James Cain - Serenade

What I was going to do with her the night of his concert I didn’t know. She had got so she could read the papers now, and had spotted the announcement, and asked me about it. I acted like it was just another job of singing, and she didn’t pay much attention to it. Her cold was all right now, and there wasn’t a chance she would stay home on that account. I thought of telling her it was a private concert, and that I couldn’t get her in, but I knew that wouldn’t work. Going up in the cab, I told her that as I wouldn’t have to dress afterwards, it would be better if she didn’t come backstage. We’d meet in the Russian place next door. Then I could duck out quick and we’d miss the mob of handshakers. I showed it to her and she said all right, then she went in the front way and I ducked up the alley.

When I got backstage I almost fainted when I found out what he was up to. I was singing two numbers, one the aria from the Siege of Corinth for the first part of the program, the other Walter Damrosch’s Mandalay, for the second part. I had squawked on that Mandalay, because I thought it was all wrong for a symphony concert. But when he made me read it over I had to admit it was in a different class from the Speaks Mandalay, or the Prince Mandalay, or any of the other barroom Mandalays. It’s a little tone poem all by itself, a piece of real music, with all the verses in it except the bad one, about the housemaids, and each verse a little different from the others.One reason it’s never done is that it takes a whole male chorus, but of course cost never bothered him any. He got a chorus together, and rehearsed them until they spit blood, getting a Volga-Boat-Song-dying-away effect he wanted at the end, and by the time I had gone over it with them two or three times, we had a real number out of it.

But what he was getting ready to do was have them march on in a body, before I came on, and I had to throw a fit of temperament to stop it. I raved and cursed, said it would kill my entrance, and refused to go on if he did it that way. I said they had to drift in with the orchestra after the intermission, and take their places without any march-on. But I wasn’t thinking about my entrance. What I was afraid of was that those twenty-four chorus men, marching on at a Winston Hawes concert, would be such a murderous laugh that it would tip her off to what the whole thing was about.

I peeped out before we started, and spotted her. She was sitting between an old couple, on one side, and one of the critics, alone, on the other, so it didn’t look like she would hear anything. In the intermission I peeped out again. She was still sitting there, and so was the old couple. She had sneaked a piece of chewing gum into her mouth, and was munching on that, so everything seemed to be all right, so far.

The chorus were in white ties, and they went on the way I said, and nothing happened. The orchestra played a number and Winston came off. He kidded me about my fit of temperament, and I kidded back. So long as everything was under control, I didn’t care. Then I went on. Whether it was what Damrosch wrote, or the way Winston conducted, or the tone of those horns, I don’t know, but before the opening chords had even finished, you were in India. I started, and did a good job of it. I clowned the second verse a little, but not too much. The other verses I did straight, and the temple-bell atmosphere kept getting better. When we got to the end, with the chorus dying away behind me, and me hanging above them on the high F, it was something to hear, believe me it was. They broke out into a roar. It had been a program of modern music, most of it pretty scrappy and this was the first thing they had heard that really stuck to their ribs. I took two calls, had the chorus stand, came off, and they called me out again. Then Winston did something that’s not done, and that he wouldn’t have done for anybody on earth but me. He decided to repeat it.

A repeat is something you do mechanically, God knows why. You’ve done it once, you’ve scored with it, and the second time out you do it with your mouth, but your head has already gone home. I went through with it, got every laugh I had got before, coasted along without a hitch. I hit the E flat, the chorus was right with me. I hit the F, and my heart stopped. Hanging up there, over that chorus, was the priest of Acapulco, the guy in the church, singing down the storm, croaking high mass to make the face on the cross stop looking at him. “Who is these man?”

We were in the cab going down, and it was like the whisper you hear from a coiled rattlesnake.

“What man?”

“I think you know, yes.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“You have been with a man.”

“I’ve been with plenty of men. I see men all day long. Do I have to stay with you all the time? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I no speak of man you see all day long. I speak of man you love. Who is these man?”

“Oh, I’m a fairy, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, thanks. I didn’t know that.”

It was a warm night, but on account of the white tie I had to wear a coat. I had been hot as hell going up, but I wasn’t hot now. I felt cold and shriveled inside. I watched the El posts going by on Third Avenue, and I could feel her there looking at me, looking at me with those hard black eyes that seemed to bore through me. We got out of the cab, and went on up to the apartment. I put the silk hat in a closet, put the coat in with it, lit a cigarette, tried to shake it off, how I felt. She just sat there on the edge of the table. She had on an evening dress we had got from one of the best shops in town, and the bullfighter’s cape. Except for the look on her face, she was something out of a book.

“Why you lie to me?”

“I’m not lying.”

“You lie. I look at you, I know you lie.”

“Did I ever lie to you?”

“Yes. Once at Acapulco. You know you run away, you tell me no. When you want, you lie.”

“We went over that. I meant to run away, and you knew what I meant. Lying, that was just how we got over it easy. Then when I found out what you meant to me, I didn’t lie. That’s all ... what the hell squwk have you got? You were all ready to sleep with that son-of-a-bitch—”

“I no lie.”

“What has this got to do with Acapulco?”

“Yes, it is the same. Now you love man, you lie.”

“I don’t — Christ, do I look like that?”

“No. You no look like that. We meet in Tupinamba, yes? And you no look like that I like, much, how you look. Then you make lotería for me, and lose lotería . And I think, how sweet. He have lose, but he like me so much he make lotería . Then I send muchacha with address, and we go home, go where I live. But then I know. You know how I know?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. It’s not true.”

“I know when you sing. Hoaney, I was street girl, love man, three pesos. Little dumb muchacha , no can read, no can write, understand nothing like that. But of man — all... Hoaney, these man who love other man, they can do much, very clever. But no can sing. Have no toro in high voice, no grrr that frighten little muchacha , make heart beat fast. Sound like old woman, like cow, like priest.”

She began to walk around. My hands were clammy and my lips felt numb. “... Then the politico , he say I should open house, and I think of you. I think maybe, with these man, no like muchacha , have no trouble. We got to Acapulco. Rain come, we go in church. You take me. I no want, I think of sacrilegio , but you take me. Oh, much toro . I like. I think maybe Juana make mistake. Then you sing, oh, my heart beat very fast.”