The salesgirl fell silent for a moment and, as if expecting Döhring’s approval or support, turned around.
She was lithe, tall, surrounded by a delicate cloud of scents.
In the dimness, their faces were intimately close to each other; and while Döhring felt that this was not unintentional, the salesgirl, with a single glance, saw that she had the young man hooked. But no matter how ingratiatingly she spoke, no matter how soft and familiar her tone was, as if they had known each other for a long time and were now only continuing a former, professional conversation, her heavily made-up face remained as indifferent as a mask. Her eyes were beautiful, her countenance lifeless in its self-control; there was something deliberately deterrent in her manner.
Perhaps this was the only way to speak of such delicate matters in the dark.
Or she succeeded in discussing the intimate lives of others, without offending any code of decency, because she had donned the armor of chastity.
From then on Döhring was more interested in the performance; he did not feel he had a role in the play. The salesgirl was only a few years older than he, yet she had already mastered something to perfection. As though it were not exactly she who spoke or moved; as if she had made another living and breathing person vanish in her, lending or renting out her corporeal shell to this stranger along with her voice. A completely attractive person radiating icy indifference. But she must have retained the natural attributes of her body, Döhring thought, though he could not see where or how she had made her personal traits disappear.
Her attractiveness, in spite of all this, remained intact, she took it along everywhere; and Döhring stayed on the trail, defenselessly going with her.
Her hair, cut boyishly short, glittered with gel; she wore dark pants, a dark jacket with a much too large, dimly striped, bright-white man’s shirt unbuttoned to the waist, very high heeled, finely designed shoes. She shouldn’t appear completely as a girl, rather as a slightly feminine boy. Döhring was quite intoxicated not only by this peculiar creature’s deliberately dubious exterior but also by the lighting and furnishings of the place. He had wandered into an unfathomably large, softly glimmering space; more precisely, he had entrusted himself to a knowledgeable and decisive being who would introduce and guide him across the labyrinth of this space of unfamiliar quality.
With the help of a silently turning windbreak, the store was hermetically sealed from the side street, which was not that busy anyway. Inside, in muted silence, barely audible psychedelic music played — softly elongated melodies, repetitive predictable rhythms. Coarse or sudden emotions were invalid in this space; everything that might interfere with the contemplation necessary for buying goods was excluded. In a restrained voice, driven by neutral enthusiasm, the salesgirl went on speaking evenly, irresistibly. Arced, elegantly bent graceful counters and whimsically scattered folding screens could be intuited in the soft dimness. Out of faint depths, huge mirrors with curved surfaces glimmered. As in a real dream, it could not be established where the place of anything was or where was the beginning or the end of anything. On graphite-gray wall-to-wall carpet, they were progressing toward a distant counter; the ceiling was black. A few concealed spotlights provided some illumination.
White, naked plaster torsos sat, stood, and lay about in the oval puddles of light.
Döhring was quietly resisting, as though grumbling a bit.
Breathing or not breathing, he said, he couldn’t bear artificial material on his body. There is no nylon or who knows what kind of synthetic, whether with small pores or large, that wouldn’t cause a rash, chafe his skin, and give him little sores.
All artificial materials make him sweat like a pig.
He deliberately used strong words. He hoped to lure the unknown person from behind the mask.
The salesgirl stopped again briefly. Quickly, expertly, she looked him over as if to assess more closely the physical qualities she would have to deal with. As if she were looking under his clothes, appraising the shapes and forms she might find when she undressed him.
Döhring actually enjoyed this look, though there was nothing personal in it. On top of everything, he’d had the impression all along that there was someone else besides the two of them in this space; someone was watching from the darkness.
And in that case, the salesgirl was working for someone else, not for him.
She understands every bias, every preconceived notion, the salesgirl said while they continued on their way. She herself is fond of wearing natural materials, silks, cotton, wool, linen, but why deny that from an aesthetic point of view traditional materials have disadvantages. Take cotton, for example. No matter how strong it is, after a few washings it stretches unpleasantly, in most cases it loses its color too, and there is nothing more pitiful and laughable than stretched-out faded underpants. There is no perfect male body that wouldn’t look ridiculous in one of those. Not to mention silk or Milanese knit; today we won’t even talk about those. Pleasant materials, but not at all durable. They don’t give headaches to designers of women’s lingerie, because here I can put a little frill, there a little lace, but a material that’s by nature incapable of keeping its shape is automatically alien to the philosophy of male undergarments.
But what he had mentioned had to do with much more common reasons, Döhring interposed.
The salesgirl was now behind the counter, she pressed some button and they were both bathed in a strong light.
People dealing with male underwear, replied the young woman wearily, deal with philosophy, which of course doesn’t mean that the peculiarities of the male body are forgotten for even a moment; not at all, on the contrary. The materials used must conform to the physical attributes. And she mentions these merely because, in her personal opinion, one should not separate the functional viewpoints from the aesthetic ones.
In a fairly irritated voice, Döhring asked whether this was really her personal opinion; her use of the word, to his surprise, annoyed him.
On the salesgirl’s face appeared signs of approaching danger, and a retreat was sounded. She nodded cautiously, yes, this would be her personal opinion.
Döhring liked the self-assurance with which the salesgirl lied shamelessly straight to his face. At the same time a small voice whispered to him not to dwell on the matter; he’d only be disappointed, it wasn’t worth it.
Still, he asked what the salesgirl had in mind.
Especially on the body of a man, replied the salesgirl almost reluctantly, stretched or out-of-shape underwear can’t perform its task. Its fundamental purpose is to provide protection. No situation should arise in which it cannot be relied on for safe support and the ability to keep its shape. That is its function; that is what it must do.
For a few short moments, an irritating static of silence crackled in the invisible speakers.
And the salesgirl lowered her eyes, as one wishing to conceal her face even more modestly. Not because she is ashamed, but because this is what professional integrity demands; after all, of the two of them she knows more about male underwear. Yet she did not flaunt her knowledge. The strong beam of light from above reached her brow at a sharp angle. It settled on her eyelashes, outlined the rims of her lips, painted almost black, and slashed her face with long shadows. The impression was that at any moment the light might flick the mask off this face.
Döhring became alarmed, however, did not want to see the face, felt that in this light his own face was equally defenseless. All this did not last long, the crackling increased and turned harsh until it became a single twang.