Billy Wilder on Assignment

by Noah Isenberg

  “You are tall enough.”

  What am I—?

  “You have suits, a tuxedo?”

  Well, sure, well, of course, they’re just in hock right now.

  “You have some sense of how to bow in high society, how to kiss a woman’s hand.”

  I’m baffled.

  “You dance, I know that. Now I’m asking you: don’t you want to capitalize on all that?”

  My face goes blank.

  “Do you want to earn money?”

  I’m now slack-jawed.

  “Money, lots of money!”

  Not a word.

  “You’ll become—a dancer for hire with us. You’ll present yourself tomorrow.”

  Then he asks for the check, pulls a hundred-mark bill out of his wallet, thereby revealing another dozen of these bills, and holds it out to the waiter.

  —Yes, I’ll present myself tomorrow.

  II. The First Day in the Hotel

  In the morning Roberts sent me two hundred marks—“to outfit you, for the time being, in a manner befitting your station.” I turned over seventy-five marks to my landlady, à conto, went to the pawnshop, picked up my suitcase full of clean clothing from the washerwoman across the street, spent an hour at the barbershop, lingered just as long in front of the mirror, knotted my tie, again and again, brushed and smoothed.

  I’m sitting in a club chair in the hotel lobby, a soft one, and leaning far back, one leg over the other, and am up to my tenth cigarette, at twelve pfennigs a pop. This, then, is the hotel I’m to “work” in. The bellboy at the revolving door, thinking I’m a guest, has tipped his cap gracefully. Now the Persian lamb coat of a lady in narrow, crocodile-leather shoes brushes against my knees, as she walks toward the lift, smiles at the pageboy, disappears. A thin fragrance of Coty lingers in the air, and stirs up my nerves. A valet, laden with luggage, stumbles to the door, a gentleman in a raglan coat with a stiff foot enters his name into the hotel register, while the porter, his back bent over, holds out his palm to an elderly couple, and the bartender balances two Manhattans and a soda.

  I say to myself: I’m a fool. Sleepless nights, misgivings, doubts? The revolving door has thrust me into despair, that’s for sure. Outside it is winter, friends from the Romanisches Café, all with colds, are debating sympathy and poverty, and, just like me, yesterday, have no idea where to spend the night. I, however, am a dancer. The big wide world will wrap its arms around me.—In the ballroom slender-legged women sit at small tables sipping mocha coffee. They’re putting their cups down and sizing me up, their crimson lips puckered into a honeyed, peeved smile. The gazes of jealous husbands and spiffy friends are burning on my forehead. Dark red light spills onto the dance floor, the Spaniards on the podium squeeze a tango argentino out of their accordions and sing in foreign accents. I’m dancing with a woman of exotic beauty.… White powdered arms tightly wound around my neck, the fragrance of Narcisse Noir emanating from her hair …

  * * *

  “Slept well?”

  Roberts.

  “Ironed your suit? Collar clean? Proper necktie? Wait!”

  Then he comes back accompanied by a young man with a pallid face, his eyes red and teary. Seems to be somewhat asleep. His hair is thinning, although he is thirty at most. Worn out.

  Roberts: “This is Herr Isin, the dance instructor.”

  Herr Isin holds out a hand to me that is as soft as butter and lacks any bones. He prattles on about something, toneless and withdrawn. Russian.

  Roberts: “Isin, you will explain everything to the gentleman. I have to go into the ballroom.”

  Herr Isin nods, hikes up his wide trouser legs, and sits down next to me.

  “So, where have you danced?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “I see. Amateur. Got it.”

  He pulls an old bus ticket out of his coat pocket and a tiny stub of a pencil, giving its tip a lick.

  “I have to register you with the police. You have to pay tax. And health insurance money. What’s your name?”

  Thus and thus.

  “Birthdate?”

  This and such.

  “Young, very young.” Ticket and pencil disappear back into Herr Isin’s pocket.

  “Just the essentials. You’ll dance afternoons and evenings. From 4:30 to 7:00 and from 9:30 to 1:00. Afternoons dark suit, stiff collar, evenings tuxedo. You’ll eat with your colleagues. Like a guest.”

  Like a guest—

  “As for the wages: five marks a day, making 150 a month. But don’t forget, there’s also …”

  Herr Isin closes his left eye.

  “Dance lessons … or—tips—”

  The dance instructor’s sallow face gives me a long and mild look. “The likes of us have never gone hungry. You’ll do well.”

  “I’ll do well. My assignment?”

  “Hmm. I can’t actually explain that to you. Our profession is practical application, nothing but practical application.”

  “Our profession—”

  “You can start today,” Roberts told me. “Take off your coat. I’ll explain everything else to you in the ballroom.”

  * * *

  The cloakroom.

  “This is our new dancer.”

  The woman behind the desk fixes her sharp gaze on me, sharp like a military doctor. Then she says, in a thick Czech accent: “Put down coat here. But if place full, drop off at front, or else too crowd and guests have not room. Understood?”

  “Of course, my lady.”

  In the ballroom. Packed. Cigarette haze. Perfume and brilliantine. Preened ladies from twenty to fifty. Bald heads. Mamas with prepubescent daughters. Young men with garish neckties and brightly colored spats. Whole families.

  The jazz band on the upper level is slouching over their instruments and bobbing to the rhythm. Aside from the banjo player, who is looking down, bored and mouth agape, at the couples as they jump, grind, chuff, and hop.

  Loud and sweltering.

  Herr Isin’s red eyes gaze at me as though straining to say: Go!

  Yes, yes, I’ll go dance. Over there in the corner, the lady in the Persian lamb coat and the crocodile leather shoes. I’ll go ask her to dance.

  But Herr Isin taps my shoulder. “You’re dancing with table 91. Right over here.”

  Table 91. An older lady in a bottle-green dress, with a long neck and hair the color of egg yolks; and a little lady, whose reddish snub nose is trying too hard to look uppity.

  I stand in front of them, a second Buridan’s ass, sweat on my brow, showing all my colors, helpless and wobbly. Then I mechanically thrust my torso forward, toward the one with the snub nose, purse my lips, and say very softly:

  “May I ask for this dance?”

  She smiles at me with a sour look on her face, mulling it over.

  I must look quite silly, in this comical position, blushing deeply, bowing down to her.

  The little one gets up, places her chubby arm around my shoulder. We dance. The blood is pounding against my temples, my legs seem to be paralyzed by a stroke. Everything blurs until someone kicks my shin and thus revives me. An endless dance. My shirt is sticking to my body. I’m gritting my teeth. We spin on. My arms now weigh a ton. I would love to leave my dance partner standing right here, get my coat from the cloakroom, and run away, far away, to those lacking pfennigs and beds—

  But Herr Isin’s face is smiling, yellow and distant.

  I dance only with table 91. The one with the long neck has asked for my name, letting me know that she plans to come often, now that I’m a dancer here.

  III. The Colleagues

  At some point, Herr Isin comes up to me.

  “Have you met your colleagues? No? Come with me!”

  In the red ballroom, almost at the door, four young people sit at a table and eat with abandon.

  “A new colleague, Herr …” Herr Isin rummages through his pockets for my personnel slip; my name has slipped his mind.

  “Delighted, delighted, likewise, l
ikewise.”

  The four: one is named Willy and is from Vienna. He spent two years at the circus, as a performer in “Icarian games.” But this job has more to offer, he says. His teeth are bad, and his hair glistens from his cheap pomade. Wouldn’t it be better to stay with the circus?

  I didn’t quite catch the name of the second one; it ended with something like—sti. Berliner. Actually a sales representative at a paper factory. That he is now dancing for the sake of the money, is, I was told (a) a sign of the rotten times, (b) a funny whim of his. In the mornings he takes around his sample cases, in the afternoons he dances. Only in the afternoons. In the evenings he has to do his bookkeeping.

  The one next to me: Kurt, nice fellow, son of good people, with a tasteful, diagonally striped necktie and a weak stomach. That’s why he drinks nothing but tea. Horn-rimmed glasses. Very pleasant. He, too, is on duty only for the five o’clock tea; he, too, is not really a dancer. More like a pianist, but without steady employment. And you’d have to be well dressed for that.

  Finally, the fourth one: Professeur de danse Miguel Ferrer. Spaniard. Not tall, but finely chiseled facial features. Doesn’t speak a word of German, only French, Flemish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and, of course, Spanish. If he has something to tell the others, he raises his fingers to his eye, his ear, puts them on his nose, crosses them over his lips, twists his elbow, and points in all directions. That is his sign language, seeing as the other three speak only German, aside from the Viennese man, who doesn’t quite have a command of that language either.

  A waiter serves me coffee, apple cake with whipped cream, ice cream.—Like a guest.—And I’m asked if I want more whipped cream.

  Then Ferrer asks, “Parlez-vous français?”

  “Mais oui.”

  “Épatant. Je suis heureux de pouvoir causer avec vous.”*

  I scrape the last bits of my pie from the plate. The other four are already on the dance floor. Willy is entwined with a chubby woman, the Spaniard is lifting his legs languidly, indifferent to the beat, but his partner doesn’t notice; her little eyes are fixed on the ceiling in rapture. I’m back at work, table 91.

  It’s unbearably hot. My collar is as soft as pudding and totally sweaty, my arms are aching. The two bands up there are playing without a break. On the dance floor, which is just over twenty feet long and fifteen wide, there are thirty couples. The paper sales representative watches my moves, and the corners of his mouth curl into a pitying grimace: novice. Roberts sits at a table, quite close to the dance floor, and winks at me: courage. And Ferrer, who was just poked in the ribs by someone’s elbow, comes out with some sort of Spanish curse word.

  Seven o’clock. The ballroom is already half-empty, table 91 gone. Ferrer and I are standing at the cloakroom.

  Herr Isin shows up again.

  “Well?”

  “How’s that?”

  Isin taps me on the shoulder.

  “You’ll get it.”

  Then: “Be here at 9:30. The waiter will show you where you’ll eat. Adieu.”

  Table 103

  It is bitterly cold at my place. It needs to be heated starting tomorrow, at least a little. It’s not the least bit pleasant to spend two hours half-naked, pedantically carrying out my dressing routine, knotting my bow tie with fingers that have turned blue from the cold.

  From 7:00 to 9:30 I have a “break.” Only a seeming break, because I have to spend this time changing out of the suit I was dancing in for the tea and into my tuxedo; also changing my shirt, shoes, socks. No, tomorrow there will definitely need to be a little heat. People like us can afford that, can’t we, Herr Isin?

  Nine thirty, in the hotel ballroom. Guests are already there. The good tables reserved for theatergoers. Ladies in silver evening gowns with coiffures that smell like burnt hair. Gentlemen in dress suits, studying the prices on the wine list through their monocles. One member of the tango band is playing a violin solo, “Butterfly.” The plump woman at the corner table places her hand on her eyelids in a sentimental gesture.

  * * *

  I sit down in some corner. Three waiters around me. One slides the complete menu under my nose, a second one the wine list, the third puts a flower vase on the table.

  “The gentleman is awaiting someone, please?”

  “Oh, no, I’m the new dancer.”

  The one with the fat cheeks and a pale goulash stain on the front of his shirt squints over at his colleague with a grin.

  “Dancer? That is not here. Not yet.”

  To the bellboy at the door, “Take the dancer to his dining room.”

  My dining room can be reached by way of a wooden staircase and is set up on a balcony that is barred to the guests: two bare tables and a couple of chairs. The table on the right only for the maître d’, the one on the left for the others, namely, waiters, bellboys, lift operators, porters, door openers, coffee girls, and so forth, and also for the dancers.

  Ferrer, the Spaniard, and Willy, the man from Vienna, are already there. And someone else, the chauffeur for our boss, the “hotel co-owner.”

  Set menu for the staff: consommé—larded filet of beef with baby vegetables and Madeira sauce—parfait—a bottle of beer—countless rolls.

  Well, that’s wonderful. Willy always gives the little guy who serves us three cents, and he eats two portions of ice cream. “Because you have to, the Charleston makes you damned skinny, word of honor.”

  Herr Isin comes up, just for the inspection, because the managers eat downstairs in the main hall. A splendid tuxedo, double-breasted, wide lapels, milky white shirt, gold buttons. Shaved, coiffed, perfumed.

  “Enjoyed your meal? Off to work, gentlemen.” Downstairs everything is already in full swing. Good people.

  Champagne.

  “Go over there, to table 103. You see, a lady, a gentleman, and two young girls. Try to pounce.”

  “Pounce” means—Willy told me—engage the ladies, ask them to dance. I blow my nose and go over when the first fox-trot starts. With the gentleman’s permission—

  Oh, Papa at table 103 has absolutely nothing against my dancing with his daughters. I alternate between them. Both still have thin arms and bashful mouths. The older one, maybe seventeen and a half, nestles up against me gently. She tells me that she greatly enjoyed dancing in Neuchâtel, in Switzerland, where she was in boarding school. And she wondered if I wanted to come back for the tango. Yes. But during the tango, she no longer said a single word. No doubt Mama had strictly forbidden conversation with the dancer for hire.

  Eleven thirty. Yvette and Roberts dance—Boston, Charleston, paso doble. During the main attraction, Herr Isin stands next to me.

  “In the evening you dance only with tables that I instruct you to go to. Or with ladies who send for you. Be very careful.”

  Willy tells me he has an old customer, a Frau Doktor. Ferrer daydreams listlessly in the corner of the bar until Herr Isin directs him to three ladies who have expressed the wish to move around a bit.

  It is much less comfortable than in the afternoon. The stiff shirt is torture. But the daughters at table 103 don’t know the meaning of fatigue.

  After midnight, the family at table 103 is preparing to leave. Papa pays, Mama pulls her sable up over her bare shoulder, and the daughters powder their cheeks, hot from dancing. The family at table 103 is moving toward the exit. As chance would have it, I am standing right next to it. The youngsters nod, Mama looks past me, but Papa goes straight up to me, holds out his hand to me, “Goodbye.” I feel something in my palm, paper. They are already at the cloakroom. I put my hand into my pants pocket and run, red as a freshly boiled crab, right to the men’s room, lock myself in, then slide the thing out of my pocket with two fingers.

  A five-mark bill.

  * * *

  At one o’clock I’m allowed to go home.

  Dead tired. I want to hang up my tuxedo in the closet, but my eyes fall shut. During this night I dream:

  A man comes into my room, very close t
o my bed. He is slim and tall and gray, his threadbare overcoat going down to the floor. In his right hand he holds a bunch of files, in his left a tall top hat. His small, colorless mouse eyes are trained on me. Now the man places the top hat onto the night table and pulls a sheet of yellowed paper out of his bundle of documents. His thin blue lips part, and slowly and softly utter these words, “I’m garnishing you!”

  “Me?” I shout. But the Tall One continues, “You owe your landlady the rent for these months: May, June, July, August, September, October.” I leap out of bed, “No, that’s a lie. Paid, all paid. The receipt’s in the drawer.”

  The Tall One doesn’t make a move, his mouse eyes remain inert, only his blue lips part. “You’re a dancer. I’m garnishing your knees.” I raise my fists at him and holler, “No!” Suddenly I feel the blood freeze in my veins, I’m seized with horror, and my throat tightens: the Tall One doesn’t hear, because he has no ears, just rosy skin, no ears.

  In front of me it is the dead of night; I grow dizzy and faint back onto the bed. But the man comes at me, extends a frosty red hand to my legs, pulls the knees out of them, and gently places them into the top hat. Then he takes the hat from the night table, shoves the files under his arm, and heads to the door. I want to follow him, but I fall.

  “My job, my joooob!” I babble. The Tall One stands in the doorway, turns his head, and grins. Loathsome.—I see myself again, in the ballroom. The Tall One is sitting at every table. I dance with him, in raving rhythm, Herr Isin’s red eyes play ring-around-the-rosy around us, my legs buckle in a hundred places, Roberts slaps me, someone is throwing around five-mark bills, a woman cries out, and I sink, fall deep down …

  IV. The Daily Deal

  My day goes well.

  I sleep well into the afternoon, until about three o’clock. Right after I was hired, I bought an alarm clock; it works flawlessly. My dressing routine now takes a good hour, and it is so grotesquely complex that I am beginning to feel ashamed of myself in front of the landlady. A whole series of new acquisitions are now in the room, beautification implements and primping potions of the kind you would expect only on ladies’ vanity tables: perfume bottles, French soaps, complexion creams, white eau de cologne, violet eau de cologne, skin lotion in all colors, powder in all shades, lavender water, pomades, eyebrow brushes, fingernail polish, hair gel, this and that.