by Carol Birch
She turns from them scornfully, walks center stage and speaks. You see, she says, raking the audience with her eyes, the poor creatures are struck dumb by my beauty.
An explosion. A howling and thumping of feet on the floor. Now the dance, while they’re going mad. Slay them. Laugh, dance with the fan, let it draw circles on the air. The more they scream, the bigger the show. She throws up her big proud head with its massive crown of hair and flowers, flexes her shoulders and twitches her hips, lets drop the shawl so that the dark groomed thatch of her arms and shoulders appears, and the smooth down of heavy breasts in a low-cut dress.
A bell rings. The dance ends. With a flourish, she takes up her shawl and retreats to the balcony, seating herself elegantly and composing the thick veil before her face, while the two men gabble below: She is quite hideous! And yet, and yet…
Theo, in the wings, smiles warmly at her. It’s going well. Some knockabout stuff occurs onstage. The two young men are joined by their friend Stefan, the stupidest thing ever, a clod of a dairyman with baggy breeches and an anxious whining voice. They tease and twit him. Gusts of laughter roll in from the audience as he falls headfirst into the orchestra pit and has to be pulled out by the legs.
But wait! Who is she?
The lights dim and a hush falls. She sings into the silence:
…Leise flehen meine Lieder…
Stefan falls in love that instant, just with her voice and veiled form. She descends to the rustic seat by the fountain, and his friends abandon him, sniggering behind their hands. Confused, he whirls around.
Herr Milchmann! she cries.
He approaches, covered in sweat, breeches growing baggier by the minute, a single rose in his hand, sighing and beseeching. She flicks her fan, looks away, waggles her foot. The audience chuckles and hoots.
Fraulein, ich bitte Sie, nehmen Sie Ihren Schleier!
Oh, please, put up your veil!
She rises scornfully and walks to the front of the stage. Let him sigh for a glimpse of my face, she says, looking over their heads, he’ll get none of me.
And that was it, really. Just more of the same, the men clowning, she singing, dancing, delivering the odd disdainful line. Toward the end came a prolonged and frantic farce, where stupid Stefan follows her about puckering up his mouth and pleading for kisses, fluttering his closed eyelids pathetically. Oh, sweet lady, one kiss, one kiss is all I ask. Whenever he looks away or goes offstage, she lifts her veil and grins at the crowd. In and out goes Stefan, up and down goes the veil, faster and faster. The grin becomes painful, she feels her cheeks quiver. Do they know the skill that goes into this? They roll about, baying and shrieking, till she goes into her last big scene.
Alone onstage, she speaks to them directly.
What a fool this milkman is, she declares.
They roar.
What does he know of love? Nothing! What he calls love is nothing more than a few pearls—she twirls them—a pretty dress—she spreads the flounces—a little foot—she points the toe— What does he know—the music begins—of the true heart within? Into her final song, about a true simple heart being worth more than gold.
Stefan enters with his giggling friends. They haven’t seen her yet.
Such a man, she says, with a careless gesture in his direction, is a shallow well. I could never give my heart to him. With a practiced movement, she veils and turns to greet him. Your patience is rewarded, she declares, behold the woman you love! Peels down the gloves from her hairy brown arms, withdraws them, tosses the veil aside.
Horror!
He runs but she gives chase as the audience roars, then: Is this what you want? she cries, kissing him full on the lips. As he faints clean away, she steps center stage, wets her lips—“Her tongue!” someone moaned—and says, How many of you ladies can say your kiss has that kind of effect on a man?
The curtain fell.
She took the applause center stage, wave upon wave of thunderous stamping and cheering and whistling. Three curtain calls. Flowers landing on the stage.
Theo met her in the wings with a glass of champagne. “You were spectacular,” he said. “Spectacular, Julia. You must meet Herr Otto, he is smitten.”
Herr Otto was an elegant, handsomely ageing man, with a raggedly pointed beard and deep lines etched on either side of his face. “I am indeed,” he said, bowing low so that she could study his bald spot, grabbing her ungloved hand and kissing the back of it wetly. Straightening, he looked sideways at her.
“How do you do,” she said, still breathless from the whole thing.
“Come and have a drink, Hermann,” said Theo, who’d clearly had a few himself already. His eyes had a bright, dancing, almost scared look. “Come and have a drink with me and Julia. Wasn’t she wonderful?”
They walked to the dressing room along an avenue of goggling faces. She didn’t know why but she felt like crying. They were still screaming and whistling out there. He had not given her his arm. She wanted it to hang on to. Something mad was in the air. “Theo…” she said.
“Extremely talented,” Herr Otto said with a smile in his voice. “Fraulein Pastrana, you have a very pretty voice.” His English was perfect.
“Thank you.”
There was more champagne in the dressing room, more faces. A woman in a blue gown. Huber the manager, who was round and small with a black mustache and a thick black curl of hair carefully arranged above his forehead. The sound, still battering at the door, something wild in it. Theo beaming like a madman.
“And the incomparable Cricket!” he cried, “Here she is!”
Huber, his face in hers, smiling. “A triumph,” he said.
“Julia, come here.” Theo took her hand. “This is Miss Friederike Gossmann,” he said, leading the woman in the blue gown forward, “the great actress.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Miss Gossmann lightly. “I’m so pleased to meet you, Miss Pastrana. What a marvelous performance you gave.”
“Thank you.”
“Mr. Lent tells me we can expect to see you in Vienna.” She was trim and pretty and assured, and spoke perfect English with a faint accent.
“Are we?” Julia turned to Theo. “Are we going to Vienna?”
“I’m sure we will,” he said. “Please, please, everybody, sit down. Miss Gossmann, for you?”
“Only one very tiny one,” Miss Gossmann said, holding her finger and thumb a half inch apart, and smiling warmly at Julia. “I’m afraid I can’t stay. I just wanted to say hello and tell you how much I appreciated your performance. And to say, please, when you are in Vienna, do come and visit me.”
“Of course.” Theo shoved a drink in Julia’s hand. “Miss Gossmann is the Cricket, Julia.”
Julia had no idea what he was talking about.
“Why would she know about that?” said Miss Gossmann. “Julia—you don’t mind if I call you Julia?—do please call me Friederike—”
“The Cricket,” said Theo excitedly. “A sensation in Hamburg. Should’ve seen the reviews.”
“You were born to play that role, Friederike.” Herr Otto sprawled back in his chair, looked at Julia and pulled down the skin under one of his eyes in a peculiar, slightly vulgar way.
“Listen to them!” Huber shook his head. He never looked at her for long. Quick little darts. Waves of cheerful savagery faded beyond the walls.
“Stupendous,” Otto said.
“It scared me,” said Julia.
Miss Gossmann leaned forward and clasped Julia’s hand. Her face, close to Julia’s, was friendly and concerned, and she betrayed no sign of unease. She might have been looking at something normal. “I can understand that,” she said.
“Scared?” Theo, walking about waving a bottle, smiling, irrepressible. “What’s there to be scared of? They loved it!”
“The way they laughed,” said Julia.
“It’s comedy. That’s what they’re supposed to do.”
“The way they laugh.”
Miss Gos
smann went on smiling and stroking Julia’s hand, her green eyes full of sympathy. Her face was birdlike, round and bright with a sharp little nose.
“Just—” Julia shrugged.
“It’s a vulgar little thing,” Friederike said. “In Vienna I hope to see you perform solo.”
“Hermann’s going to be our man in Vienna,” Theo said, circulating continuously with the champagne. The door was open, people wandered in and out. Julia could hear the men in front of their mirrors down the hall, sponging off their makeup. “You’ll love Vienna, Julia,” Theo said. “You haven’t played a really big circus yet. That’s where Hermann comes in. What do you say?”
“I don’t know,” she said. Her heart was calming down. “I’m tired, I’ll think about it later. I’d like to go to Vienna. I’d like to go everywhere.”
“Everywhere?” Herr Otto smiled, showing many teeth and high gums.
“First Vienna,” Theo said. “Then Warsaw. St. Petersburg, of course. Oh, Julia, wait until you see St. Petersburg. The mysterious east! The Golden Road to Samarkand!” He laughed, clinking glasses with Huber, chortling softly in the corner.
“Vienna would suit you, fraulein,” Otto said, leaning forward elegantly, crossing his long legs. “There’s already talk of you there, do you realize? I can procure you a season. Perhaps at Carltheater.”
“When?” asked Theo.
“I go home in a few days.” Champagne sparkled in Otto’s thick mustache. “Soon, I’m sure, I’ll have news for you.”
“I’m talking to Renz as well,” said Theo.
“Ah!” said Otto, smiling at Julia, “They want to put you on a horse.”
“I do believe,” said Theo, “that Julia has the talent.”
“I’m sure she does.”
“I could learn one or two little tricks,” Julia said, “but nothing fancy.”
“One or two little tricks is all it would take,” said Otto.
Miss Gossmann rose. “I wish I could stay longer,” she said, “but I have to be at some silly party. You will come to my house in Vienna, Julia, and we’ll have time for a lovely talk.”
“We certainly will!” Theo, sparkly-eyed, kissed her hand.
Miss Gossmann left on the arm of Huber. Herr Otto and Theo lit cigars and laughed and talked for a long time, till Julia’s head spun and she realized she’d nearly fallen asleep in front of the mirror. “Can we go back to the rooms now, Theo?” she asked. “I’m really tired.”
Otto set his glass down. “Indeed. You need your rest and I must be off. Fraulein Pastrana—” He shook her hand avidly. “It’s been a great pleasure to meet you. I look forward to seeing you in Vienna.”
Theo walked Otto to the stage door.
“So—two more weeks,” said Otto. “Think she’ll hold up?”
“She’s tireless,” Theo said, “you wouldn’t believe. Strong as an ox.”
“Strong, of course, but her mind, you know. What about her mind?”
“There’s nothing wrong with her mind.”
“Of course there isn’t. That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I hardly know.” Otto knotted his scarf and coughed. “Be careful, Lent. Someone’ll have her out from under your nose before you know it.”
“No, they won’t.” Theo smiled smoothly.
Returning, he heard the talk in the men’s dressing room. A door stood open. The clod of a milkman was transforming into a weary-faced man of about forty-five in front of a mirror.
“Whatever they’re paying you,” said the man next to him, “it’s not enough.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” Stefan replied.
“Did you see this review? ‘The daughter of Esau.’ I like that. The daughter of Esau. That has a nice ring to it. It’s, you know, respectable. Yes, I like that. What do you think, Julia? Daughter of Esau?”
“Where’s that Bible?” she said. “Read it to me.”
Theo took the brown leather Bible from a drawer in the table. “Let’s see,” he said, “if I remember my old Sunday School days, and I do—” He looked at her. So sweet and boyish, she thought. “Here it is.” He licked his lips, looked down. “Now the first came forth, red all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob.”
“I’m not red like Esau,” she said.
He snapped the Bible shut and smiled. “You should get some rest.”
“Will we really go to Vienna?”
“Of course. We’ll take an apartment.” He rubbed his hands together, standing at the door. “We can afford it. That’s the thing. Whatever we want, Julia, we can have.”
Suddenly there was money, a fat fruit low hanging.
She turned away and yawned. “Whatever I want,” she said, thinking he was really a bit of a fool. It made her feel strangely protective toward him, as if he were an overexcited child that needed calming down. “What do I want?”
He laughed. “Whatever it is, you can have it.”
“I’d like a little house,” she said. “So I could make it nice. And enough so I don’t have to worry and I can buy nice clothes and—” But there she stopped because it didn’t seem real, and her eyes grew sad. Full of champagne and excitement, Theo felt sentimental, almost tearful.
“You have nice eyes, Julia,” he said.
She thought, does he want to make me cry?
“Get some sleep,” he said, and went out, closing the door. Yes, poor girl, a nice house. Nice clothes. Ask for more, girl, why not? He needed to walk. It was cold. He put up his collar and strode through dark windy streets. By the station he came upon a beggar wrapped in a blanket, a tiny thing with small hands like a child and a man’s pinched face. “Here, friend,” he said.
The man took the money, folding it in his fist, saying nothing. His fingers were ice cold.
“Money,” said Theo and laughed, a fond and rueful little snort, as if money were a much-loved and indulged bad child. He walked on. Not a thing in my pockets, he remembered. Should have stopped to talk. I was once like you, my friend. It comes and goes. Oh, how it does. Should have sat right down with him, said, let me tell you a story. A couple of days after my father died—pneumonia, double—I was clearing out the house. Do you know how many Knickerbocker soda bottles I found? You wouldn’t believe it. Two hundred and thirty-three. And in every one, screwed up and stuffed in hard, money. Sitting on treasure like a drunk old dragon for years while everything fell apart around him and my uncles doled out charity. Like I said, it comes and goes. Life’s a joke.
The second night went even better. The cheers, the whistles, the thunder of feet and the storm of applause, everything the same except that when she came offstage, instead of smiles and roses there were just gawping stagehands and stony-faced policemen looking at her with veiled eyes. And Theo, wild-eyed, looking as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. “They’re closing us down,” he said, white and furious. “Can you believe it? They’re closing us down.”
“Why?”
“Because—I don’t know—because they’re fools!”
The officer in charge was a heavy-jowled, world-weary man. “No need for that at all,” he said in English. “We have to act. Simple as that. Nothing I can do.”
Everyone gabbled at once. Huber, the manager, pop-eyed and desperate, argued tensely in German with the police and with Theo. The other actors were worried about their pay.
“I don’t understand you,” Theo enunciated fiercely, as if to an idiot. “I don’t speak the language well.”
“There have been complaints,” the man said, “more than a few. We have to act.”
“You see?” said Huber in English, rounding on Theo, “What am I to do?”
“What am I to do?”
She didn’t like these professionally careful stares. She, the consummate gatherer of stares. She dropped her eyes.
“Please, gentlemen,” Huber sai
d, “this way.”
Everyone trailed into his office, forgetting her. A rearguard of stony official men remained with her in the corridor. Their eyes never left her, and she wondered if she were under arrest. But why?
“I have permission from the authorities to stage this show,” Theo was saying in Huber’s office, his voice loud but unsteady. “We’ve been through all this. It’s a play. A play, not a monster show. Miss Pastrana is a legitimate performer. Have you even read the reviews?”
“Don’t show me that,” the man said, “there’s nothing I can do. I have orders to close you down, and I have to do it.” The sound of papers unfolding and rustling, then a crack. Theo’s hand smacking down on Huber’s desk.
“This is outrageous!”
The policeman was unmoved. “I am sorry,” he said, “I have to inform you, sir, that this show is accused of obscenity and immorality and has been deemed dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Dangerous?”
She went to the door. No one stopped her. She could see the back of Theo’s head and Huber in profile picking at his lip. The policeman’s eyebrows were stoically raised, his eyes downturned. He addressed a long torrent of words in German at Huber, and the manager took out a gray silk handkerchief and dabbed his sweaty brow.
“What’s he saying, what’s he saying?” Theo sounded near to tears.
“Bestiality,” said Huber queasily. “He’s saying they’re calling it bestiality.”
“What!”
Another torrent.
“Also”—Huber glanced quickly sideways, his eyes catching her at the door and sliding away—“there’s been some concern—a doctor—doctors.”
“Doctors?”
“These are my instructions,” the policeman said in English, sitting down behind the desk, “I have no choice.”
“They’re saying,” said Huber, “that her face might be dangerous for any pregnant women in the audience.”
