“Yes,” she says, trying to prompt him.
“Well, I wonder if possibly you might enjoy a tour of the theater.”
She’s not sure how to answer so she says, “Thank you, Mr. Schick, really, that’s—”
“Hugo, please.”
“Thank you, Hugo, that’s kind of you, but I should probably just wait here until—”
“You do know the history of this building, don’t you? It’s the oldest functioning theater in the city.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that, but—”
“Built by Hans Herzog in 1935. At a cost of the entire family fortune. Do you know the Herzog tragedy? Are you familiar with the story?”
“I may have read—”
“Acht, read,” he says, disgusted, it seems, with the printed word. “Come. Up now. Come with me, Sylvia. Allow me to give you the tour. I’ll show you things that will make the incident outside a vague memory.”
It’s clear he won’t hear no, and she does owe him for pulling her to safety, so she gets up from the couch and follows him to the doorway. He gestures her into the corridor and closes the door behind them and asks, “Where are you from originally, Sylvia?”
“I was born right here in Quinsigamond,” she says as they start down the hall.
This seems to surprise him. He looks at her for a second as he continues to walk, then says, “Is that right? Most of my people, the people I work with, they come from somewhere else. I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who was originally born here.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Our line of work,” he says. “We are a mobile people.”
They come to a stop back at the balcony area that looks down on the lobby. It’s an impressive sight. The ceiling rises up about twenty feet and the floor runs about forty or fifty feet long. The walls are curved so dramatically that when viewed from above like this, the foyer has the feel of a huge bowl. Everywhere there are mirrors and gold leaf, marble and bronze edging. It’s genuinely one of the most beautiful buildings Sylvia has ever been in.
“God,” she says, staring at the patterns in the tile floor, “you would never know—” and then she stops herself.
But Hugo tilts his head and smiles and finishes for her. “That they showed dirty movies inside, yes?”
“No, I just meant—”
“That’s exactly what you meant, Sylvia,” he says, but he doesn’t seem upset.
“It’s just,” she tries, “I mean, I knew, I’ve read, that it was a significant building, you know, historically—”
“I thought you visited,” he says. “With the boyfriend.”
“I did, but, I don’t know. We were self-conscious. We just bought our tickets and ran inside. I didn’t look around.”
He nods, maybe a little patronizing. “I’ve been attempting to restore it. Very gradually. One project at a time. As the money becomes available.”
She looks back down on the lobby. “You should get the historical society down here. You should get some grant money.”
He barks a laugh that fills the whole gulf before them. “The city fathers,” he says, “will tolerate me as long as I stay fairly quiet and remember them at fund-raising time with an anonymous donation. I’m afraid, my dear, the care of this marvel has been left to Schick alone.”
He puts his hand on the brass railing and takes a tight grip. “She is sixty years old. Designed for a year by a protégé of Donald Deskey himself. Young man named Rejlander. He used all the new materials — aluminum and Bakelite. Spent over three million dollars. This when money had a value that we can no longer comprehend in our shabby age.”
He takes her by the arm and steers through a set of huge double doors into the theatre proper and Sylvia looks up to see enormous naked people coupling on the screen.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Hugo whispers in her ear. “The customers were already in the house when the rioting broke out. We’re rerunning the feature until it’s safe for them to leave.”
“It’s all right,” she whispers back, but she’s completely unprepared for this display.
She stares at the acrobatics while Hugo continues to whisper. “One thousand floor seats of symmetric Moderne perfection. Another two hundred up here in the balcony. And nine private owner’s boxes running above us.”
He leads her to the balcony railing. She looks down from the screen to the floor and is shocked to see the theater half-filled in the middle of the day.
“The stars that have played in this room,” he says. “W. C. Fields on opening night. Mr. Ray Bolger. The Flying Wallendas. Chaplin was here. Never performed, but he was in the audience. A personal favor to Herzog himself. The next day a peasant from the Spy had the gall to call this treasure, this Xanadu, a vulgar curiosity. Can you imagine, Sylvia? It was too much for the arbiters of taste to comprehend. Vulgar curiosity. They say those two words broke Herzog’s heart. That he never got over the affront. The moment he read that review was the beginning of his decline.”
Sylvia listens to his words, but she’s watching a woman having sex with three men simultaneously. It’s broad daylight and she’s standing in what must be the most luxurious pornographic theatre in America being lectured by a bald Viennese man as she watches graphic sex acts on a three-story screen.
“I would put my Palace,” Hugo says, “up against any of them. The Pantages. The Avalon in Chicago. The Fox in Atlanta. Even S. Charles Lee and his Los Angeles. They may be larger, perhaps more ornate. But there is a feel here. An aura and an atmosphere that is unsurpassed.”
He lowers his voice and adds, “Of course, I am a bit prejudiced.”
“It’s a stunning building,” Sylvia says.
His eyes turn to the screen. “I hope you’re not offended by our feature.”
For some reason she wants to laugh. “This isn’t exactly how I planned the day.”
“Surprise,” Hugo says, “is the essence of life, Sylvia. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”
“I thought that was variety.”
Before he can respond a voice behind them says, “You want to keep it down,” and Sylvia flinches. They look up to the last row to see the only person in the balcony, sitting up directly under the beam of the projection light.
Hugo puts his hands on his hips and says out of the corner of his mouth, “Speaking of variety,” and then, “Come with me, Sylvia. You’ll love this.”
She follows him up the steep stairs to the second to last row where they slide in to face this audience of one. It’s a woman, about Sylvia’s age, dressed in a silk, rose-colored bathrobe, but she’s got her feet resting on the chair in front of her and her robe breaks away to reveal her bare legs up to her thighs. She’s got blonde hair and even in this light Sylvia can tell she’s got killer skin. There’s a bucket of popcorn in her lap and as Hugo comes to a stop in front of her, blocking her view of the screen, she throws a kernel at him.
“Ever the narcissist,” Hugo whispers, brushing at his jacket.
“Learned from the best, Schickster.”
Hugo angles awkwardly in the aisle and says, “Sylvia Krafft, I would like you to meet Leni Pauline.”
Sylvia reaches over and shakes Leni’s hand, brings her own back wet with butter.
Leni ignores her and says to Hugo, “That’s it boss, keep recruiting the amateurs. God, you couldn’t do a cost analysis if your life depended on it.” Then she tilts her body to the side to try to see around Hugo and says, “Honey, don’t you sign a thing until you and I have a long talk.”
“Once again,” Hugo says, “your instincts couldn’t be more wrong.”
Leni throws another kernel of corn and says, “We’ll see.” She looks at Sylvia and says. “So are you a fan? How do you like my work?”