Josephine Baker's Last Dance

by Sherry Jones

  “The show must go on—and it will,” Max had said. “They will do fine without you. They can put your feathered skirt on another girl, and she will slide down Joe Alex’s body, and everyone will love her.”

  Josephine frowned. If that was how he saw things, then why did he want her for his theater?

  “I see your potential, Josephine—potential that you are wasting in this revue. You are casting your pearls before swine. In Berlin, we will polish and present you as a shining jewel.”

  The dinner party was at the home of Harry Kessler, a count and also a writer working on a book about his life in Berlin. She and Fräulein Landshoff were among the first to arrive, joining the sleek, ermine-like count and other guests in the dining hall, a sumptuous room carpeted with rugs so beautiful Josephine hated to walk on them. Paintings crowded the walls; sculptures perched on tabletops and stood around the rooms, as in a museum. As a maid offered champagne, Josephine peered around for Max, who had sent Ruth to fetch her. Why hadn’t he picked her up as usual? She would have preferred to arrive on his arm than with the decadent Fräulein Landshoff, who, at a party last week, had worn her tux shirt and tails without any pants. She’d kissed Josephine on the mouth, given her a toke of reefer, wrapped her in a pink apron, and pulled her down to kiss on a sofa as these same men watched. Josephine blushed to greet them, but the dour face of the fräulein’s playwright, Karl Vollmoeller, sported a happy smile as if they were all one big family, and the count gave her a respectful bow. He escorted the entourage into a large library with all the furniture pushed to the walls.

  “I have cleared a space for your dance,” he said to Josephine.

  She frowned. Dance? She’d already danced two shows tonight. Excited about the new “pantomime” play Herr Vollmoeller wanted to write for her, she’d shimmied and shaken twice as hard, falling to her knees at the end of the night and throwing open her arms, giving love or receiving it, she never knew, but it had left her drained and hungry. At one o’clock in the morning, she had not eaten in more than twelve hours.

  “I didn’t come dressed for dancing, Herr Count,” she said. “I thought we were going to talk about my pantomime.”

  “I thought you undressed for dancing, Fräulein Baker,” the count said with a wink.

  The doorbell rang and the servant announced Herr Max Reinhardt and Fräulein Helene Thimig: his mistress, Fräulein Landshoff whispered. “He has made her a famous actress in his films. He wants to marry her, but his wife won’t give him a divorce.” Josephine stared at Fräulein Thimig, pretty enough with those high cheekbones and that pale skin, but the set of her mouth gave her a pained look, like somebody had forgotten her birthday.

  “You are heartbroken!” Fräulein Landshoff said. “But you must abandon any hope of love with Max. These men are Germans. They might fantasize about a girl like you, but they won’t do anything.” She kissed Josephine’s lips, licking off the champagne. “I don’t share their prejudice, dark skin is sexy. I adore you, so why do you care about them?”

  Three women arrived, one from England telling her how much they looked forward to seeing her dance tonight. No, they hadn’t attended her revue, they weren’t allowed: their husbands were prominent men and Hitler’s brownshirts had condemned Josephine. If they were seen in the audience it might cause trouble.

  “Those who oppose you do not understand you,” the count said. “They see your nude body and think you are decadent. They do not recognize the innocence of the savage race that you signify, the purity in your primitive dance.” Josephine wanted to tell these folks where she came from, and that she didn’t even know where Africa was, but she knew which side her bread was buttered on and kept her mouth shut.

  “Did you see today’s revue?” Max joined the gathering with his woman, who gave Josephine a frosty smile. “Josephine Baker embodies German expressionism.” He beamed as proudly as if he’d thought up the idea.

  “What are your thoughts on expressionism, Fräulein Baker?” the English woman asked. All eyes turned to Josephine, waiting for her to say something clever, but her mind was on other things: the woman with Max, his mistress; the expectation that she would dance on demand; the pantomime that no one had yet mentioned; Ruth Landshoff’s hand on her ass; the smell of food slowly filling the house; her champagne glass, now empty.

  Josephine shrugged. “Expression-what? I don’t know what that is.” A servant traveled through the room bearing a platter of hors d’oeuvres, and she untangled herself from Miss Landshoff’s embrace to follow him. Why had she come? These people didn’t care about her, they just wanted to gawk at the naked and savage dancing beast from the jungle. She’d thought Berlin was more advanced even than Paris, the cafés crowded with intellectuals who welcomed her to their tables and offered her glasses of beer and asked her questions about growing up colored in America, or for her thoughts on the popularity of jazz and who the next great stars would be. These snooty folks just wanted to be amused, to watch her perform like a circus animal, and Max wanted to brag as if he’d had something to do with her success.

  Tears stung Josephine’s eyes. Max had never led her on, but he hadn’t mentioned a woman. Why? Josephine had never worked with a man she hadn’t slept with—did he know that, too? She’d even given in to Joe Alex, her body tingling and alive after slipping and sliding across his skin so many times in rehearsal—that erotic moment when she straddled his face with her crotch still got her hot and bothered. She’d taken him home with her just once, partly out of loneliness and partly to get Claude’s goat. Afterward, their dance had taken on a new sexual intensity, even Mrs. Caroline had noticed it, although she didn’t know the cause. Josephine had made Joe swear he would not tell a soul. “I couldn’t stand for people to whisper about us,” pretending to be modest when in fact she didn’t want Claude to know.

  She filled a plate with sausages, sauerkraut, mustard, and dark bread, and took a glass of beer to the library, where people sat in chairs and spoke German. She found a seat in a corner, away from the babble, and gobbled down her food. When she finished, she went back to the dining room and heaped her plate again, then went back to her seat, ignoring the hopeful faces turned her way. Fuck them, fuck Max and his cold-as-a-witch’s-teat girlfriend, fuck the count and his pantomime that didn’t exist except as an excuse to get her dancing in his library, another story for his notorious, name-dropping diary. Harry Kessler had closed the eyes of someone named Nietzsche in his coffin, Max had marveled, his voice hushed as if they were in church; he’d gone joyriding with Igor Stravinsky and Jean Cocteau after the riotous premiere of The Rite of Spring; he’d loaned money to Auguste Rodin, who never paid him back; and Josephine Baker had danced naked in his library. Fuck him. She cleaned her plate and got up for more.

  When she returned, Count Kessler was standing in the middle of the library describing a scene he wanted to contribute to her pantomime. The new piece would not be a jungle dance as she was doing now in La Revue Nègre, but more refined, a ballet of sorts, with music by his friend Richard Strauss. “The best composer in Germany,” Fräulein Landshoff said. “You know his operas, don’t you? Salome? Der Rosenkavalier?”

  “Nein,” Josephine said.

  Herr Vollmoeller sat at the piano and began to play. The music would be half oriental and half jazz, the count said, and the music changed to a Chinese or Japanese motif with a syncopated beat—very catchy. The scene would involve King Solomon. Loosened by the music, champagne, and beer, Josephine set down her plate. So there really would be a pantomime—one made from a Bible story, what a good idea! Would she play the Queen of Sheba? No, she’d be a slave girl—a dancer, presented naked to the king. Josephine’s spirits sank again. Must she always be nude? She’d thought Max wanted to free her from “casting her pearls before swine.”

  The dance would not be crude, the count said, as if reading her mind, but elegant, some of it en pointe.

  “Josephine is not a ballet dancer,” Max said. He grimaced, like she wasn’t up to the
task, but she’d show him. She slipped off her shoes and rose up nearly onto her toes. She arced her arms over her head and twirled a time or two, eliciting a few polite claps. She glanced at Max, but he was still frowning. The ice queen beside him wore a haughty look. Josephine decided to show them both what she could do.

  “The slave girl is naked,” the count said, “because the king wishes to dress her himself, with the gowns and jewels of his choosing. He presents her with gift after gift, each more splendid than the last.” Josephine stripped off her gown and began to act out the scene in the nude, mindful of Max’s gaze but not letting herself look at him now. Applause and murmurs filled the room.

  “The more the king gives to his slave girl, the less he himself wears, and the more elusive she becomes. In the end it is the king who is naked, while the dancer disappears, ascending in a cloud composed of all the silks and jewels he has bestowed on her.”

  Parfait, Josephine said, she loved it, but who would play the king? She danced about the room in invitation, but no one dared. Still on her toes she glided, arms waving, to a large statue of a crouching, nude woman. Josephine bowed, bending low to the floor, and then began a pantomime of worship, picking up her gown and laying it at the sculpture’s feet, then removing her necklace and presenting that, as well, finally sneaking a glance at Max who stood in the doorway watching her, his eyes glinting a look she knew well. At last! Encouraged, she changed the dance, becoming the goddess and making the statue her supplicant, asking for her gifts to be returned to her, pulling on her underwear, her dress, her earrings and bracelets and rings, and then clasping the necklace about her throat and opening her arms to the room, inviting applause. Cheers echoed off the walls. She had done it: she had won them over, and Max, too. He would be hers soon enough. She stepped into the gown and zipped it up, and smiled at the count.

  “Got any more champagne?” she said.

  SHE WENT TO work the next day in high spirits. Not even rain falling like nails from a box and snarling the traffic in slow-moving knots on the Alexanderplatz could daunt her. So what if she was late getting to the theater? What would they do—fire her? The thought made her laugh, as did the man holding an inside-out umbrella over his head as though it were keeping him dry; two women scolding some children for jumping in puddles and splashing passersby; and, in front of the Nelson-Theater, several brownshirts braving the torrent in a most manly fashion to hand out soggy fliers that called Josephine more awful names. She hoped they would provide such great publicity when her film debuted!

  After her dance at last night’s party, the library had buzzed with ideas for her first feature film. Excited, Josephine had made an announcement: she had decided to stay in Berlin and study at the Reinhardt school. Cheers and applause filled the room, and Max proposed a toast, in German. She couldn’t understand a word, but the delight on his face told her what she wanted to know: lily-white girlfriend or not, he’d soon be in Josephine’s bed.

  Outside the theater, a little man huddled alone at a table on the patio, shivering and wet under the leaking atrium. When Josephine emerged from her car, he stood and she recognized M. Lorett, who worked as the booking agent for the Folies-Bergère. Josephine’s spirits sank. His coming here meant only one thing: trouble.

  “Your timing is perfect, monsieur,” she said breezily after rushing him to her dressing room. Thank the good Lord, no one had seen him. She patted him with a towel as lovingly as if he were her child, or her lover, soothing him as she broke her news. “I’m not returning to Paris, after all.”

  “But you signed a contract,” he sputtered.

  Josephine shrugged. “In Saint Louis, we made agreements by slapping hands.”

  “Mademoiselle, you must return.” His voice rose; his face reddened. “M. Derval has already spent thousands of francs on your show. He will file a lawsuit.”

  Josephine threw the towel down onto her dressing table. How dare he tell her what she “must” do? She would do what was best for her, and why not? Everyone else looked after themselves. Herr Reinhardt had offered her acting lessons for free, she told him, and had promised to make her a movie star. How could the Folies-Bergère compete with the best director in the world?

  He sighed, switching tactics, and his face returned to its normal color. She was making un grand erreur, he said. Did she not know what a wonderful opportunity lay before her at the Folies-Bergère? M. Derval had pulled out all the stops, commissioning the most beautiful and elaborate sets, paying the best designers for twelve hundred costumes, very extravagant—she should see them before she decided, they were breathtaking, covered in jewels.

  Josephine gasped. Her show had twelve hundred costumes?

  “Bien sûr, it must be, when you have a supporting cast of three hundred dancers and singers.”

  A cast of three hundred? Josephine’s heart beat a little faster. “And they have saved the best costume for last,” he said, “to be designed . . . by Josephine Baker.”

  Josephine imagined herself onstage in a costume of her own design. She would create something completely new, something that people would talk about for years to come. Hadn’t M. Poiret made a fortune from the gown that she’d drawn for him that day? He’d sold so many that she’d had to stop wearing hers. This new gown wouldn’t be for sale, it would be hers alone, an “exclusive,” maybe even her trademark.

  “Why do you need a school?” M. Lorett said. “Herr Reinhardt will not make you a star—because you already are a star. And you are in the prime of your life. As a woman, you will never be more desirable than you are now. Should you waste your best years toiling in some dreary classroom when you could be onstage at the Folies-Bergère, bedecked in splendor, accepting the accolades of your adoring public and making lots of money?”

  He was a smart one. Josephine could see right through him, but he did have a good point. She’d heard what a demanding teacher Max could be, even more so, she imagined, if he was letting you in his school for free. He’d work her day and night for three long years. By the time she got out, she’d be twenty-three. And then, if she succeeded—and she would—she’d have to spend her days in movie studios instead of theaters. She’d gone with Max to the set of his new film, wanting to see how things worked. She’d gotten an eyeful of people standing around doing nothing but tugging at their costumes under hot lights and trying to keep the sweat from ruining their makeup. They missed out on the best parts of show business: the applause, the tossed flowers, the leap to its feet of an entire room in adulation and thanks.

  “What about the music?” she said. “Does M. Derval have anything lined up yet?

  “Mais oui,” the man said. “Magnifique. All new songs, written for you, by Spencer Williams and Irving Berlin.”

  Josephine caught her breath. The great Irving Berlin was writing music for her? This could mean only one thing: M. Derval was going to let her sing! Her childhood dreams, the hours playing dress-up in Mrs. Mason’s clothes, it was all coming true. She would, at last, be a chanteuse.

  Seeing her expression change, the little man pressed on, his face eager at the prospect of closing the deal. He thought he had her in the bag, but Josephine knew it was the other way around: she had him.

  “It sounds tempting, but I’ve already given my word to H. Reinhardt,” she said.

  “But you gave your word first to M. Derval!” Now he looked like he was going to burst into tears. How much was M. Derval paying him to bring her back?

  “Movie stars make a lot of money,” she said.

  “M. Derval is paying you a large sum. You will earn nearly as much as Mistinguett.” It was a gross exaggeration, of course; she could not compete with the highest-paid performer in France. Not yet.

  “It isn’t enough,” Josephine said. “I’ll need a raise, four hundred more francs per show.” Irving Berlin! “If M. Derval agrees, I will leave for Paris next week. If not . . .” She shrugged.

  “But he has already spent so much.” Whining again. Josephine knew that she had w
on.

  “Then a little more won’t matter. But if he prefers, he can hire Mistinguett to replace me.” She opened her dressing room door, her face impassive, feigning indifference while, inside, she was jumping with joy. To sing the songs of Irving Berlin at the Folies-Bergère!

  As the monsieur hurried toward the exit, though, Mrs. Caroline came around the corner and stopped just short of running into him.

  “M. Lorett, what a surprise to see you in Berlin,” she said. Josephine slammed the door shut, her heart beating like a big bass drum. She didn’t know what the man would say, but Josephine didn’t want to be around to answer any questions. She pressed her ear to the door, trying to hear the conversation, but they had moved away. Lord have mercy, she was in trouble now. Mrs. Caroline was going to be hopping mad. M. Derval might get angry, too, if he knew she hadn’t told Mrs. Caroline about her contract with him. Nobody liked a double-crosser, not even one who’d grown up like Josephine did. And if Herr Reinhardt knew she’d changed her mind on him today, he might get upset, too. She’d be left with nothing. She’d have to go back to the States.

  Dancing in the sheeting rain, in the smothering heat, in piss-smelling theaters, in rat-ridden juke joints, the sleepless nights in roach-riddled rooms, the nights sleeping upright on seedy “coloreds only” train cars, the crick in her neck when she woke up, the meals she couldn’t afford, her stomach cramped with hunger, her heart cramped with loneliness, her seasickness on the RMS Berengaria and her catarrh that stunk up her breath, her pregnancy, the pain, the infection and her delirium, the baby she’d given up, the ones she hadn’t been able to carry since, all her dreams for her life, all her striving to make something of herself, to be Somebody, all of it might go to hell in a hand basket right this very minute. One wrong word from M. Lorett, and she would lose everything. She shouldn’t have shut the door; she should have pulled Mrs. Caroline inside and told M. Lorett to go; she should have confessed the truth right then and there.