The Many Lives of Miss K by Jean-Noel Liaut

Author:Jean-Noel Liaut [Liaut, Jean-Noel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8478-4142-4
Publisher: Rizzoli
Published: 2013-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

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Toto met Erica Brausen, a young German woman, in November 1946, when Brausen was vacationing in Ascona. The two women became inseparable, and during their long walks around Lake Maggiore, Brausen discovered the complexities of Miss K.’s personality. Toto had experienced every possible extreme—life and death, happiness and cruelty, light and darkness. Brausen fell in love with her immediately. For Brausen, love implied devotion, and she wanted to take care of Toto, to protect her and keep her safe. Toto had regained some of her strength, but her body and soul were still recuperating. Europe lay in shambles and the beautiful siren of the 1930s was unrecognizable.

Born on January 31, 1908, Erica Brausen was almost thirty-nine when they met. She and Toto were almost exactly the same age, their birthdays separated by just a couple of months, and had equally strong personalities. The daughter of a Düsseldorf banker, Brausen had only gloomy memories of an unhappy childhood. In a photograph taken when she was six years old—she is at a duck hunt and a shotgun rests on her shoulder—the empty expression on her face reveals the extent of her discontent. Violently opposed to the Nazi doctrine, Brausen eventually left her homeland for good and moved to Paris.

With a small monthly allowance from her father, Brausen lived in Montparnasse, near La Closerie des Lilas, and upon arriving in the city she quickly began to explore its artistic milieux. She spoke impeccable French and spent her days in galleries and artists’ studios. Her friends included painters Fernand Léger and Georges Braque, antique dealer Yvonne de Bremond d’Ars, writers Michel Leiris and Raymond Queneau and the avant-garde singer Marianne Oswald, a favorite performer of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.

Brausen was bisexual and had been involved with both Suzy Solidor and Ernö Goldfinger. Solidor gained fame as a driver for the German General Staff during World War I. She drove ambulances on the front lines, exhibiting the kind of courage that would have made her the pride of her ancestor, the legendary privateer Robert Surcouf. An androgynous beauty, she posed for many painters—Francis Picabia, Maurice de Vlaminck and Tamara de Lempicka among others—and became a famous music-hall singer. Goldfinger was a Hungarian designer and architect who created furniture for films by Marcel L’Herbier as effortlessly as he designed an actual movie theater. Ian Fleming, with whom he played golf, was so amused by his name that he borrowed it: Goldfinger was one of James Bond’s deadliest enemies.

“Erica was not as physically beautiful as Toto. She was smaller, stout, heavier and had a rather brusque demeanor. But her classic features, beautiful eyes, sharp intelligence and great generosity appealed, to a somewhat lesser degree, to both sexes,” noted F.C.

In 1935, Brausen’s close friend Joan Miró took her to the Balearic Islands. Seduced by the atmosphere of Mallorca, she decided to remain on the island. She opened a bar that quickly became a meeting place for painters and writers. “At the same time, she was making a great deal of money exporting crafts made by local artists.

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