They clinked glasses — ‘To Herr Grün!’ — and then Rachel said, ‘In for a penny,’ waved over one of the page-girls with her tray and bought a programme. One franc fifty, completely meshuga. A stitcher would have had to sit at the sewing machine for a whole hour for that.
Herr Grün’s name was nowhere to be seen in the programme. They didn’t have time to wonder which of the many other names he might be hiding behind, because the orchestra was already rising from the pit on a hydraulic lift. Twelve men in glittery jackets, three saxophones, and on drums a Negro with a broad, white grin. The bandleader had no baton, but instead used his clarinet to tell the musicians when to come in.
‘A little different from Fleur-Vallée.’ Rachel had wanted to whisper that to Désirée, but had had to repeat the words at the top of her voice to drown out the orchestra and the conversations going on all around them. They both laughed. In their youth no Jewish occasion was imaginable without the old conductor with the powdered nose. Every time you had to beg and plead with him to play something, and every time he just happened to have brought his violin along.
The orchestra sank back down again, the red curtain rustled open and ten girls swung their legs. They were dressed as sailors, because the title of the revue was Journey Round the World. In their final pose they turned their backs to the audience, bent low and smiled at the audience with red painted lips from between their spread legs. Fastened to their lace panties were letters spelling the words BON VOYAGE! The effect received hearty applause.
Every act on the programme was assigned to a different country, which could sometimes only be achieved with some clever bits of stage management. Thus Miss Mabel, with her trained poodles, had to represent the whole of Africa, to which end she appeared in a white tropical suit and a sola topee, and the poor creatures had crêpe paper lions’ manes tied around their heads. For the apache dance (Paris), a French accordion wailed from the pit, and during the plate-spinning (China), the orchestra did its very best to imitate the sounds of the Far East. The knife-thrower and his fearless partner wore wild west costumes; but Rachel and Désirée were sitting near enough to the stage to hear the partner cursing in a pronounced central Swiss dialect every time a knife landed too close. The girls danced the Spanish flamenco and the Russian kazachok; both countries seemed to be very thrifty with their material when it came to making the national costume.
By the interval Herr Grün still hadn’t appeared on the stage.
‘He probably won’t be on until the second half,’ said Désirée. ‘He told me once that that’s when the big acts come on.’
‘Really?’ said Rachel. ‘He told you that?’ She flicked through the programme and then said, ‘This must be him. Here: “Herbert Horowitz, the famous comedian from Berlin.’
‘Horowitz?’
‘He must have come up with a new pseudonym or himself. These variety people often do that.’
The gesture with which she waved over the waiter was appropriate in its elegance for the expensive seats. She asked for the champagne to be topped up, and when Désirée held her hand defensively over her own glass, she said, ‘It’s a shame to let something so expensive go to waste.’
In the second part of the revue the Great Karnak, a magician with a turban and a Viennese accent, locked his assistant in a box and pierced her with swords. Miss Mabel made another appearance, this time without her poodles, and sang a saucy chanson with the refrain, ‘That’s just the way of the world.’ Three muscle men painted gold and bronze stretched themselves into poses that contradicted all the laws of gravity. The half-naked women belly-danced as Arabs, and twitched their backsides to the Black Bottom. Then at last the time came. Director Wladimir Rosenbaum, who had guided the audience through the programme in the best-cut tailcoat that Rachel had ever seen, introduced Herbert Horowitz, ‘the darling of the Berlin audience and star of the Comics’ Cabaret!’
Horowitz wasn’t Herr Grün.
He was a short, fat, scruffy little man in an ill-fitting dinner jacket. His speciality was suggestive stories, delivered in a fake Jewish accent, each story being announced with the words, ‘A few more bits from Horowitz!’ His appearance was received with resounding laughter, especially at those tables where they had had emptied more than one bottle in the course of the evening. He told the story of the man who calls for help because his mother-in-law wants to throw herself out of the window and can’t open it all by herself, and the joke about the Jewish salesman who orders a burnt schnitzel and overcooked potatoes in the restaurant because he wants to eat as he does at home.
It was terrible.
But it was popular.
When the girls had shrieked and lifted their skirts through the closing cancan, there was enthusiastic final applause. Director Rosenbaum, who bowed in the middle of his ensemble under a hail of confetti, was visibly pleased.
‘But what’s happened to Herr Grün?’ Rachel wondered. ‘If he wasn’t even on the bill, where did he get the free tickets from?’
Désirée shrugged.
Herr Grün had told them just to stay in their seats after the performance and he would come and get them from their table, but he was keeping them waiting for a long time.
‘Such a rude man!’ Rachel complained.
‘You’re interested in him, aren’t you?’
‘Not at all,’ said Rachel. ‘What makes you think such a thing?’
The audience had gone, and the hall, so festive just a moment before, quickly returned to the everyday. The elegant pages were now only women with sore feet; the permanent smiles had slipped from their faces, and the seductive twitter vanished from their voices. The waiters were all flat footed, and walked down the rows of seats in their shirtsleeves, collecting empty bottles and glasses.
The curtain was open again, but the stage was now just a big empty space without any magic at all. Two stage hands were sweeping up confetti.
At last Herr Grün arrived, from the wings, across the stage, and hurriedly down the few steps into the auditorium. He was wearing his old three-piece suit. Was it actually the only one he had? His coat was over his arm, and he was holding his hat in his hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘There was a problem with Wurmser’s cape.’
‘Who is Wurmser?’
‘The Great Karnak. He got stuck on a nail behind the stage.’
‘Why am I interested in your magician?’ Two decades before, Rachel’s feigned rudeness would have seemed like a tease. Now she was often just rude. ‘And why am I interested in his cape?’
‘It’s part of my job,’ said Herr Grün. ‘I am the chief dresser here in the theatre. It’s a bit closer to home than the Kamionker clothes factory.’
‘Cloakroom attendant?’
‘There are worse jobs. I learned sewing from you.’
‘Congratulations on your new post,’ said Désirée. ‘But if you won’t take my question amiss, Herr Grün — wouldn’t you rather be on the stage?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And I’d like to be a millionaire. Or the King of England.’
‘But you’re at least ten times better than that Horowitz chap.’
‘Horowitz!’ Herr Grün laughed. ‘In Zurich he’s the sensation of Berlin. In Berlin nobody’s ever heard of him.’
‘And you…?’
‘Come,’ Herr Grün interrupted. ‘We must collect your coats.’
The weary girls in the page costumes, the waiters, the old lady in the cloakroom — they were all very polite to Herr Grün, as people treat an abdicated noble with exaggerated correctness precisely when he insists on remaining incognito.
Rachel asked her question again in the street. ‘If you’re so much better than this Horowitz fellow, and more famous too, why don’t they engage you?’