The Demi-Monde: Winter

by Rod Rees

  Ella had no such apprehensions. She nodded towards the three doormen guarding the club’s entrance. ‘Which one of those doorstops is the main man?’

  Vanka looked and frowned. ‘Karl. The biggest one, the one with the waxed moustache, but it’s no use, he’s already turned down a ten-guinea bribe.’

  Arm in arm with Vanka, Ella strolled – putting a coquettish little wiggle in her walk as she did so – over to Karl. ‘Miss Ella Baker and her friend Colonel Vanka Maykov, here at the invitation of Mr Toussaint Louverture,’ she announced.

  Karl spent a few moments running an appreciative eye over Ella’s long, slinky, cream-coloured gown, and, of necessity, the long, slinky, caramel-coloured body the gown was so desperately striving to contain. This done, he checked the guest list. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Baker, but I don’t have you on my list.’

  ‘That’s because I only decided to take up my big sister’s kind invitation to see the show an hour ago.’

  ‘Your sister?’

  Ella tapped a finger on the poster that decorated the entrance to the nightclub. ‘My big sister, Josie.’

  ‘I didn’t know Miss Baker had a sister … er … Miss Baker.’

  ‘Well, you do now.’ If anyone could pull off the trick of playing Josephine Baker’s sister, Ella knew it was her: she had the colour, she had the same slim figure, she was wearing a suitably elegant and quite risqué gown and she had put a decidedly arrogant lilt in her voice. She had spent so much time trying to sing like Josephine Baker that she was pretty confident she would be able to talk like her.

  Ella could tell from Karl’s expression that he was faced with something of a dilemma. Probably his manager had told him very forcibly that under no circumstances was he to allow entry to the club to anyone not on the guest list but the scene he could imagine ensuing if he turned Josephine Baker’s sister away was really too horrible to contemplate. In the end he capitulated.

  He unhooked the red rope guarding the club’s entrance. ‘Monsieur Louverture has table number sixty-seven, Madem -oiselle. It is on the far side of the club. I trust you and Colonel Maykov will have an enjoyable evening.’

  Together they swept regally into the club, Ella doing her best, as she sashayed through the foyer, to restrain herself from laughing out loud at her triumph. Even the tawdriness of the interior didn’t dampen her exuberance.

  The Resi’s reputation was that it had been the epitome of decadence; instead it seemed decidedly low-rent. The club was built around a large rectangular dance floor surrounded by packed tables themselves bordered by more intimate booths set on two low balconies. It was garishly decorated – to Ella’s mind it resembled an old-fashioned cinema that had been tricked out in pink and gilt – and lit by dozens of candelabras. There was nothing subtle about the Resi; it looked just what it was: a huge, brash pick-up joint.

  Yet when Ella entered the room with Vanka, there was only one couple who grabbed the attention of the crowd. That Vanka was, without a doubt, the best-looking and best-dressed man in the room – with his figure, he was born to wear black tie and tails – contributed to this, but it was probably that he was accompanied by a Shade that ensured they would be the centre of attention. And Ella, knowing that she looked devastating in her gown and her fur wrap, found being the focus of so much whispered gossip really quite exciting. This, she decided, was what it must be like to be famous, to be a celebrity.

  Putting an outrageous sway in her bottom, throwing back her shoulders so her figure was shown to its best advantage, Ella led Vanka in what PINC told her was the direction of Table 67, smiling and nodding to the other patrons as she undulated past their tables, acting out every fantasy she’d ever had about being a film star.

  There was only one man sitting at the table, a tiny Shade – Ella guessed that when standing he would be a good head shorter than she was – aged about forty, sporting an Imperial beard, oddly scarred cheeks – Rite of Passage scars, so PINC told her – and nursing a glass of champagne. Small and ugly he might have been but he was immaculately dressed and his jewellery – his over-large cravat stud and cuff links – twinkled with diamonds.

  ‘Good evening, Louffie,’ said Vanka.

  Louverture pulled his gaze away from a very appreciative examination of Ella’s bosom. A rather unpleasant smile split his face: he didn’t seem pleased to see Vanka. ‘As I live and breathe … Vanka Maykov. I heard you were dead, Vanka, I heard they deep-sixed you back in Rodina.’

  ‘I decided to stay alive until you had paid me the two thousand guineas you owe me.’

  Louverture studied Vanka in cold silence for several seconds. ‘I don’t remember any debt …’

  ‘I doubt that, Louffie, I doubt that.’

  ‘I really hope you haven’t come here tonight to cause a disturbance, Vanka, as I’m not in the mood to be leant on.’ Louverture made a signal to a large, bearded Shade with a bald head and similarly scarred cheeks who was lurking nearby. ‘I think Gaston will show you out, Vanka. I think it’s time you hit the bricks.’

  Seizing the moment, Ella leant across the table, making sure that as she did so she displayed a quite reckless amount of cleavage for Louverture’s enjoyment. ‘Vanka and I aren’t here to create waves, Monsieur Louverture. My name is Ella Thomas and I’ve come here tonight to make you a rich man.’

  ‘I am already a rich man, Mademoiselle Thomas,’ said Louverture in a distracted voice, Ella having no doubt what was distracting him.

  ‘An obscenely rich man,’ she countered.

  ‘This frail of yours shooting straight dice, Vanka?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Then you and Vanka may join me, Mademoiselle, but not because you promise me riches but because you are a Shade with the courage to disport yourself in such a dissolute manner in this den of racism. In the ForthRight such moxie – such foolhardiness – is to be encouraged.’

  Ella needed no second bidding: she slid into Louverture’s booth closely followed by Vanka.

  ‘May I offer you a drink, Mademoiselle … Vanka? The champagne provided by the management is quite palatable.’

  Both Ella and Vanka nodded their agreement and Louverture signalled Gaston to serve his two guests.

  ‘Monsieur Louverture …’ began Ella, but her host held up a hand to silence her in mid-sentence.

  ‘I am afraid I must forgo the immediate satisfaction of my curiosity, Mademoiselle, and the enjoyment of the no doubt enthralling explanation of your intended philanthropy. The entertainment is about to begin and I have a managerial responsibility to ensure that the Revue performs seamlessly.’

  Barely were the words out of Louverture’s mouth than a line of seven musicians, all painted in blackface and wearing tuxe-does and bowler hats, trooped onto the dance floor playing their instruments as they marched. Ella shuddered in disgust: it was the first time that she had seen real black people sporting this sort of make-up. With their huge white lips and their goofy eyes there was something grotesque about them, something almost golliwog-esque. Ella had to stifle the urge to leap to her feet and harangue them for having no self-respect, for somehow demeaning their race. But then she remembered that she wasn’t back in twenty-first-century New York, she was in a pastiche of a time-lost Berlin dropped seemingly at random in the middle of the most racist Sector of a make-believe world.

  And as she listened to the band, Ella realised that the combo’s one saving grace was that even if their make-up and costuming were comical and degrading, then at least the same couldn’t be said of their playing. Each and every one of them seemed to be a master musician and the driving jazz – or rather, jad – they conjured soon had the whole audience swaying.

  Happy that his musicians were playing to his satisfaction, Louverture seemed to become bored. He turned back to Ella. ‘So, Mademoiselle, you were about to tell me how you would make me fabulously wealthy.’

  There was, Ella decided, no point in beating around the bush. ‘I understand that you are able to secure large quantities of blood
.’

  Louverture leant back in his seat and gave a doleful shake of his head. ‘You are a beautiful young woman, Mademoiselle, and as such I would recommend that you limit your interests to gowns and to other feminine frivolities. As Vanka has no doubt told you, the trade in blood is a robust occupation, suitable only for men.’

  Ella smiled. ‘I take my inspiration from Miss Baker: I do not let the opinion of others deter me from doing what I feel I need to do. And what I need, Monsieur Louverture, is to secure the supply of sixty thousand litres of blood, more if I can get it.’

  Louverture gawped. ‘I think you, Mademoiselle, are as much the comedienne as Josephine herself. Such a quantity of blood is enormous, simply incredible. The cost …’

  ‘I understand that the black-market rate is one hundred guineas a litre, which makes it a transaction worth six million guineas.’

  Louverture covered his discomfiture by taking a long gulp of his champagne. ‘Six million guineas? You got pockets that deep?’

  A simple nod from Ella. ‘

  Where would you wish this outrageous quantity of blood to be delivered?’

  ‘To Warsaw.’

  Louverture gave a loud guffaw. ‘Impossible! It might have escaped your notice, Mademoiselle, but the powers that be in this pestilential place they call the ForthRight have decided to eliminate that part of their population. Warsaw is now a war zone and hence the Rhine is patrolled by ForthRight naval vessels with orders to sink any barge entering those waters without requisite authorisation. Even the most courageous of captains would be reluctant to undertake such a mission.’

  ‘I will offer two hundred guineas a litre, delivered to Gdańsk dock.’

  Ella felt the gaze of Louverture settle on her, as he tried to assess whether she was on the level. Louverture shook his head. ‘It is still impossible. To smuggle such a quantity of blood is beyond the wit of man.’

  ‘Of course, Monsieur,’ Ella said sweetly, ‘if such a transaction is too big for you, then I must find a more powerful partner.’

  As she thought it might, the prospect of letting twelve million guineas slip through his fingers caused Louverture to make a hasty reconsideration. ‘Twelve million guineas? That’s a fortune.’

  Ella took a sip of her champagne and waited for greed to work its magic. ‘I promised you I was going to make you an obscenely rich man!’

  Louverture laughed. ‘Beautiful women like you, Miss Thomas, promise men many things. Unfortunately they generally promise much more than they ever deliver.’

  ‘Monsieur Louverture, believe me, I never disappoint. I never tease. When I say I will do something, I always deliver. I have never left a man unsatisfied.’ Vanka choked on his champagne and it took both men at the table a few moments to digest Ella’s little announcement. ‘But for twelve million guineas, there is one other service I would ask to be included in this bargain.’

  This had been Vanka’s real brainwave. The problem Ella and Vanka had struggled with was how to smuggle Ella out of the ForthRight: as a Shade she was too easily identified and hence would never be able to get through CheckyaPoints, especially now her alias of Marie Laveau was known and the passport Vanka had acquired for her useless. But if she travelled as part of the Revue Nègre she would be just one Shade amongst dozens.

  Louverture’s right eyebrow arched in suspicion at Ella. ‘And this is?’

  ‘I need to travel to NoirVille, but unfortunately I lack the necessary documents. I want to become a temporary member of the Revue.’

  ‘That’s not a problem: better too many beautiful women than too few. No, the problem is the blood: that I’ve gotta think about.’ Just then the music coming from the dance floor shifted and immediately Louverture turned towards the stage. ‘But if you will indulge me for a moment, Mademoiselle, this is the climax of the evening. This is Miss Josephine Baker’s pièce de résistance.’

  Ella recognised the dance immediately. It was the danse sauvage, the dance that had made Josephine Baker into one of Europe’s biggest and most controversial stars. As the music mutated into a rippling pattern of African rhythms, Josephine Baker, accompanied by a tall, muscular male partner, took the stage.

  For a moment Ella could barely breathe with excitement: Josephine Baker was her heroine. Josephine Baker was the girl who had achieved everything that Ella was determined to achieve. She had been born into poverty in St Louis at the turn of the twentieth century and had the courage to quit her native America to seek fame and fortune. She had made a new life for herself in a far-away country and found stardom as a dancer and singer in Paris of the 1920s.

  Josephine Baker was a girl who had triumphed over adversity; just like Ella intended to.

  Ella was simply thrilled to be seeing Josephine Baker in the flesh … and there was a lot of flesh on display. All the dancer was wearing as she whirled onto the dance floor was a pair of black satin bikini pants and her iconic skirt made up of a string of artificial bananas. The pants, the skirt and her broad smile – which seemed to illuminate the Resi – constituted all her costume. Her near-nakedness drew gasps from the audience and there were some jeers and catcalls from the more UnFunDaMentally inclined customers but these were drowned out by the cheers and the applause of Josephine Baker’s fans.

  For Ella it took a moment for the dream and reality to mesh. Somehow La Baker seemed smaller than she had imagined, younger too, but when she started to dance there was no mistaking her. No one could mistake the sheer energy and exuberance the girl brought to her dancing. But there was more than energy and a dancer’s panache in her performance … there was also an unbridled eroticism.

  When she had read about Josephine Baker’s danse sauvage, Ella had imagined that apart from the nudity, it would be pretty tame. She had been wrong. It was obvious that the authors who had described the decadence that had washed through Continental Europe in the early 1920s hadn’t been brave enough to tell the truth about the levels of salacious debauchery plumbed in post-war Berlin and Paris.

  Now Ella realised what all the fuss had been about, just why Josephine Baker had shocked European society a century ago. Her dance was earthy, it was animalistic, it was erotic and it was untamed. Shit … it was borderline pornographic.

  As Josephine Baker spun and twirled across the floor, snaking and slithering her slim and wonderfully toned body around her partner, Ella began to understand why the dance had been labelled ‘degenerate’ by the critics of the day. Josephine Baker connived to include all the moves and gestures in her dance that any ‘respectable’ person would know to be taboo. The one saving grace was that the dancing was performed at such break-neck speed that it was almost impossible to appreciate just how down and dirty it actually was. And it was obscene … obscenely artistic.

  The girl, Ella decided as she watched open-mouthed, must be double-jointed; there was no other way to explain how anyone could leap and cavort as Josephine Baker did. Dressed in her tiny costume, she tore across the stage in a whirlwind of splits and pirouettes, wriggles and shakes. Her arms, rump, head and legs all moved seemingly independently of one another, shaking and snaking to the various rhythms laid down by the band’s pulsating jad.

  The remarkable thing was that though her audience was liberally flecked with a sizeable number of Shade-hating SS officers – the quantity of black uniforms Ella could see attested to that – the vast majority of the audience loved her, clapping and cheering, laughing and shrieking as the black dervish whirled across the dance floor. In two or three breathless minutes the danse sauvage was over, leaving the audience stunned … agog with astonishment.

  She was replaced on stage by a chorus of crooning men, who obviously ranked much lower in Monsieur Louverture’s affections than Josephine Baker. ‘She’s amazing, is she not?’ breathed Louverture as he mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, gazing all the while in a rapturous manner at the stage where Josephine Baker had just performed. Here, Ella thought, was a man in love.

  He was also a man who was no l
onger in the mood to talk business: for the next ten minutes he resisted all Ella’s attempts to get him to commit to supplying blood to Warsaw. Even the prospect of earning twelve million guineas didn’t seem enough to overcome his intransigence. She was just on the point of admitting defeat when she became aware of a woman standing next to her clad in a gown of shimmering blue silk, a colour that set off her tawny skin to perfection. The huge brown eyes of Josephine Baker gazed down at Louverture and his guests.

  Looking at her, Ella realised the photographs she had studied of her heroine didn’t do her justice. Sure she was as lissom as she had been pictured, sure her hair was flattened down in her trademark slicked-down, Eton-crop hairstyle, and sure her eyes were as expressive and as enticing as Ella had imagined they would be – but no photograph could ever capture the sheer vitality that radiated out of the woman. Just standing there, hip cocked, smiling down at Louverture, Josephine Baker pulsed with energy and unsuppressed joie de vivre.

  ‘Say, Louffie honey, ain’t cha gonna introduce me to your new friends?’

  Louverture and Vanka leapt to their feet so quickly that they rattled the table. ‘Ma cherie,’ crooned Louverture as he kissed the dancer’s hand, ‘may I have the pleasure in introducing Colonel Vanka Maykov and his friend, Mademoiselle Ella Thomas. Colonel, Mademoiselle, I have the great honour of introducing the Black Venus … the Shade Goddess … Mademoiselle Josephine Baker.’ Josephine Baker held out her hand to Vanka who bobbed his head to kiss her fingers, then shimmied herself into the seat next to Louverture, rewarding him with a flirtatious little peck on his cheek. As Louverture poured her a glass of champagne, she looked up and smiled at Ella.

  ‘You a dancer, honey?’ Josephine Baker asked. ‘You sure got the chassis for it.’

  ‘I was a dancer when I was younger, Miss Baker, now I sing.’