In her last letter, Cheryl had written that she loved, loved, loved the Carmen Miranda paper dolls, each love decorated with hearts and stars. A bit of her spunk returning? Gina closed her eyes, thinking this office a lonely place. Filled with family and friends, the nipa hut, despite its bugs and resident birds, in some ways had been a better place. She hadn’t realized it then. She dozed for a minute.
Waking up with a start, she shook her head to regain focus and then picked up the phone and ordered daily ads to be placed in the Tribune, Gazette, and Philippine Free Press newspapers:
Grand Opening
December 1, 1943
Manila’s Newest and Hottest Nightspot
Pearl Blue
Spectacular Floor Show! Dance Floor! Live Band!
Drinks and Dim Sum
Make Your Reservations Now!
Chapter 21
GRAND OPENING
As I decorate a sad little Christmas tree with string and origami animals made from gum wrappers, I suffer endless longing for Angelina and my precious daughter, Cheryl.
—Ray Thorpe, Cabanatuan prison camp, October 1942–January 1944
Julio’s personal collection of recordings included everything from Wagner to Joplin, most of which he could play renditions of on the piano. When Gina went from her apartment down the stairs to Pearl Blue, he had Ella Fitzgerald playing on the sound system. “Sit with me for a minute,” she said. “What time is the band coming?”
“They’ll be here by five. We’re still set up from last night’s practice.”
“If I don’t get a chance, tell the guys they clean up real nice.”
“Yeah, well. Gil doesn’t like the black tux, and Layden says he feels like a pussy in the peach-colored ruffled shirt. Christ, Gina—”
“Tell them to grow up. It’s only for the weekends, and it adds a touch of class.”
“Personally, I think my striped coat and lucky green bow tie are classy enough.”
She opened a bag of macadamia nuts and beckoned to Ling, her security man. He was a younger version of Chan and trained in the martial arts with both fists and weapons, as were all of his brothers and sisters. Approaching, he moved with the graceful ease of a fighter comfortable in his toned body.
She pointed to a chair, and he sat down. “I had my window open last night and thought I heard someone outside. It might be nothing, but I’d like you to check it out.”
“Yes, ma’am. I rake near the foundation yesterday. If anyone there last night, I seeing footprints.”
“You raked . . . ?” For as young as he was, Ling knew his job. He’d insisted she have bushes and debris removed from around the foundation of the building and lights mounted by the kitchen and stage doors. Inside, he’d secured the windows, triple-locked every door, and had a one-way mirror installed in her office so she could view the vestibule and the Orchid Room. “If there’s trouble, I expect it will be tonight. Did you find extra help?”
“Yes, my sister, Biyu. She put man’s face to the floor in two seconds.” He grinned. “I time her. I check outside right now.”
Julio watched Ling leave. “Are you expecting Rosa’s monkeys?”
“Possibly. Or Irma, the bakery lady. She’s not happy we’re here.”
Backstage was in a state of opening night chaos, with dancers in various stages of dress warming up their back and leg muscles. At the barre, Margo and her dance partner, Manny, bickered their way through a warm-up routine—he a perfectionist and she a master of the quick retort. Gina whiffed the fruity odor of pot, and she barged into the men’s dressing room. “Who’s got one burning?” she demanded. “You know the rule. No drugs before the show.”
Hores, a tall dancer as thin as a pencil, answered. “We’re doing good. Leave the door open on your way out, will ya? It’s hotter than the devil in here.”
“Just put it out,” Gina snapped, aware she ruled from a weak position, with every musician and dancer hired essential to the show.
In the women’s dressing room, Gina sniffed the scent of orchids and tuberoses from the island dancers’ coronas and leis. With a sprained ankle tightly wrapped, Arielle sat in a corner, gluing pheasant feathers onto an elaborately plumed and beaded headdress that Hores would be wearing. She held up the headdress. The beads and shells jangled, and the feathers wobbled. “I’m not sure this glue will dry in time.” She chuckled. “Hores might molt on the stage.”
“Don’t tell him that,” Inez warned while applying a second coat of mascara. “He’ll have a breakdown worrying about it.” She stopped her makeup routine to light a cigarette. “My friends are out partying right now, and I’m missing all the fun. They’ll probably show up drunk as skunks tonight.” She chortled. “Just a warning.”
The list of the night’s plagues was growing longer—injured and bickering dancers, pot-smoking musicians, a faulty headdress, and the high probability of sloshed patrons. Nothing unusual, Gina knew. Still, she couldn’t shake the jitters. She reached for a cigarette, then put it back in the pack, afraid it would irritate her throat.
Ling stepped into the dressing room, carrying a foul-smelling bag at arm’s length. “Animal horns . . . goat, ram, bull. I find bury in the yard.” He held up a black, moldy one.
The women recoiled. “Ugh. Really? What for?”
“Seems you cursing. Each horn buried in the yard bring six years bad luck.” Ling rattled the bag. “Four in here. Maybe more outside.”
Gina didn’t believe in curses. “Just get them out of here.”
As she turned and walked away, she heard someone ask, “Can you reverse it?”
Standing in front of the full-length mirror, Gina slipped on her dress, an understated low-cut black number with a fitted bodice, spaghetti straps, and a long slim skirt that skimmed over her trim figure. Her hair was parted to cover one eye when she tipped her head just so. Large diamond-and-antique-gold earrings dangled around her face, and a matching bracelet sparkled on her wrist.
Bing Crosby crooning “O Tannenbaum” drifted in from the Orchid Room, bringing on memories of Ray making origami kittens, birds, and dragons for Cheryl to hang on her own small tree. The child had saved those ornaments in her treasure box, which was gone now, like everything else.
Julio came up behind her and fastened the clip on the back of her dress and gazed appreciatively at her reflection in the mirror. “You’re a vision of success, boss.”
That was the impression Gina wanted to portray. In reality, the jewelry was borrowed from Chan. “Money begets money,” she had said when she’d approached Chan about wearing the jewelry stashed in his safe, most pawned by the once-wealthy American women interned in Santo Tomas. Gina turned the bracelet around on her wrist, wondering who’d worn it last. With a sigh, she turned her back to the mirror and to her memories and questions.
The music changed to “Carol of the Bells” to lighten the mood, so Gina knew Pearl Blue’s doors had opened. From behind the one-way mirror in her office, she and Inez watched as Petra, the full-lipped, green-eyed, socially elegant hostess greeted and seated guests.
The dining room filled with Manila’s art and political personalities, Japanese military officers, physicians and staff from the Remedios and Philippine General hospitals, and professors from the University of the Philippines. Inez’s sloshed friends gathered together on the settees. Gina felt slightly heady when she saw Hajime Ichikawa, who conducted the symphony at the Manila Metropolitan Theater, arrive on Petra’s arm. A pear-shaped photographer from the Philippine Free Press circulated the room, snapping pictures.
“I think you’ve hit the jackpot,” Inez said.
“Thank God, we’ve got one hell of a show for them.” Her mind flew through everything that could go wrong, from injured dancers to equipment breakdowns. “If we can pull it off.”
“Don’t tighten up, Gina. We’re ready. Keep positive.”
Gina heard her cue and flung a red feather boa over one shoulder. On her way to the stage, she called, “Break a leg,”
to the women dancers. Passing the men’s dressing room, she waved and repeated the sentiment in Italian: “In bocca al lupo.”
The band was playing a popular melody, and when Julio saw Gina standing in the wings, he winked at her and then continued solo on the piano while purring melodically into the microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen. We’d like to welcome you to the grand opening of Manila’s newest nightspot, Pearl Blue. Our goal is to entertain, enthrall, beguile, and captivate you this evening. We hope you love the show and will come back to visit us . . . and next time bring your friends along. Now, it is my great pleasure to introduce Pearl Blue’s most perfect pearl, our own wonderful songbird, direct from the stages of Venice, Rome, and Florence, Italy: Signora Angelina Aleo.”
Breathe, Gina coached herself. Let it flow.
Piano and drums segued into a subtle 123-12 syncopation, the stage lights darkened, and Gina strolled into the spotlight and assumed the eighteenth-century persona of Pirate Jenny, who lived in a crummy German town and toiled as a maid in a cheap hotel while suffering gawks and taunts from her cruel oppressors . . . and planning her revenge.
Gina slunk around the stage, watching her audience’s reaction, flipping the red boa, slipping between German and English, whistling to punctuate a point while melodically spinning the tale of Jenny’s imaginings: a thick fog in the harbor, a black freighter appearing, a town under siege, and Jenny’s soul-satisfying retaliation before sailing away with the pirate invaders. The performance ended abruptly with a flourish on the piano and the bang of the drum. Gina felt elation and relief that she’d completed her number without a memory lapse or a trip. She bowed deeply to the applauding audience and acknowledged Julio on piano and Giorgio on drums.
Covered with a fine sheen of perspiration and with her dress sticking to her in inconvenient places, she addressed the audience. “Welcome to Pearl Blue. You may have recognized Pirate Jenny from The Threepenny Opera, written in 1927 by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. The opera was wildly popular when it opened. Within a year it had been performed in cities all over Europe. Everybody knew the songs.” She whistled a few bars of “Mack the Knife.” Smiling, she made eye contact with Franca, who gave her a wink. “I’m going to let you in on a fantasy of mine.” She paused, taking the time to observe the effect of this teasing admission on their upturned faces. “I’ve been singing and dancing since I was a young girl—”
Giorgio tapped the snare and clanged the cymbal.
Gina turned toward him and put her hands on her hips. “It wasn’t that long ago—”
The audience laughed.
Gina laughed, too, and continued. “Ever since then, I’ve dreamed of opening my own nightclub. In my fantasies, my desire was to entertain the best people—the generous of heart and the knowledgeable of mind—people like yourselves who are the backbones of society.” She gestured outward. “And here you are. Right in front of me. I’m honored to be in your presence. Thank you for coming tonight. I hope you enjoy the show.”
For the next thirty minutes Gina held the audience in the palm of her hand as she alternately bubbled with vitality and gently caressed them with a medley of songs from Cole Porter and selections from the bluesy Billie Holiday’s songbook. The spotlight followed her when she left the stage to circulate among the tables to tease and cajole or to straighten a crooked tie or wrap the boa around a bald head while she sang the playful tune “I Get a Kick out of You.”
When she returned to the stage, she stood beside the piano. “Please give a hand to our talented band: Julio on piano, Sedrick on strings, Giorgio as percussionist, Layden on the horns, and Gil on everything else.” She gestured toward them, and the band stood and bowed to enthusiastic applause.
Before the crowd had time to catch their collective breath, the curtain opened to a full moon peeking through a densely jungled setting and the figures of three women stomping their bare feet and shimmying their grass-skirted hips to the wild beat of percussion instruments and the wail of a wooden flute. The audience remained standing as the beaded and tasseled island dancers fanned out over the stage, followed by the two drummers, their mostly naked bodies brightly painted and their oiled hair pulled into tight knots on top of their heads.
Gina watched Arielle from the wings, worried that the young girl’s injured ankle wouldn’t hold her, but Arielle proved that she had grit, giving the dance all she had. Eddie came to Gina’s side and whispered into her ear, “Thought you should know. Ling saw one of the waitstaff going into the utility room. He caught him trying to break into the fuse box.”
Gina turned abruptly. “To interrupt the show? Where’s the man now?”
“Ling tripped him when he ran, and Biyu chased him out the stage door.” Eddie smirked. “Sissy.”
Gina didn’t see any humor in the intrusion; there was more at stake than Eddie realized. She scowled back at his silly grin.
He shrugged and uttered, “Ling recognized him as one of Rosa’s monkeys. Don’t read too much into it.”
That one of Rosa’s monkeys had infiltrated her staff was a significant concern to Gina. “We can’t let that happen,” she barked and saw a puzzled look cross Eddie’s face. “Sorry, nerves,” she mumbled. The dance pulled her attention back to the stage.
The flute stopped its wail. In its place the hollow, rolling beat of a kettledrum preceded the appearance of a figure emerging from behind the curtain, dressed head to toe in black, moving on all fours, slinking smoothly as a panther around the edges of the stage, stalking the dancing women. A warrior appeared next, as slim as a pencil. A loincloth covered his essentials, and a tall headdress of hackle feathers, seeded beads, and coconut flowers elongated his figure. A belt of dried grasses circled each ankle, and he carried a spear. He whistled to the women, who turned, saw the roaming panther, screamed, and scrambled away.
“Super,” Gina whispered to the island dancers as they came backstage. “Arielle, how’s the ankle? You going to be all right for your next number?”
“It’s okay. I’ll wrap it later and take another aspirin.”
Onstage, two flutes moaned a counterpoint duet as the warrior and panther circled, their eyes intent on each other’s every step and twitch, one advancing, the other retreating, the warrior prodding, the panther clawing and hissing.
From behind the curtain, Gina assessed the audience, which sat motionless in a tense rapture, and when the panther crouched and sprang, she heard their collective gasp.
The warrior whirled away in a series of grand jetés, and again man and beast faced each other, one hissing, the other growling. The warrior attacked, and a battle ensued in a cloud of arms and legs, feathers and fur, untamed, ferocious, and feral. The warrior raised his spear overhead, and to the clang of a cymbal, he thrust the tip deep into the heart of the snarling foe. He circled the animal, watching it writhe and die, and then sank to his knees, his back bowed and head bent low, his hand to his face in the posture of prayer and profound remorse.
Gina sank into a chair as exhausted as if she had herself fought that battle.
The program continued with Julio’s piano rendition of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and concluded with a jerky marionette number performed by Inez and Arielle.
Gina sighed with relief that the hastily put-together opening night had gone without a hitch, and it had been magnificent. When she returned to the stage to close the show, she struggled to hide her giddiness. “Thank you for coming. I hope you enjoyed the show and will tell your friends about us. We’re open Tuesday through Saturday for music and dancing, with a full floor show at eight p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. Have another drink; enjoy the dance music. As soon as my lovely and talented dancers catch their breath, they will be out to chat with you.”
The crowd dispersed to the bar and dance floor or to the smaller Hibiscus and Jasmine Rooms to converse in intimate clusters. Gina moved among the guests and graciously accepted their praises and wishes of good luck in her new venture. Upon seeing Franca, she whispered into her
ear, “Thank you for bringing your many well-heeled friends. I owe you one.”
Franca returned the whisper. “A big one, and soon I may be calling it due.”
Gina stepped back, curious as to what was in store for her, but Franca changed the subject. “My dear, you do me proud. How did you put this together in such a short time and on a shoestring budget? You and your staff are most certainly talented.”
The dancers reappeared, the men in black jumpsuits and the women in hand-painted sarongs with white orchids pinned in their hair. They joined Gina to schmooze with the crowd, Inez and Arielle seeking out the Japanese officers on whom to lavish their special attention.
Later Gina, Inez, and Arielle toasted each other with the last drops of champagne. Inez removed the orchids from her hair and shook her head, letting her dark tresses fall to her shoulders. “I feel like magic happened. Look, my hands are shaking.”
Already a little tipsy, Gina said, “Don’t sell yourselves short, either one of you. What happened here tonight was the result of hard work.”
“Here’s to hard work and magic.” Arielle held up her glass in a toast.
“To success,” Inez uttered.
“To those Japs—the officers we were mesmerizing.”
They clinked glasses.
“Do you think they’ll come back?” Arielle asked.
Inez let out a hoot. “You kidding? Most assuredly, and they’ll bring their friends. Isn’t that what we are all about? Here’s to the Japanese, our rich and unwitting partners. May many flood our doors.”
“To the guerrillas in the mountains and the men in the prison camps,” Gina added. “God bless them.” She silently added, To Ray and Cheryl. May this crazy endeavor help bring them home to me.
The mood became wistful but triumphant, and the three exhausted women left Pearl Blue arm in arm, giggling like schoolgirls giddy from too much champagne.
Along the Broken Bay Page 20