‘Tes, I remember.”
“And I said he must have invented it? Well, he hadn’t… . You see, I’d told him she was.”
“But why on earth did you do that?”
We both began to laugh. “Goodness knows,” said Sally. “I suppose I wanted to impress him.”
“But what is there impressive in having a French mother?”
“I’m a bit mad like that sometimes, Chris. You must be patient with me.”
“All right, Sally, I’ll be patient.”
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“And you’ll swear on your honour not to tell Fritz?”
“I swear.”
“If you do, you swine,” exclaimed Sally, laughing and picking up the paper-knife dagger from my writing-table, “I’ll cut your throat!”
Afterwards, I asked Frl. Schroeder what she’d thought of Sally. She was in raptures: “Like a picture, Herr Issyvoo! And so elegant: such beautiful hands and feet! One can see that she belongs to the very best society… . You know, Herr Issyvoo, I should never have expected you to have a lady friend like that! You always seem so quiet… .”
“Ah, well, Frl. Schroeder, it’s often the quiet ones”
She went off into her little scream of laughter, swaying backwards and forwards on her short legs:
“Quite right, Herr Issyvoo! Quite right!”
On New Year’s Eve, Sally came to live at Frl. Schroeder’s.
It had all been arranged at the last moment. Sally, her suspicions sharpened by my repeated warnings, had caught out Frau Karpf in a particularly gross and clumsy piece of swindling. So she had hardened her heart and given notice. She was to have Frl. Kost’s old room. Frl. Schroeder was, of course, enchanted.
We all had our Sylvester Abend dinner at home: Frl. Schroeder, Frl. Mayr, Sally, Bobby, a mixer colleague from the Troika and myself. It was a great success. Bobby, already restored to favour, flirted daringly with Frl. Schroeder. Frl. Mayr and Sally, talking as one great artiste to another, discussed the possibilities of music-hall work in England. Sally told some really startling lies, which she obviously for the moment half-believed, about how she’d appeared at the Palladium and the London Coliseum. Frl. Mayr capped them with a story of how she’d been drawn through the streets of Munich in a carriage by excited students. From this point it did not take Sally long to persuade Frl. Mayr to sing
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Sennerin Abschied von der Alm, which, after claret cup and a bottle of very inexpensive cognac, so exactly suited my mood that I shed a few tears. We all joined in the repeats and the final, ear-splitting Juch-he! Then Sally sang “I’ve got those Little Boy Blues” with so much expression that Bobby’s mixer colleague, taking it personally, seized her round the waist and had to be restrained by Bobby, who reminded him firmly that it was time to be getting along to business.
Sally and I went with them to the Troika, where we met Fritz. With him was Klaus Linke, the young pianist who used to accompany Sally when she sang at the Lady Windermere. Later, Fritz and I went off alone. Fritz seemed rather depressed: he wouldn’t tell me why. Some girls did classical figure-tableaux behind gauze. And then there was a big dancing-hall with telephones on the tables. We had the usual kind of conversations: “Pardon me, Madame, I feel sure from your voice that you’re a fascinating little blonde with long black eyelashesjust my type. How did I know? Aha, that’s my secret! Yesquite right: I’m tall, dark, broad-shouldered, military appearance, and the tiniest little moustache… . You don’t believe me? Then come and see for yourself!” The couples were dancing with hands on each other’s hips, yelling in each other’s faces, streaming with sweat. An orchestra in Bavarian costume whooped and drank and perspired beer. The place stank like a zoo. After this, I think I strayed off alone and wandered for hours and hours through a jungle of paper streamers. Next morning, when I woke, the bed was full of them.
I had been up and dressed for some time when Sally returned home. She came straight into my room, looking tired but very pleased with herself.
“Hullo, darling! What time is it?”
“Nearly lunch-time.”
“I say, is it really? How marvellous! I’m practically starving. I’ve had nothing for breakfast but a cup of coffee… .” She paused expectantly, waiting for my next question.
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“Where have you been?” I asked.
“But, darling,” Sally opened her eyes very wide in affected surprise: “I thought you knew!”
“I haven’t the least idea.”
“Nonsense!”
“Really I haven’t, Sally.”
“Oh, Christopher darling, how can you be such a liar! Why, it was obvious that you’d planned the whole thing! The way you got rid of Fritzhe looked so cross! Klaus and I nearly died of laughing.”
All the same, she wasn’t quite at her ease. For the first time, I saw her blush.
“Have you got a cigarette, Chris?”
I gave her one and lit the match. She blew out a long cloud of smoke and walked slowly to the window:
“I’m most terribly in love with him.”
She turned, frowning slightly; crossed to the sofa and curled herself up carefully, arranging her hands and feet: “At least, I think I am,” she added.
I allowed a respectful pause to elapse before asking: “And is Klaus in love with you?”
“He absolutely adores me.” Sally was very serious indeed. She smoked for several minutes: “He says he fell in love with me the first time we met, at the Lady Windermere. But as long as we were working together, he didn’t dare to say anything. He was afraid it might put me off my singing… . He says that, before he met me, he’d no idea what a marvellously beautiful thing a woman’s body is. He’s only had about three women before, in his life …”
I lit a cigarette.
“Of course, Chris, I don’t suppose you really understand… . It’s awfully hard to explain… .”
“I’m sure it is.”
“I’m seeing him again at four o’clock.” Sally’s tone was slightly defiant.
“In that case, you’d better get some sleep. I’ll ask Frl.
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Schroeder to scramble you some eggs; or I’ll do them myself if she’s still too drunk. You get into bed. You can eat them there.”
“Thanks, Chris darling. You are an angel.” Sally yawned. “What on earth I should do without you, I don’t know.”
After this, Sally and Klaus saw each other every day. They generally met at our house; and, once, Klaus stayed the whole night. Frl. Schroeder didn’t say much to me about it, but I could see that she was rather shocked. Not that she disapproved of Klaus: she thought him very attractive. But she regarded Sally as my property, and it shocked her to see me standing so tamely to one side. I am sure, however, that if I hadn’t known about the affair, and if Sally had really been deceiving me, Frl. Schroeder would have assisted at the conspiracy with the greatest relish.
Meanwhile, Klaus and I were a little shy of each other. When we happened to meet on the stairs, we bowed coldly, like enemies.
About the middle of January, Klaus left suddenly, for England. Quite unexpectedly he had got the offer of a very good job, synchronizing music for the films. The afternoon he came to say goodbye there was a positively surgical atmosphere in the flat, as though Sally were undergoing a dangerous operation. Frl. Schroeder and Frl. Mayr sat in the living-room and laid cards. The results, Frl. Schroeder later assured me, couldn’t have been better. The eight of clubs had appeared three times in a favourable conjunction.
Sally spent the whole of the next day curled up on the sofa in her room, with pencil and paper on her lap. She was writing poems. She wouldn’t let me see them. She smoked cigarette after cigarette, and mixed Prairie Oysters, but re—
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fused to eat more than a few mouthfuls of Frl. Schroeder’s omelette.
“Can’t I bring you something in, Sally?”