Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

‘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?’

‘Of course Wladimir has offered to do just that.’ He called the theatre director by his first name, but without sounding smarmy. ‘But I can’t take to the stage. Never again.’

‘Because you don’t have a partner any more?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Herr Grün. ‘Because I will always have my partner.’

He insisted on offering them another glass of wine. ‘I have much to be grateful to you for.’

‘I’m already quite tiddly,’ Rachel objected.

‘And it suits you very well.’

It was the first time she had heard anything like a compliment from him.

They walked along side by side, Herr Grün in the middle, Rachel and Désirée on either side of him, taking an arm each. Twenty years before, Rachel had often strolled through the city at night like that, with an admirer on each side and her whole life ahead of her.

Herr Grün took them to the White Cross, a pub to which ‘one’ did not go, because the only people who did were those who didn’t distinguish between drinking and getting drunk. The two women came along without demur; Rachel because she didn’t want to appear like a fuddy-duddy, and Désirée because she didn’t know about the pub’s bad reputation.

It wasn’t far from the theatre to Rössligasse. Herr Grün opened the door, and they were standing in front of a wall of noise, smoke and clinking glasses.

The pub was cramped, and there wasn’t a single empty seat to be seen. But they seemed to know Herr Grün, and freed a table for him. One guest stood up voluntarily, protectively clutching his beer glass to his chest with both hands, a second who had fallen asleep over his glass was lifted away and sat back down next to two others on a bench, where he immediately put his head on the table and went on sleeping.

The landlady herself wiped down the table with a cloth, or distributed the puddles of beer and wine more evenly. ‘The usual?’ she said to Herr Grün, and when he nodded, ‘And the ladies?’ Her tone made it clear that they weren’t equipped for ladies here. Never before had Rachel felt so out of place in her elegant dress.

‘Half a litre of white wine.’ Herr Grün didn’t specify the variety. Such refinements were not called for in the White Cross.

He looked around, as if to make sure that everything was in its place, and said, ‘I like coming here. A place for people who want to forget. That suits me.’

Rachel wrinkled her nose. It was a facial expression that she had got used to in the days when she was much in demand. It had been cute back then. ‘It isn’t very elegant here.’