Herma

by MacDonald Harris

The Count surveyed Ernestine with professional expertise, with particular attention to the more obvious and salient aspects of her figure.

  “She’d have to get into the costume.”

  “She can get into the costume.”

  “It pays eighteen a week.”

  “Mr. Khatchanigherian said twenty.”

  “That’s because he takes two for himself.”

  “Make it twenty-two then, and Madame Ernestine will still have twenty.”

  “Who are you anyhow?”

  “Her manager.”

  “Oh, Fred.”

  “What about your cut?”

  “I’m generously waiving my commission in this case, because of my interest in Madame Ernestine’s career.”

  “I’m bowled over,” murmured Ernestine.

  “The main thing about this job,” explained the Count, “is that the lady has to smile. And smile. And smile. No matter what happens.”

  “Madame Ernestine is very cheerful.”

  “Try on the costume, honey.”

  The count crooked his finger negligently toward the wall, where something silver and glittering was hanging on a hook.

  Ernestine took down the costume and looked about her in the small dressing room. “Where can I put it on?”

  “In the entertainment business,” said the Count, “we aren’t very fussy about such things.”

  She looked at Fred uncertainly. He shrugged.

  After another long glance at the Count, she began unbuttoning the snaps of her gown and pulled it off over her head. She was revealed in her chemise and drawers, the latter of which were visibly mended in several places. The Count examined his fingernails.

  She put on first the narrow and glittering silver trousers—they were so tight she had to take her shoes off and then put them back on again—and then the tunic to match. Finally, there was a small pillbox cap of the sort worn by bellboys at the Palace, in the same silver with glittering sequins. The tunic buttoned in the front and mounted to a high collar fastened with a silver clasp.

  Ernestine smiled. She seemed pleased by the costume.

  The Count finished the wine in his glass, lifted the bottle, and found it was empty. He turned his attention back to Ernestine.

  “Have to let that costume out a little.”

  “I’d recommend that you get a good tailor and have him fit it exactly.”

  “That’s a good idea. Turn around, honey. Now turn back again. That’s fine. Don’t try to sit down in those trousers. You’ll split them. They cost me eighty-five dollars.”

  “Who else do you handle?” he asked Fred in an easy and professional way.

  “Singers mostly. Mademoiselle Herma, for example. She’s with the Met just now, at the Grand Opera House.”

  “Is that so?” He got up from the chair and lifted a large wooden case with a handle. “I’ll show you my act. See if you like it.”

  The Count leading, they made their way along the corridor and through the wings to the stage. The Count found a switch somewhere and turned on a couple of Edison bulbs. A large vertical platform, built of heavy planks bolted together, was erected at one side of the stage. Ernestine took her place against this.

  “Now,” said the Count, “there’s something else you have to do besides smile. That is not move. Not even a fraction of an inch.”

  “I’ll certainly try.”

  “Hold your arms just a little bit away from your body. And you have to keep your feet together but spread your—limbs just slightly apart.”

  “That’s not anatomically possible.”

  “It’s difficult but not impossible.” The Count opened his wooden ease and took out a pair of knives.

  “Now let’s see that smile.”

  Ernestine succeeded brilliantly at this. The smile illuminated the darkened stage, fixing particularly on the Count himself.

  The Count’s arm made a precise and swift downward motion. One of the knives left his hand and flashed across through the shadows. It struck the planks with a thunk and stood quivering a half-inch from Ernestine’s shoulder.

  The second knife came to rest exactly opposite, by the other shoulder. “A shade too high,” commented the Count. “It’s the horizontal accuracy that matters, not the vertical. Still, I like to be neat.”

  Four more knives flashed through the air, landing with four more thunks: two by Ernestine’s knees and the other two by the tips of her fingers. She continued to smile just as brilliantly.

  “This is the place,” said the Count, “where you keep the arms a little way from your body, and the limbs—like I said.”

  He took five knives and set them on the top of the opened box. Two of them he took in his two hands. He raised them to the level of his head, held them motionless for a moment, and then the hands snapped. The two knives penetrated the board exactly between Ernestine’s elbows.

  “Now hold it exactly like that and don’t move, honey. This is the one,” he told Fred, “that makes them gasp. Especially the ladies.”

  He took up the three remaining knives, held two of them loosely on the palm of his left hand, and grasped the blade of the third in his right.

  What happened then took place too quickly for the eye to follow. The Count held his left hand with the two knives in it about six inches from his right. In the right hand he lightly grasped the blade of the third knife. Then there was a kind of a flurry, his hands spun together like those of a boxer, and the three knives departed so quickly that they were all in the air at the same time. They struck the board almost with a single sound: thunk-unk-unk. All three of them were between Ernestine’s legs. The first stood quivering between her ankles. The second protruded from her slightly parted knees. And the third—could not have struck any higher.

  “Bravo,” said Fred.

  “That’s nothing. I haven’t yet come to my piece dee resistance.”

  The Count rubbed his hands together lightly. He removed an object from the box, but it was not a knife. It resembled a pair of miniature railroad wheels joined by an axle, except that in place of wheels there were knife blades without any handles, four on each end, mounted at exactly right angles. The axle joining the two sets of blades was perhaps six inches long. The whole machine was made of the finest polished steel, and the axle was nickel-plated. It gleamed in the dim light.

  The Count held it in the air before him, his hands grasping a blade on each side. He tossed it lightly into the air and caught it by another pair of blades.

  “Now at this point, honey, you have to raise your chin a little. But keep smiling.”

  Smiling even more brilliantly, Ernestine raised her chin a fraction of an inch.

  “She’s pretty good, I’ll say that for her,” the Count remarked conversationally to Fred. “One of the best I’ve had.”

  He raised the wheel of knives and flung it. It sped through the air with a kind of fluttering whistle. When it came to rest it was imbedded in the board on either side of Ernestine’s neck, like a kind of odd necklace, its color matching and enhancing that of the silver costume.

  The Count turned modestly to Fred, not for applause precisely, but as if to indicate that the performance was over. He rested one hand lightly on his waist. His black shoes were immaculately polished. As artificial as his costume and his demeanor might have seemed on the street outside, on the stage he was the epitome of elegance. His every movement was graceful. It was impossible for him to move a finger, or shift his feet, without displaying the sensuosity of a dancer. His waist was narrow, his hands long and fine in spite of their obvious strength. He had a manner of standing with his arms at his sides and gliding his thumbs over his forefingers, in a lightly sinister way.

  “Let’s say twenty-five,” said Fred. “You’ll see she’s worth it when the costume’s fitted.”

  “I can see that already. Still, you drive a shrewd bargain.”

  “She’ll make your fortune.”

  Fred turned to go. Ernestine, framed by the knives, was unable t
o move. Her chin was raised, and she was still smiling. But she made no effort to turn her head toward Fred, even if this had been possible. Instead her eyes were fixed on the Count. And her smile was no longer totally professional and contrived. There was something knowing in it, a self-assurance. It was connected in some way with the slight creases that had appeared at the corners of her mouth—a Mona Lisa calm, unmistakably sensuous.

  Maybe, thought Fred, I have outwitted myself.

  16.

  At the desk the clerk, with the stony expression he had been wearing for the last few days, slid his key across the mahogany to him, and also a note—a small envelope of expensive creamy paper with his name on the outside in a flowery foreign hand. Fred stood for a moment staring at these elaborate curlicues. But he suppressed his excitement and showed nothing in the presence of the clerk. He slipped the envelope negligently into his pocket, and he didn’t open it until he was upstairs in his room with the door locked. His impulse was to rip it open with his fingers. Controlling himself, he went into Herma’s room and found a nail file. With this he cut open the top more or less precisely, with only a slight ragged edge here and there.

  There were only a dozen or so words on the glossy cream-colored card inside. He hardly bothered to read them, since some prophecy in his blood had accurately foretold him what they would say. Instead his attention was transfixed, like that of some small animal hypnotized by a serpent, by the rococo and elaborate signature that filled the lower half of the card—the name itself with its grandiloquent capitals, and the double looping line underneath with a knot tying it in the middle, as it were, for a final flourish.

  He went into the bathroom, cleared his throat, straightened his necktie, and stared for some time with a frown at the image in the mirror. Who should go? He or she? There were advantages to both. And disadvantages. The attraction of sex—a powerful factor and no doubt about it. But she was such a ninny in some ways—flouncing around in her pretty dresses, making friends with everybody, giving herself to this person and that and asking nothing in return. She lacked cynicism. Now if he were she at the moment, the thought occurred to him—he, that is she, would be thinking just the opposite. Fred was persuasive, he was astute, there was his offhand and cogent skill in driving a bargain—but he was such a boor—he lacked subtlety, and he knew nothing about Art. And besides, a couple of men—if left to settle the fate of some poor female between them, where money was involved—the case of Ernestine was enough to make the point.

  Fred lifted his shoulders, as if to ask the reflection in the mirror, what can you do? They were all sentimental, at the bottom. (The quite accidental indecency of the innuendo pleased him; his mouth twitched a little.) Ernestine—another ninny. Giving her last cent to a slicker, and then falling in love with a Dago, while knives whistled between her knees. Così fan tutte—women were like that. They had vapors up there, moonbeams, instead of brains. He had better take care of the business himself.

  He went into Herma’s room and found a piece of paper—why the Hell was there never any paper in his room?—and scrawled on it with the stub of a pencil that always rested by the rim of the washbowl.

  There once was a man from Racine

  Who invented a fucking machine

  Concave or convex, it could please either sex

  But oh what a bastard to clean.

  This he stuck into the mirror. Then he found his hat, put it on, and went out.

  At the Grand Opera House he didn’t bother to take the note out of his pocket. He breezed in past the watchman without speaking to him. He went up the stairway and along the corridor, past the dressing rooms and the scene dock, to the office. Here he knocked on the door. Inside, the familiar tenor voice intoned with slight irony, “Entrare.” He opened the door and went in.

  Caruso was sitting on the desk, swinging his legs, and behind him Beckworth was in the chair smoking a cigar. The world-famous impresario, the discoverer of Tetrazzini and the introducer of Caruso to the American public, might have been taken for a businessman except for the untamed mane of gray hair that suggested something of the artist. He dressed impeccably, in a gray suit and a white shirt and a narrow black necktie. The cigar in his fat and soft fingers was a Corona Corona.

  “Ah,” he said. “Our friend the boy manager.”

  Fred ignored him.

  “I got your note,” he said to Caruso.

  Caruso swung around on the desk, crossed his legs, and lowered his head in the manner of a bull to examine him. “Good afternoon, Signor Hite. An odd thing has happened. La Moellendorf is not well. This is a thing that has never occurred before. She has come down with a raging sore throat and a fever.”

  “Ah,” said Fred.

  “The doctor,” Caruso went on, “says it’s probably quinsy. Or perhaps bronchitis. Or not exactly quinsy or bronchitis, but something that is both at once and at the same time neither. The doctor says,” he concluded with a direct stare at Fred, “that possibly it is some kind of Oriental disease.”

  “That doctor is a bum,” said Beckworth, chewing his cigar. “If he were any good he wouldn’t be here out West. I’m fed up with this gold-miner town. When I think what I’ve put up with on this trip—Omaha, Salt Lake City, and now this.”

  “I hope it isn’t serious,” said Fred.

  “For the Moellendorf, no. For us, yes. We have this infernal Traviata in rehearsal, it’s due to open on the seventeenth, and here it is already the fifteenth.”

  “And it seems there are no other sopranos in this godforsaken place who can put one note after the other,” added Beckworth.

  Caruso said, “We tried a creature from the chorus who claims to know the part—poof.”

  “Who in the world can we find?” said Fred. “Perhaps I can help.”

  “Why don’t we stop our joking, young man? We don’t have time.”

  Beckworth took the cigar out of his mouth and turned to Fred. “Do you think she can do the part?”

  “Of course.”

  “Rico? You said you auditioned her.”

  “She has a nice little coloratura voice. She was in some morsel by Victor Herbert at the Larkin. In a couple of weeks she had everybody singing her song.”

  “Rico, what are you saying? Violetta isn’t a coloratura part.”

  “The first act is a coloratura part. She can learn as she goes along.”

  Beckworth groaned.

  “I believe,” said Fred, “that Signor Caruso has also heard her sing ‘un bel dì vedremo …’”

  “I know, I know. ‘Mi chiamano Mimì’ and the Drinking Song from Traviata.”

  “She shook the flower in the vase. She can also sing dramatic.”

  “Victor Herbert! My God.”

  “She can come over and audition again if you want.”

  “We don’t have time. How much does she want?”

  “She doesn’t want anything. I’m her manager.”

  “All right, all right.” said Beckworth impatiently. “How much do you want?”

  “She’s getting three hundred a week at the Larkin. But of course the Met—”

  “It’s only three performances,” Beckworth cut in sharply.

  “But as Signor Caruso says, Victor Herbert is only cheap spaghetti. This is a much more important vocal responsibility.”

  “Oh boy,” said Beckworth, putting his cigar back in his mouth.

  “You see, Beck my old friend,” said Caruso, “you have not yet seen the young lady in question with your eyes. She is quite an attractive person. She will please the audience. Your audience of gold miners,” he put in. “The Moellendorf,” he concluded tactfully, “is a ship that has called at many ports.”

  “Yes, but she can sing, when she doesn’t have the Chinese Plague. Are we running a beauty contest or an opera?”

  Fred didn’t care for the direction the conversation was taking. He decided to end it.

  “Let’s say six hundred. That’s two hundred a performance.”

  “Don�
�t make me laugh.”

  “I happen to know,” said Fred, “that Moellendorf once played in a little hick town in Southern California, and got two thousand for a single performance.”

  “I’ll bet she filled the house too.”

  “She cracked up on the ‘Dove sono.”’

  “You see Beck, my old friend, I will be there at all times. I can hiss in her ear what to do. Except of course in the ‘Dite alla giovine’ where she is alone with Germont. That will be the acidic test.”

  “I’ll say it will. Three hundred for the three.”

  “All right,” said Fred recklessly. “We’ll go back to the Larkin and sing Victor Herbert.”

  “Beck, my dear old friend, don’t you understand that we have only got two nights until this thing opens? Dio mio. We have not got any choice. Perhaps you would prefer that squeaker from the chorus?”

  “A hundred and fifty a night. That would be four fifty for the three.”

  “Six hundred.”

  Beckworth sighed. “You’re some kid. Have a Corona Corona. Well, I hope this frail of yours can strike a note. If not, we’re sunk.”

  Caruso got up from the desk and began walking around the office rubbing his hands. He grimaced to show his teeth, a mannerism of his when he was impatient.

  “We ought to be rehearsing right now. When can she start?”

  “She’ll be here instantly. I just have to go back to the hotel to—tell her.”

  Beckworth struck a match on the desk, and Fred held out the Corona Corona for him to light.

  “You ought to work in New York,” said Beckworth. “There’s nothing for you to do in this gold-miner town. Who else do you manage?”

  “Ernestine Lalange, the well-known actress. She has an engagement now at the Larkin.”

  “You seem to have good connections at the Larkin.”

  “Mr. Larkin is a friend of mine.”

  “I thought he was dead,” said Beckworth.

  There was no need for walking anywhere anymore. Cabs from now on. Fred took the first one standing in line on Mission Street and drove directly to the Palace. There, telling the cabman to wait, he went up to the registration desk in the arcade facing onto the glass-roofed Grand Court.