From Time to Time (33 page)

At the hotel a pink-slip message lay in my box: Phone Madam Zelda. I knew she'd be up, still out on the front stoop, most of them, still talking vaudeville, vaudeville, vaudeville, so I phoned from my room.

Her call time for tomorrow's performance had been changed; someone had just phoned her. Vera of Vernon and Vera had been taken to the hospital from their boarding house, apparently with appendicitis. And Madam Z had phoned me immediately because the replacement act coming in tomorrow from Albany was called Tessie and Teddy. If I was going to see it, Madam Zelda's act was scheduled to follow; would I stay and see her? And I said that I certainly would.

CHAPTER 22

I WAITED OUT THE MORNING in Central Park, walking around, sitting on a bench, getting up, following the sun: Tessie and Ted, Tessie and Ted. And arrived at the matinee far too early, no more than eight or ten other early birds, down here on the big main floor; all men, some of them reading newspapers. And because the houselights were on full, I saw that the fancy plasterwork, elaborately painted, was-not quite shabby, not yet, but getting there. And my red plush seat and those around me were worn, not quite to the nub yet, but getting there too.

Now a few women coming down the aisle, young, mostly alone, careful to pick seats with plenty of room on each side, then busy with their hats. Finally the orchestra coming in fast, up out of a black cave under the stage, heads ducked for the tiny doorway, carrying instruments. Settling to just below our eye level behind their little green curtain. Little music-stand lights coming on, tootlings and tuning and violin scraping beginning. And then lots of people, a rush of them, moving down the aisles, mostly single men, and now the women in pairs. Houselights lowering, then abruptly out, footlights sliding up the green curtain folds. On each side of the proscenium, a glass panel lighted up: A, it read, and I looked at my program: Orchestral Selections. The program began with a fast march tune; plenty of fife and snare drum. On thc next page Vernon and Vera were listed as E. But Vernon and Vera now meant Tessie and Ted, didn't it?

A went out, and B lighted up for The Hurleys. A baton tap, then the orchestra, soft and with a definite beat, footlights winking out, curtain rising fast on . . . this was a garden, wasn't it? Yes. A formal garden. Two shallow marble steps at stage front led up onto a balustered terrace the full depth of the stage back to a painted drop of gardens extending in perspective to a far-off horizon. Beside the steps, standing on two short newel posts, a pair of life-sized bronze statues of men with folded arms as though on guard, bronze bodies shining under spotlighting from far overhead.

What was coming? Music soft, beat strong, the stage stood empty through a well- timed moment. Suddenly a human figure flew across the stage in a descending arc: a man in tights standing on a flying trapeze that nearly brushed the floor of the verandah. He rose to the top of his arc, stepped gracefully off onto a pedestal, and turned to face the direction he'd come from. And in that instant a girl in tights flew past him to rise to her pedestal across the stage, and the pair, facing each other, stood smiling.

Then, to the music, they began a kind of aerial ballet: not dangerous but wonderfully graceful. He'd catch her wrists as she released her trapeze to turn toward him in the air . . . they'd swing out on one trapeze, two other trapezes swinging in toward them from the wings, each stepping onto one.

It was fun to watch, charming really-except that people were still coming in, walking down the aisles, sidling into the rows, banging seats down. In the semidark one girl called to another, "Edna, here's two! If this was customary, and it seemed to me, bothering no one as far as I could tell, I could understand why this first act was entirely silent.

Onstage the two aerialists finished, dropping to the stage, bowing to applause, smiling, gesturing one to the other with open palms, wrists turning upward. And when they skipped off hand in hand I thought-was supposed to think-the act was over.

Then my mouth actually popped open in real astonishment because-orchestra swinging into a fast tempo-the two motionless statues stepped forward down onto the stage and into a marvelous clog. Not tap but wooden-soled sandals clacking away in effortless rhythm, arms swinging, bronze faces grinning out at us. It was great, just great, and when they'd finished and the aerialists came out again, the four of them took their bows to a huge wash of applause, my hands smacking away with the rest. It was a fine finish, the green curtain up and down three times before the footlights again slid up onto the folds and gilt of the swaying curtain.

Now the audience was alive, pleased, eager for whatever came next. B had gone dark, and now C lighted up, but I didn't bother checking my program, just waited to see.

Curtain rising on-what was this? Before a backdrop of mountain scenery stood a long something extending across the stage. Cages. It was a long row of foot-high cages with wire-mesh fronts, standing up there side by side on spindly wooden legs. Movement in the cages . . . animals . . . They were cats. Ordinary cats, each in its own small cage, so narrow they had to face front, though they didn't seem unhappy; one sat washing its face with tongue and paw. But the tail of every single cat hung straight down behind the cage-well, of course: now I saw it; the tails were artificial. A row of artificial tails hanging straight down behind the cages. And walking on fast, here came a small thin man in evening clothes: thin pale face, thin trimmed black line of mustache. Coat with a swallowtail to his ankles. A single low bow, arms swinging up, then sweeping down to almost brush the stage. Then he walked quickly backward-skipped, really-to stand behind the first cage at the right.

A pause; then a very soft orchestral accompaniment creeping in, he yanked the first tail hard and simultaneously howled like an angry cat, his mouth hidden by the cage. It was getting harder to startle me, but that terrible cat howl made me blink. Then-sitting below stage level, we could see the black top of his bowed head sliding above the roofs of the cages. And underneath them, see his running legs and the rapid yanking of fake tails. Yanked in some sort of order, an awful yowl each time. Some he yanked twice, then raced past three or four tails to yank one down the line, and with each yank, yowling, howling, spitting, sobbing, lips closed but it had to be him, the cats seeming undisturbed. But his cries sounded real, and he was playing-or singing, or yowling, or whatever- "The Bells of Saint Mary's ! Oh, the yowls of. . . screech- howl-howl! Each note true but the snarling death moan or scream of a back-fence cat, and it was hilarious, the audience going crazy, laughing to almost drown out those terrible musical howls.

He finished with a tail yank that shook the cages, and stepped forward past the cages to make a low bow, an arm again swinging down through a great half-circle to sweep the stage. Then he leaped back, and resumed his crazy race behind the cages, yanking tails as he sobbed and yowled out the notes of-what else?- Turkey Trot. He finished with "Just a Song at Twilight -Just a yowl at cat moan . . . when the sob is screech . .

The audience wanted more, and our applause said so, but he was smarter than that. Because one more, I think, and suddenly the act would have turned boring. But he left us with a marvelous finish. Again and again he bowed to our applause, then walked forward and in some way-brows lifting, some subtle change in manner-conveyed to us that he wanted our attention. Our applause tapered off fast, we sat watching in expectant silence, he took one last step to the very footlights, leaned out over them, and the house eagerly still-he purred. A growling catlike purr that could be heard in the second balcony, I'm sure, and it killed us: he skipped off, the curtain descending in a rain of applause, a few of the audience imitating his cat yips.

Curtain down, audience still buzzing, some still laughing quietly, I sat wondering: Who were these vaudevillians? To what strange kind of person would it ever occur to turn a talent, if that's the word, for meowing and yowling like a cat into a lifetime career?

The Bird Lady: Curtain up, and there she stood, in a sequined dress, arms straight out at her sides, a dove perched on each wrist, elbow, and shoulder. Smiling, chin up, and looking regal. Looking younger, better-looking somehow. On four perches mounted on stands at each side of the stage, a dozen or so more birds, facing us. Then a snap of her fingers, and up they all flew, spiraling, climbing high over the stage. Now Maude Boothe-the Bird Lady -had a little whistle in her mouth. One silvery chirp, and every bird turned in the air and-they didn't fly but glided down over the suddenly murnmiring audience, then up to the balcony railing, w'here all perched, turning on awkward bird feet to face the stage.

Orchestra came in, very much in the background, and, with small whistled signals, the Bird Lady put the doves through their maneuvers. They flew, they perched on aisle-seat arms, patrons leaning away, smiling uncertainly. They lined up on the stage perfectly, I thought, and stood motionless till the whistle released them. They passed some object, I don't know what, from beak to beak down the line. They clustered, every one of them, on her arms, shoulders, head, while she walked about. Again, this time in a straight line, they flew out above us, then divided, every other bird, into two curves arcing back to the stage in a kind of heart shape over our heads, and . . . I didn't want to feel this way, it seemed disloyal, but for me it just wasn't very interesting. Surprising that birds could be taught these things, but . . . so what? And although I applauded as loud and hard as I could, out of loyalty, I was relieved when it was over.

But frightened. Because E. was next, Vera and Vernon . . . Tessie and Ted. I very nearly-feeling the actual muscle impulse- stood up to walk away. I did not belong here.

But I stayed. The Bird Lady took her last bow, the curtain down then, proscenium cards changing from D to F, and I abruptly cowered far down in my seat, arms crossing over my stomach, trying to become invisible, trying not to be here. But my head came up. A backdrop onstage now: vaguely painted trees, a stream -nothing. A baby grand piano and a stool. And oh, oh, here they were walking on. Tessie, my great-aunt, maybe thirty years old now? I'd never seen her, never known her. And walking beside her, smiling, almost grinning, the twelve-year-old boy who would grow up, be married three times, and in early middle age father a child in his final marriage, and still only in his forties die before his son was two.

I had two photographs of him. In one he is a grinning college boy in a porkpie hat sitting with a friend in the front seat of an open Ford touring car on the hood of which you can read in white paint, Peaches, here's your can! The other is a formal professional photograph: head and shoulders; necktie, stiff collar, stiff smile, mustache. Thirty-five maybe.

I knew those photographs, knew that face. And here was another version of it, right there up on the stage now, smiling, nodding at us as he twirled the piano stool to proper height. I knew he had already begun to drink, had probably just had a stiff one. A twelve-year-old boy with a knack for the piano, there with his ambitious aunt, she smiling out at us, placing herself by the piano, he-my father up there-turning a page of sheet music, positioning his fingers, looking at Tess-their moment, the very pinnacle of their lives-and as she began to sing, accompanying her on the piano. "Some . . . where a voice . . . is caw-ling, she sang, "Over land and sea . . . Some . . . where a voice . . ." The fingers on the piano keys doing well, playing well, in this their greatest moment. "Caw-ling to me-c-c . . ." She sang all right, I guess, I didn t know, couldn't tell. I just looked, sitting frozen, staring up at this forbidden sight. My own father: Was I going to cry? No. But I stopped looking at the stage, and just sat waiting, eyes downcast.

Applause, and she sang again, something-I don't know. Applause, and she sang once more, and I looked up and he was there, still there, hunched over the keys, smiling, glancing sideways, sending the smile out to us, up there playing, the smooth young cheek moving, weaving, in time to his music, the failed man, of failed marriages, the alcoholic-to-be already begun, here in the very peak of their lives, the famous days-not even a full week- when they "played Broadway. I shouldn't have come here, Danziger was right, always so right; this was a forbidden thing.

It was over then, the applause dying pretty fast, and they were gone. I hadn't applauded, I'd separated myself from this, had no right to participate, this seat vacant. I sat wanting to go home to Willy and Julia, and stay there, and I was going to, I was finished here now.

But F lighted up, Madam Zelda, and I'd said I'd stay for her act. So I sat there in the momentary darkness waiting for whatever I was feeling to slow down, to begin diluting and become able to be thought about.

Madam Z's act began in what I supposed was a traditional way, but still effective. Curtain up slow on a nearly dark stage, a small compact glow of light at the center. This intensifying as we became silent-a tiny spotlight focused on a large glass globe which sat on a kind of pillar. Now the light expanded to include Madam Z's face from below, then gradually her entire upper body. Absurd but effective. She sat there cross-legged in a sort of harem costume, I guess, a turban on her head, motionless, staring down at the glowing globe. And we sat silent and waiting.