I guess that the question if I sleep would be more precise...
I do.... in a way.
My species goes into Rigor.
It is a little like meditation and even though you're unable to move and it leaves you a lifeless corpse, you gain the ability to let the subconscious play. Practically you become pure conscious. So much for the good thing. The fucked up thing is that you are as powerless in the things you see or imagine or remember that you can end up seeing your traumas over and over and over again.
And that can... yeah well put you into deep depression or rage or sheer wilderness.
Hell... if anybody reads this... I'm going to be so dead.
Because what I just wrote is a break to a tradition. It is a masquerade violation.
I should go back to the story.... maybe I'm just trying to win some time before I really have to write about what happened in the Red Theatre.
The problem is that it is a certain Trauma I link with all of that.
Nobody is forcing me to, but I feel that I have to do it.

The Red Theatre

The red Theatre in the fourth district of Vienna. It used to have glory and it was a highly appreciated address... formally..
Before they stopped being financed by the city of Vienna.
However the name 'red theatre' comes from the red interior of the youth style building.
After they went into bankrott, Theodor Specht bought it. A man with old money, jew and a bad man.
A bad man.
He didn't pay the actors in the show... not that we were free in the first place...
Wait, first of all...
the people I met there were the poorest of the poor... disabled, retarded or just... you know people with bad luck like me.
Cabinet of Curiosities. That was what it actually was, prison, asylum, all together...
I'm sorry but I could smash walls writing about this, that's why it is so vague.
Actually it's hard for me to describe which monstrosities were done to them.
Just imagine it like one of these circuses of old.
Where they laugh and stare at retarded and disabled as 'Freaks of Nature'
In comparison I had luck.
Because I was Theodor Spechts personal plaything.
And yeah that includes everything that it implies.
Personal servant... adjudant, because I could write, read and reckon and Conférencier for the shows.
And other... more nightly adventures so to say... God that sounds dumb, but it's the best I can offer since I still don't want to think about the things he'd done to me.
It was me who finally catalyzed that the Theatre was used as a theatre and and that some humanity was kept to a certain amount.
I paid high a price for that though.
But I could cling to one thing. I could do art, I could do art as long as I obeyed....
I have to jump now, because I guess it's still too early to detail that out.
It's been only forty years... that's a day in my existence...

We didn't have names in that time... we were numbers....
I just can't tell---

Let me continue where my life takes a better turn again.
When I met, Therese d' Orleans

Artiste Chapter 4


Maybe I should mention a few things anyway.... I mean about the Red Theatre.
Because the dynamics were quite interesting... I mean with me and the inmates.
Since I was Specht's property, even though they didn't know it, I never really belonged to them.
They saw me as some kind of enemy, because I.... you know... they didn't get that I was being held captive as well.
And Specht threatened me that if I told them that I shared their fate that he was going to do things to me, that would make me beg for death.
Yes, I was afraid... but what would you be like in my shoes?
They didn't know it because they were simpletons or some such nonsense, but because Theodor Specht didn't want them to know... And what Theodor Specht wanted was a law.
He was a cruel man.
However... Probably I had a little luck, too... Being more talented than I thought I was... I mean really... probably people have passion for things they are talented in.
I was a good singer and a good actor, without having it learned properly... Today they call that autodidactic.
Probably Specht wanted to see me suffer the most... Because if he wouldn't have minded, he wouldn't have kept me this way... as the lone servant, subjected only to him... maybe he had some sick obsession for me, too... because he did things to me which I will not tell about.
But I loved what I did, I could do art... That was the only thing I could cling to in that time. The thing my father had prohibited kept me relatively sane in the times of strife.
Relatively sane... Probably less than I care to admit.
I will always carry these things with me, until the day I seize existing.
But lets come to the day where my life that had been full of fears and inhibitions takes a turn into a better direction.
The night of that day was the night in which I met Therese d' Orleans... the woman who made me.
Embraced me is rather the proper term.

It was a fateful night... the premier of 'The Marriage of Figaro' by Mozart.
We'd done a staging of that and since I've always looked younger than I was I got to play the part of Cherobino. Normally this role is sung by a woman, but since I didn't get so much a deeper voice due adolescence and we had good musicians to transpose it, there was no problem.
I've paid high a price for this staging, convincing Specht letting me do it in cooperation with the 'inmates' so to say...
I got him with the fact that we needed to do some normal shows to not get the public suspicious.
Some of the 'inmates' had awesome talent as well.
Singing, dancing and high education which actually surprised me and so I got some hope that this production could actually work out...
I finally got some time alone with the others as well, I didn't tell them what I was though, but I tried to sympathize with them a little, but just to the point where Specht wouldn't notice.
I feared that man to no end.
Fuck it.
So the evening of the premier, I was awfully nervous. It was my début as a director as well.
We almost had a full house... actually we never had a full house before... so maybe the advertisement had done it's part...
And probably Specht had been an even more powerful man than I thought.
However, this evening should never leave my memory, since it had been the light at the end of the tunnel so to say.
Therese heard me sing.
I sang the Aria of Cherubino in German and Italian and I felt so ALIVE!

It wasn't after the opera, though that my life was turned upside down, by this splendid lady.
I've neither seen such a beautiful woman before or after it.
I could have fallen in love with her and I say that as a gay man after all.
Slender figure in stylish clothing. A sophisticated lady, with a sense for fashion. The black dress she wore made her a vision, just like her dark hair that was long, against the fashion of the twenties. She wore it openly and with some pride, that was what impressed me most.
And then that porcelain face.
Like a puppet. Pale skin and huge eyes.
She gave a certain sense of making a man want to protect her, even though she needed anything else but protection.
She came to see the ensemble, lead there by Theodor Specht who was trying to be charming in that sleek kind of his.
I always felt filthy from a distance when he did this and she didn't like that either. The distaste was visible on her face and she was waving a fan making clear that she didn't want to talk to him.
A throwback gesture  but it suited her.
I decided to rescue her, that was probably what she wanted, because she had looked at me all the time.
Specht scorched me with gazes but I ignored him. Because I simply couldn't else.
She was so charismatic I could only look at her, because she seemed to take more room than she was supposed to, like her entity was far bigger than her body proposed, since she was wee. Well I mean she wasn't small
but she was just in the right proportions to make her an exceptional beauty.
Like one of these Film-Divas of old.
"Guten Abend, meine Dame." (Good evening, fair lady) And I got the bill for it with one of Spechts glances who threatened me to pull back. But even though I wanted to obey I couldn't I was somehow kept close to her by an invisible might.
I greeted her with a hand kiss.
"Ah da ist ja der junge Mann den ich zu diesem wunderbaren Auftritt beglückwünschen wollte." (Ah there's the young man I wanted to congratulate for the splendid performance.)
She looked at me for a long moment. "Sie sind kein Österreicher. Wie ist ihr Name?" (You're not from Austria, are you? What's your name?)
Name... Names... Well... Fuck.... I didn't posses a name by then... Specht had taken the right of a name from us all... including me. I was a number, even though he always only called me 'Bursche' (lad) or some other things...
It was strange I really had to think a few seconds about what again my name was. When you aren't called by thy name you tend to see it as a foreign thing.
I ignored Specht's scorching gazes. "Mein Name ist Aiden." (Name's Aiden.)
"Haben sie auch einen Nachnamen, Aiden?" (Du you have a surname too,  Aiden?)
It was Specht who answered the question.
"Specht! Dieser talentierte junge Herr ist mein Sohn." (Specht! This talented young man's my son.)
He shot me a gaze that made me obey.
"Aiden ist aber kein sehr deutscher Name, oder Hr. Specht?" (Aiden is not a german name though, isn't it?) He couldn't deceive her, the certain awe was in her eyes, I only felt it because I was looking down on the floor.
"Seine Mutter wünschte sich diesen Namen für ihn, sie war Irin und starb im Wochenbett." (His mother wanted this name for him, she was Irish and died at his birth.) How neatly he lied and I actually just waited for the perfectly practised tear of grief for his 'lost wife'- Theodor Specht loved naught but himself and had certain strange sexual tastes.
I rolled my eyes, he didn't see it, but Therese did and chuckled. When our eyes met I realized that she didn't buy his story.
"Wie auch immer, Glückwunsch zu ihrem Auftritt, wo ist denn der Regisseur, mit dem muss ich auch noch sprechen." (However, Congratulations to your performance... Where's the director? I'd love to have a word with him as well.)
I needed a few seconds to answer because I actually hate to stand out that much. On the stage yeah, but off the stage I tend to be rather modest. Or I try because I have realized that people with talent often look arrogant. I know niveau looks like arrogance when you have to look up at it, but I don't know, in the milieu I was at that time, it was very important to be modest, even though one worked much.
"Er steht vor ihnen, Madam." (He stands before you.) I said looking at her. Then I looked at Specht and she mistook it- she understood me like that Specht was the director.
Alright fine with me and Specht would be the last to deny it. But then the unbelievable happened.
"Nein nicht ich, Madame. Er ist nur zu schüchetern." (No, not me, Madame. He's just too shy.)
But the gaze he shot me said : 'Nice try, you're not getting away with giving me your fame.'
Fuck.
If I didn't take care he was going to kill me, or do worse things.
"Sie waren das, junger Mann?!" (That was you, young man?
I just nodded and she was head over heels... And me not at all being used to that my work was being appreciated, blushed unforgivably.
"Wunderbar." (Splendid.) she clapped her hands. "So eine wunderbare Stimme und dann auch noch Talent zum Schauspieler UND Regisseur. Wie alt sind sie?" (Such a wonderful voice, and talent for acting AND directing, too. How old are you?)
"Zwanzig, Teuerste." (Twenty, Madam.)
She smiled and looked at Specht. "Sind ihre Schauspieler auch für private Shows buchbar?" (Can one rent your actors for private shows?)
"Das kommt drauf an wen sie gerne haben wollen." (Depends on whom you want.)
"Ich würde ihrem Sohn gerne die Abendgestaltung meiner nächsten Suarez anvertrauen, ich bin Galleristin. Da fällt mir auf ich hab mich noch gar nicht vorgestellt. Therese d' Orleans." (I'd love to submit the program of my next Suarez to your son. I own a gallery. But I just realize that I haven't introduced myself: Therese d' Orleans.)
"Sie sind Französin?- Ich bin sehr geehrt, dass sie mir diese Aufgabe anvertrauen wollen." (You're French?- I'm very honoured that you think me appropriate for this task.)
"Natürlich werde ich sie großzügig entlohnen." (Of course I will pay you generously.) I could practically see the gold in the jews eyes as he agreed.
Therese left.
I didn't want her to leave.
Once she was out of proximity Specht turned to me slowly and looked at me. I stared back at him.
"Was fällt dir eigentlich ein, mich so zu defamieren?!" (What brings you to defame me that much?!)
I didn't see his hand before it burned on my face. He had slapped me across the face so hard that I almost crashed on the floor, I had to hold myself up at the wall.
"Bringt ihn weg." he said to the stage personnel that cooperated with him, in his dark doings.
They took me by the arms and brought me into my 'room'...
My room....was a chamber in the cellar, it was cold and wet and... Fuck... I'd felt like a star for a few hours... and there I was back in my former life with nothing but myself.
Not even Therese was going to save me, even though I was certain she didn't buy Spechts story... Or so I thought.