Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (25 page)

Barbara Ann sat down at the table. “What made you wait so long, Maya? And what made you change your mind?”

I told her I had thought that he was an ancient lech and I couldn't abide the idea of going out with an elderly stage-door Johnny who would slobber on my cheek and pinch my thighs, but that he had finally told me he was a swimming champion and now I was sorry I waited so long.

She understood and sympathized with me.

An hour later Bey appeared at my door. “O.K., Maya. Got yourself a swimming champion, huh?”

On the way to the theater, a few wags in the back of the bus began to harmonize: “I'd swim the deepest ocean …”

Among the cast no news was private and no affairs sacred.

The audience began applauding in the middle of the finale. They were on their feet, throwing roses and shouting before the curtain fell. We bowed and waved and repeated the bows unremembered times.

Backstage, Marilyn, the wardrobe mistress, was supervising the labeling and packing of costumes. Departures were always her busiest time. She had to tag the clothes that had been torn so they could be sewn or replaced before our next opening night, and to keep separate the pieces due for cleaning and the shoes needing repairs.

As I passed the wardrobe room the door was open on a havoc of disarranged clothes, hats, shoes, baskets and umbrellas. She looked up from her counting. “Going to meet Mr. Julian, huh, Maya?”

My only chance of escaping the curious eyes of my fellow singers was to leave the theater by the front entrance. I gathered my costumes and dropped them in the wardrobe room, as we were required to do. Marilyn's attention was on her work. I slipped past the stage hands who were breaking down the set and stacking scenery. I tiptoed across the stage and jumped from the apron to the theater floor. The lobby was empty and dark as I eased out the door. I had avoided everyone. As I walked to the inter section I looked down the street. I saw a crowd of well-wishers at the stage door; they would keep the company occupied for at least a half-hour. Mr. Julian, I am coming and coming alone. You'll never know what a remarkable feat I have accomplished.

I approached the designated corner, searching for a tall well-built man in a dark-green suit, possibly a tweedy affair. He might be smoking a pipe—pipes and tweeds went so well together.

Mr. Julian wasn't on the corner. I wondered if he had decided, after all, to collect me at the stage door. I crossed the street and stood under the light, planning my next move.

“Mistress Maya?”

I turned, happy to be relieved of the problem. A small, very wiry old man was standing before me. His eyes were large and black and glistening. His bald head looked greased under the streetlight. He was smiling a row of decidedly polished metal teeth. And he wore a Kelly green suit.

“Mistress Maya, it's that I'm being Mr. Julian.”

If he was a swimming champion the match took place in 1910.

“Yes, Mr. Julian. How are you?” I offered him my hand and he took it, stroked the back of it, turned it over and kissed the palm.

He mumbled, “I am loving you.”

I said, “Yes.” And, “How about that coffee?”

If Martha or Ethel or Lillian caught a glimpse of my athletic lover, I'd never be allowed to live it down.

“I can't go far, I must be in the hotel before curfew, you know.”

He didn't understand the word “curfew” and I didn't have the time to stand on the corner explaining it.

“Let's go to the café up the street. Is that all right?”

We sat at a small table silently. Each conversational opening I tried was blocked by his statements of undying love. His bright eyes watched me drink coffee. He observed my lips so intently, I had the sensation that his gaze was following each sip slide over my tongue, through the esophagus and into my stomach.

I gulped the last swallow and stood up. “Thank you, Mr.
Julian. I must get back to the theater or the bus will leave me.”

“I will take you to your hotel.” His eyes were begging.

“No, thanks. The buses have to take us. Sorry.”

“It's that I will walk you back to the theater. I am loving you.”

“Absolutely not! No, thank you. I appreciate the coffee and the thought, but I'd like to remember you right here, having coffee with cream.” I didn't offer him my hand again. “Thank you. Please stay. Good-bye, Mr. Julian.”

I walked slowly out of the café, but when I closed the door I broke into a run that would have impressed Jesse Owens. The bus was loading as I reached the theater.

As I climbed aboard, Martha said, “Whatever else Mr. Julian is, I can tell he's fast.”

Lillian said, “I've got something for you, Maya. You left it in your dressing room and I felt I'd better bring it to you. Your life would not be the same without it.”

She handed me a package. It was Mr. Julian's heart.

The singers were hardened to the discomfort of travel and the sense of dislocation. Yet the Yugoslavia trip put an unusual amount of pressure on us all. The cold weather, gray and dreary, and the incommodious hotel with its grim corridors and heavy odors pressed weightily on our spirits. The unhappy people in their ugly, thick clothes and the restrictions on our freedom of movement all combined to make us impatient to put the dour place behind us and to bask in the sunshine of North Africa.

Ethel, Martha, Barbara Ann, Lillian and I crowded our personal belongings into the two overhead racks of our compartment. It was seven o'clock on a dark morning. The cast had begun to assemble at the train station at six and we had boarded the fabled Orient Express as soon as Ella Gerber and Bob Dustin completed their head count and were satisfied that no member of the company was still sleeping at the Moskva. Belgradians crowded around the train steps. Some Yugoslavian women sniffled and dried their eyes as male singers embraced them, checked their watches and boarded the train. A few female singers waved good-bye to some native men, who wept openly.

My friends and I nestled down, anxious for the train to move. We were chatting when a noise alerted us. We looked up to see Mr. Julian standing in the doorway of the compartment, holding a small package.

“Mistress Maya?” Tears trickled down his face. “Mistress Maya, I am wishing you joy happiness and wictory” With that emotional outcry he threw the package in my lap, slammed the door and leaped off the train.

Lillian asked,
“That
was Mr. Julian?”

Ethel said unbelievingly, “No, surely not?”

Barbara Ann asked, “But when was he a swimming champion?”

Martha shifted her small head and said, “He looks like he'd have a hard time floating across a bathtub.”

Before I could retort, his face was at the window. He waved his hands in a beckoning motion and the train began to move slowly. Mr. Julian kept up with our window for a while, but as the train gained momentum his face and all the other faces of those left behind began to slide from our view. In a few minutes we were in open country, looking out on lonely farmhouses and sullen fields.

Ned Wright pulled the door open and offered a bottle of slivovitz.

“Here we are, me darlings. Long gone and away. Tito can keep his Yugoslavia. I am meant to sit under sunny skies and sing. What the hell are you crying for, Maya?”

Ethel said it couldn't be for Mr. Julian. “Did you see him?”

Martha laughed, “He looked like a mile of country road in the winter in North Carolina.”

I said, “But he persevered. And he was nice. I mean, he never failed to call and he had to get up very early to be at the station before we left. I admire that in anyone.”

Ethel asked, “Would you like to go back to Belgrade?”

I didn't have to choose an answer. I said, “No. Pass me the slivovitz!”

The train sped all day through the glowering provinces
and we took our meals in an old dining car which smelled like our last hotel. Some of the cast took naps or wrote letters home. We played games of rise and fly bid whist in our compartment with all the passion of addicted gamblers. When the gray afternoon finally surrendered to night, a porter made our beds and we slept.

I awakened to find Martha and Ethel chittering like crickets. The sunlight came boldly through the windows and their faces were lit with a gaiety I hadn't seen for weeks.

“Maya, girl, you're going to sleep all day? Look out the window.” Martha edged over and made room for me. The countryside had changed. In one night we had passed from bleak winter to spring. Cows grazed on abundant green foliage and the farmhouses were painted in so many vivid colors the scene resembled a large Matisse painting.

Grownups, smiling broadly, waved at the train, and children bounced, laughing their excitement. The picture touched me so violently that I was startled, and in an instant I realized that I had not seen giddy children since Venice. The Parisian youngsters were so neat in dress and manner they might have been family ornaments created and maintained to adorn. The children I saw in Yugoslavia appeared sensible and level-headed without the buoyancy of childhood. Here were children I could understand. Although their voices didn't carry over the distance and through our windowpane, I was certain they were shouting, yelling and screaming, and I was just as certain that the mothers were saying “Be quiet,” “Stop that” and “Hush.”

I got up and excused myself. The longing for my own son threatened to engulf me. As I walked down the corridor, controlling the emotional deluge that swelled in my
mind, I passed compartments where other members of the company sat close to their windows, absorbed.

We caught brief glimpses of the white buildings and green hills of Athens, then boarded buses which were to take us to the port city of Piraeus. The road was high and winding, and our moods were high. We sang in full voice every song that was suggested and laughed when someone made the wrong harmonic change or forgot the lyrics.

At the waterfront, Dustin doled out cabin assignments and announced that Lee Gershwin was throwing a champagne party on the ship for the entire cast before lunch.

If only Yanko and Victor and Mitch could see me now. I had dredged up some Greek learned during my marriage and greeted the crew members. They were already excited by the cluster of Black people, and when they heard me speaking their language they nearly saluted. Three men left their posts to help me find my quarters, where my suitcases, books and mandolin were already stacked on a table in the single room.

Martha, Lillian, Ethel and Barbara Ann came down the passageway talking about the ship, the champagne party and the handsome Greek sailors.

I stopped them, and said, “Hey, you guys, aren't you surprised that Lee Gershwin is inviting the humble nobodies to her affair?”

Martha said, “Darling, Miss Fine Thing has never been humble, and for your information, she has always been Somebody. She shall grace the motley crew with her presence.” She grinned and flung her head back.

Lillian said, “Dearie, there's going to be champagne?” She nodded, answering her own question. “I'm going to drink Madame Gershwin's champagne.”

Barbara Ann said smoothly, “Maya, you've never forgiven her for telling you and Joy what to wear in Venice, have you?” She shook her head and managed a sad smile. “And I thought you were supposed to be a Christian. Shame, Maya, shame.”

They continued looking for their rooms and left me thinking about Lee Gershwin. She had approached me and Joy in Venice's Saint Mark's Square on our second day in Italy.

“Don't you girls know you shouldn't wear slacks in Italy? The Italians don't like it.” Her narrow face was sour with propriety. “Be nice. Remember, we are all ambassadors.”

Joy had told her: “One, it's cold. Two, I'm singing every night on a cold stage and changing in a cold dressing room, and three, I'm working six hours a day with the cast on their roles. Four, I shall continue to wear slacks and, if I need it, a parka!”

I simply looked at Lee. If I had given tongue to my voice, I'd have said too much. I simply continued to wear slacks when I thought it necessary, counting on my own sense of propriety to dictate what I should wear where and when. The incident had slipped from my consciousness, but once reminded of it I had to admit that Lee's maternalistic attitude had so infuriated me that, although she traveled with us, I had erased her from my thoughts.

I unpacked the clothes I would need for the three-night, two-day trip to Alexandria and changed into a dress for lunch.

When I walked up the stairs, stewards grinned and spoke to me in Greek, and as I entered the dining room a large, bushy-haired man in a black suit caught my arm.

“Mrs. Angelos?”

“Yes?”

“I am the purser.”

I couldn't dredge up one idea of what to expect.

“You speak Greek?” he asked.

“Yes. A little.”

“How did you learn?”

“My husband was Greek.”

“Ah.” And he grinned a broad approval. “Mrs. Angelos, may I make a suggestion?” He turned his large body sideways and spoke out of the side of his mouth as if he were giving me the secret of building an atomic bomb.

“Yes.”

“There is a party. A champagne party.” He inclined his head toward the table where members of the cast were already lifting glasses. “We expect a very rough trip to Alexandria. It would be better if you didn't drink today. Or tonight. Not champagne. Not wine. Not water. Eat lightly. Bread. Biscuits. And no drinking.”

I thanked him and asked if he had warned anyone else. He smiled, pulling his lips leftward to reveal a solid gold tooth.

He said, “They are opera singers. I wouldn't try to tell them. But you”—again he grinned—“you are nearly Greek”—he took my hand and kissed it—“and you have my sympathy. Good-bye. Remember.”

Sympathy? He thought having married a Greek made me deserving of his compassion? Strange.

My friends had saved a chair for me at their table.

“Miss Thing, hold your glass.” Martha held the champagne ready to pour.

“No, I'm not drinking.” I told them of the warning.

Lillian said, “I've never been seasick in my life.”

Martha and Ethel seconded her. They shared the wine and giggled, paying no attention to my admonition. Every table was filled with happy flutters. Even the few non-drinkers were in a party mood. I only half believed the purser, but was glad for an excuse not to participate. I liked to pay for my own drink or at least choose the sponsor who treated me.