by Andy Conway
Mitch sipped bitter coffee and felt a rush of energy throb through him.
— 16 —
IT CAME TIME FOR THE men to retire to the smoking room.
“Not you,” said Natalie. “You’re coming with me.”
Otto accepted that Mr Mitchell would be embarking on an adventure, and led the men out of the dining room. Gustav walked out with them, without a glance back at his sullen wife.
Mitch pulled back from the pang of sympathy that flared in his heart, hastily extinguishing it. He could not be drawn too close to Alma. She was a siren singing him to shipwreck.
He took his leave of the ladies, not sure what was appropriate. He kissed Addie’s hand and bowed to the others. Alma turned away, betrayed. Natalie pulled on his arm.
In moments, they were outside in the crisp night air, snow cascading all around.
Natalie marched to the corner of Fifth Avenue. A hack driver called out, “Cab, sir? Have a cab?”
“Yes, thank you,” Mitch called, sloshing forward in the snow, his shoes slipping.
Across the street was the dark mass of Central Park. He tried to see the lights of the Majestic but there was nothing but a teeming canvas of falling snow.
A woman’s heels crumping behind them. They turned to find Alma running to them.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“But Alma, Gustav forbade it.”
“Pah! I don’t care,” she said, slipping her arm into Mitch’s. “He said you are to protect me, not leave me alone with the women. Besides, he won’t even notice I’ve gone.”
Mitch signalled the cab and helped the ladies into it, cursing to himself. What if Alma had come out a few moments later and missed them? She would have been drunk and alone on the New York streets at night. It was his job to make sure that didn’t happen.
“We’re going to take a scenic route,” Natalie laughed. “I want to show you the bright lights.”
Alma clapped like an excited child. “Oh this is so good. I have seen hardly anything of New York!”
The cab rocked its way down the side of Central Park to the south eastern corner and Natalie urged them to look up at the Plaza Hotel.
“They are so tall, the buildings!” Alma cried.
The Plaza Hotel, Mitch thought. Just a normal old hotel, but here, taller than any uptown building. A vast open space around it on that corner. He shifted quickly across to peer out of the other side at the Savoy.
They sailed on down Fifth Avenue, past the Plaza and the Savoy. Natalie pointed out the Vanderbilt mansion, a giant chateau squatting incongruously on the corner of 57th Street.
On and on down the Millionaires’ Mile, and there, something he recognized: the twin spires of St Patrick’s cathedral, towering over all around, not dwarfed by skyscrapers.
Down at 34th Street, Mitch stuck his head out of the carriage to get a good look at the giant Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The biggest hotel in the world. Breathtaking and monumental, but almost a bungalow compared to the Empire State that would take its place only twenty years from now. They talked of skyscrapers already and there wasn’t a single building in Manhattan that merited the phrase. But they were coming.
There were fewer mansions and more and more storefronts as they rattled south, and the snow stopped falling. At Madison Square Park, Natalie signalled the driver to stop. They peered across the park at a giant shadow just visible against the starlit sky.
“That’s the Metropolitan Life Tower. It’s going to be taller than the Singer Building downtown, and that isn’t even finished yet. The Singer will be the tallest building in the world for a month or so, I guess, then this one will take its crown.”
“It is all growing so fast,” said Alma. “Your architects are reaching for Heaven itself.”
Mitch saw a chance. “Which architect designed this one?” he said. “Was it Gropius? Walter Gropius?”
“I don’t think so,” said Natalie. “I’m sure it’s Napoleon LeBrun and Sons.”
“Oh, I’m confusing it with some other building.”
Alma had shown not a flicker of recognition. Her affair with Gropius had definitely not happened. He would casually torpedo the Mahlers’ marriage by writing a letter to Gustav — but right now she had clearly never heard of him, and he wasn’t the man who was blackmailing them.
“We should step out,” Natalie said. “Just take a look at what’s ahead of us.”
She opened the carriage door and Mitch hopped out into a gust of violent wind. He gave Natalie and Alma his hand as they stepped down, holding his hat with the other, and was so concentrated on his task that he jumped with surprise to see it towering over him.
The Flatiron.
As surprising as it had been this morning.
“Oh!” Alma cried out. “But it must fall over!”
“Isn’t it just the tops?” said Natalie.
The wind careened about them and made their skirts snap and flutter like flags in a storm.
“It seems to amplify the wind on this junction,” Natalie called. “It has a permanent storm around it.”
“How does it stay up?” said Alma.
“Nobody knows,” said Natalie.
“So impractical, for a building.”
“Our gentlemen of the press don’t like it one bit. The Tribune called it a stingy piece of pie. The New York Times say it’s a monstrosity. I rather like it.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Mitch.
He turned from it to find Alma staring at him, curious. She must have been wondering how anyone could find such a building beautiful. It was hard to reconcile a time when the Flatiron wasn’t regarded as one of the iconic and most revered landmarks of New York. Had it ever really been thought of as ugly? A monstrosity?
“And do you know the really crazy thing?” said Natalie. “There are all sorts renting offices in there, but it’s believed the mob have an actual office up there. Murder Inc. Can you believe that?”
“That mustn’t be,” said Alma.
“It would not surprise me,” said Natalie. “Come on. We have to see the Great White Way.”
They jumped back into the carriage and drove on, arcing around the Flatiron — Alma closed her eyes, scared that it was going to fall and flatten them — and coming around back up Fifth Avenue.
There, that was where he’d run this morning.
The driver cut left and veered into Broadway and night turned to day.
The street was a ray of light, blinding.
Alma gave out a great cry of ‘Oh!” and gripped his arm.
This was it. The Great White Way. Broadway’s strip of theatre land, lit up like a runway, like Vegas, like Blackpool. Animated electrical light shows across the front of every building. A giant woman’s face smiling at them.
“Watch her eye,” Natalie called.
She winked! They roared with delight.
Alma leaned across him again, instead of looking out of the other side, and he felt her thigh press hard against his own. The smothering warmth of her perfume.
They sailed through the canyon of light, transfixed, and Mitch counted off the theatres. The Criterion, the Gaiety, the Cohan, the Globe. And as they came up to 42nd Street, there was the Empire and the Casino.
The driver dodged onto Seventh Avenue at Times Square and this was the end of the Great White Way.
“This is Longacre,” said Natalie.
“Not Times Square?” Mitch asked.
“Oh, it’s called that now. But I don’t agree with places being named after businesses.”
This was it, the crossroads of the world. Nothing like the garish, neon chaos it would come to be, but getting there.
They cantered on, leaving the illuminations and street traffic behind them.
“It was worth the detour, yes?” said Natalie.
“Oh God, yes,” Alma cried. “I’ve never seen such things. Thank you so much.”
She gripped Natalie’s fist in thanks, with the grateful desperation of a woman w
ho’d been trapped in a mausoleum for months and been shown life again.
The carriage rattled on, leaving the bright lights behind, and they sailed into the heart of this district they called the Tenderloin. Soon the driver turned sharp right into 53rd Street that cowered under the shade of an El track and pulled up outside a five-storey building not unlike Otto Kahn’s mini-mansion. This was a hotel and night club, though, not a billionaire’s bolthole.
A sign proclaiming Marshall Hotel went right across two buildings.
Mitch’s hand went into his pocket, fingering the flyer with Selig Silverstein’s name scribbled on it, as they skipped to the curb and walked right in.
— 17 —
THERE WAS NOTHING SEEDY about the Marshall. It wasn’t a dive or a speakeasy. It wasn’t a gutbucket gin shack either. They marched through a hotel reception much like any other in New York. Not quite as grand and spacious as the Majestic, but there were decorative pampas grasses, and it was as ornate and gilded as any uptown establishment, with uniformed bellboys and waspie-clad waitresses that flitted around the tables. The clientele wore respectable evening dress, the men in tuxedos and bow-ties, the women in ball gowns and feather fascinators. The only thing different was most of the people were black, not white.
Mitch took it all in, fascinated, and was dimly aware that Alma pressed close to his side and linked her arm in his.
A sea of tables dotted around a ballroom, and onstage a minstrel group that blasted out a complex rag that was also a military march and stopped off at a half dozen styles in between. The players seemed to be a jumble of random movement but when you looked closer you could see it was choreographed.
A gentleman at the host stand greeted them and Natalie asked for a table as close to the stage as possible. He was making a show of there being nothing available when a black gentleman glided up to them. He looked like he was born in a tuxedo, so handsome and suave that he could take Hollywood by storm. A genuine matinee idol. But it was a good ten years before Hollywood would become Hollywood, and fifty years before they would make a movie star of any black man.
“Jimmie!” Natalie cried.
“Miss Curtis,” he purred, kissing her hand. “I see you’ve brought some new people with you.”
Natalie turned and presented them. “This is Mr Raheem Mitchell. He’s here from England. And this is Madame Alma Mahler.”
Jimmie bowed. “Madame Mahler. All of New York is talking of your husband. Welcome to the Marshall.”
He didn’t seem at all phased about the status of this guest. The Marshall must see some pretty swanky people each night.
Jimmie Marshall clicked his fingers and a table was brought and plonked right next to the stage. In moments, they were seated around a magnum in a silver bucket and a waiter was pouring champagne.
Mitch gazed in awe. There seemed to be no hierarchy in the seating. It was as integrated as it was possible to be, and the black clientele looked as wealthy and sophisticated as the whites. Harlem Renaissance, he thought. Though this was clearly not Harlem and that renaissance was a decade away. Maybe it had started here and moved to Harlem later, in the 1920s. Maybe he was witnessing the start of it all.
Natalie pointed out some famous faces seated around the ballroom, explaining that those two were Bert Williams and George Walker, the kings of black vaudeville; that was W.E.B. Du Bois, the writer; that fat white man eating a lobster like it was a chicken wing was Diamond Jim Brady; there was Florenz Ziegfeld; and look, that hulk of a black man was Jack Johnson, the reigning World Colored Heavyweight Champion.
Of course, thought Mitch. He’d never fought a white man. That wasn’t allowed. But someday soon he would be just the World Heavyweight Champion.
“What an amazing cabaret,” Mitch said.
“What’s a cabaret?” Natalie asked.
He realized that concept did not exist. It would come into being in another decade, and most people would think it was invented in France or Germany, but maybe this was the start of it: a jazz club where you could sit and eat and watch the show.
“This music is so different,” said Alma. “I’m sure Gustav would be fascinated, if he were here.”
“Oh, Jim’s band is the tops.” Natalie saw their confused glance to Jimmie Marshall, now laughing with Ziegfeld and the beautiful girls at his table. “No, that’s Jimmie Marshall, the owner. Onstage is Jim Europe, the bandleader.”
Mitch sought him out. There, at the piano. That kind face, sympathetic, younger than he’d seen in photos, with no military cap, but the same spectacles. Lieutenant James Reese Europe. He was going to fight in World War 1 the Harlem Hellfighters, single-handedly introduce Ragtime to France, and be the first bandleader to bring jazz to the attention of white society.
“Good God, this is history,” Mitch said aloud, but his words were drowned out in a furious honk of trombone.
They played on and Mitch devoured the music as greedily as Diamond Jim Brady was devouring the plates of steaming seafood that were brought to his table.
The band seemed relaxed, chaotic even, but it was tight, their moves all carefully choreographed. It was a dance performance as much as it was a musical recital. It was Ragtime possessed by classical, military marching band, music hall, blues, gumbo, and all the time this nascent spirit of jazz bellowing to break out.
They played to wild applause before James Europe announced an intermission, and Natalie rushed over to speak to him.
Mitch noticed again that her dress was a little shabby, even for the Marshall.
“How does she get away with it?” he said. “You said Otto’s crowd were a nest of vipers, but they love her.”
“This is truly democratic America,” Alma said. “Wealth bows its head to poverty if it clothes a creative genius.”
Natalie Curtis and James Reese Europe. Two creative geniuses.
“Mitch! Are you in love with her?”
“Not at all.”
“You shall make me jealous if you are.” She swatted his arm with her fan.
He couldn’t tell if she was serious or just teasing, as Natalie brought James Reese Europe over and he greeted Alma with a bow of his head.
“Madame Mahler,” he said. “Such an honour.”
Alma beamed with delight and invited him to take a seat.
“I was just remarking on how my husband would be so interested in your music. I must tell him all about it, though I don’t know what to call it.”
“People call it Ragtime, ma’am, but in truth I think that style is over. A new music is being born and, well, I guess there’s no name for it yet. Some call it blues. Some call it Jass.”
He pronounced it like that. Jass. With an unmistakable sybillant hiss. Mitch wanted to shout out, “It’s jazz! It’s going to be called jazz!”
“There seemed to be so many various influences,” said Mitch.
“Well, I’m a student of our folk traditions. I plan to return to the South some day to make a study of Negro spirituals.”
Natalie patted his arm, delighted. “You’re doing what I’m doing with Native American songs.”
“Oh, but I don’t just want to preserve history,” he said. “My aim is to use my knowledge of classical and ragtime music to create a new Black American musical genre.”
“You will,” said Mitch. “That is, er, I’m sure you already are doing that. I could hear it tonight.”
“Why, thank you, sir.”
“There’s a new music emerging from the rhythms of ragtime and blues. A new national music. It will be America’s classical music. I’m sure of it.”
Natalie eyed James Reese Europe with fascination, as if it was only just occurring to her.
“I don’t know that I’m creating it,” said James, “but I think I’ve heard it. There’s a man down in New Orleans who’s playing it. You never heard anything like it. Buddy Bolden will be the man to do it.”
“Buddy Bolden?” said Mitch. “You’ve heard him play?”
“You’ve heard
of him? I’m surprised. What a sound.”
“No one’s heard Buddy Bolden... I mean, where I’m from. If only there’d been a recording.”
It was one of the first great tragedies of jazz. Buddy Bolden had given birth to this thing called jazz and his renowned sound was lost forever.
“I have a recording,” said James.
“What? There aren’t any recordings though, surely?”
“Well, I’m sorry, sir, but I have a cylinder.”
Mitch remembered there were rumours. Buddy Bolden’s trombonist had talked of a recording session somewhere, but that was the only indication Buddy’s playing had ever been committed to posterity.
“You have it with you?”
“Not right here,” James smiled. “But here in New York, yes.”
“Oh my God, could I possibly hear it?”
“Of course,” said James. “I could play it for you.”
Here it was, a chance to hear something that was lost to the world. “I’d give anything to hear it.”
“Then I must hear it too,” said Alma. “If Mitchell is so enamoured of this music, I have to hear it for myself.”
Mitch dug into his pocket, something to write his address on, and he pulled out the flyer.
Selig Silverstein.
“Say, something you might help me with, James. I was supposed to meet someone here. An old friend asked me to look him up. Selig Silverstein is his name.”
“Not Big Jack Zelig?”
“I’m not sure.”
James Europe glanced all around and leaned closer. “You don’t want to come in asking questions about those kind of people.”
“Who is he?”
“Jack Zelig is a big shot in the Eastman Gang.”
“I don’t think that’s right,” said Mitch. “This is Selig. Selig Silverstein, look.”
He passed the flyer to him and James Europe looked it over.
“Selig? I’ve heard that name. Yeah, him and his anarchist buddies come and listen sometimes. Don’t be offended, but they seem an untrustworthy sort to me.”
“An anarchist?”
“Political types. Troublemakers. Though I have to say, I’ve never seen them cause any trouble in here.”