HOPE FOR CHANGE... But Settle for a Bailout

by Bill Orton

  “Again, I mean, c’mon,” said Lori, flat on her lounger, speaking with her face smooshed into the towel under her. “Is Hollywood knocking on her door? As great as the money thing is, it’s not like you have contacts with filmmakers who’ll put Dee in a movie just cuz you wave dollars at ‘em.”

  “No,” said Larry, slowly. “But... maybe.”

  “Bixie, it’s good you hit this jackpot,” said Lori, “cuz your head has always been in the clouds. Part’a why I love you. But money doesn’t change a person’s fiber. It just magnifies everything.”

  “She’s asking about you,” Larry said absently.

  “Tell her I’m not here.”

  “She wants to give you the gift she got.”

  Lori grunted. “There’s all sorts of things she says she wants to give me.”

  “She likes you.”

  “She’s a nice girl,” said Lori. “But she’s really young.” Lori reached for her water, dipped her fingers in to grab the lemon, which she squeezed and dropped back into the water. She licked the juice from her fingers and sipped from her glass. “But she’s more than I can deal with right now.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Charleston

  “How much do these film people know of my mother and father?” asked Emma, as she sat, after having laid out a table with a baked pate, a cooked roast on a wide platter with crackling fat glistening, dark-amber sugar-glazed skillet-caramelized potatoes, a bowl of steaming red cabbage, a tureen of fish bisque, and a platter of sliced breads, crackers, cheeses, cold salads and condiments.

  “What they say doesn’t match what you’ve told me,” said Larry. “I think they’ve been fed lies.”

  “And sometimes facts are lies,” said Emma.

  A loud knock at the entry to the suite boomed into the dining room. Emma asked Larry to answer the door, where Calvin stood in a white tuxedo shirt, wrinkled pants and a red bow tie. “Don’t even start,” said Calvin, walking past Larry, through the studio and French doors leading to the living quarters of his mother’s suite. Larry went to the Victrola, cranked the handle, lifted the needle and dropped it onto a disc of orchestral music. Another knock came and Larry opened it, revealing von Sommerberg circling the Thorvaldsen, and Lena, silently pointing, and mouthing “Thorvaldsen,” as the director filmed. Larry nodded.

  Von Sommerberg entered the studio with a sweeping pan of the camera, and circled the space where Astrid Ullagård had danced for maestro Harald Lander, and for the citizens of the day, where Lander had Astrid as his dancer modeling his words as he outlined his thoughts on dance in an interview as he awaited passage to return to the Royal Ballet.

  “Lander would spend long months during the off-seasons throughout the 1930s with pairs of Troupe members, at once even five dancers with him,” Lena said in a loud whisper to Larry.

  “Bullshit,” he replied. “That’s just… that’s just…. Just bullshit.”

  “Members of the Royal Troupe, in California with Astrid, prepared the core structures of Lander’s work for the coming season,” said Lena.

  “That’s… that… when she danced in the ‘30s… she did come back each year – and was here most all of the year – and other Europe dancers came, too…,” said Larry. “Until Carl and Astrid moved when Carl got transferred because of the Army, up to the Presidio in San Francisco. My grandmother stayed in the Suite and her parents lived in commander’s housing until he died and then she went back and stayed and Emma got the Suite, but her dad is buried up at the Presidio.

  “We met there,” said Lena, flatly. “So you see it is the connection of the Maestro and Dame, it is long-standing, and what follows….”

  “… is bullshit… speculation… bullshit,” said Larry. “You can’t prove that.” Larry turned and walked to the silent Victrola.

  Emma Mathilde came to the French doors as Tres von Sommerberg filmed Larry flipping the orchestral piece and winding the Victrola.

  “I hope that your journey was a safe one,” said Emma.

  Von Sommerberg smoothly glided to Lena, as he kept his camera’s enormous unit aimed at the French doors. He handed the camera to Lena, its light aglow red, he straightened, extended his hand, and, without breaking rhythm, approached Emma, smiling. “Hel-lowww,” he said. “Tres…, wait, you speak Danish? Hello, Tres von Sommerberg, the director, from Denmark. I didn’t think you would speak in Danish. Is this for us that you have learned?”

  “It was for my mother,” said Emma. “Come. You’ve met my grandson. Come meet my son, and join us for lunch.” Emma walked the two filmmakers through the studio, pointing out several photographs on the walls before stepping into the main quarters, where Calvin sat quietly at the main dining room table, behind him a line of thriving potted plants.

  “My God,” said von Sommerberg. “Spectacular.”

  “This is as my parents designed it, with an architect from Copenhagen,” said Emma.

  “The food!” said von Sommerberg, leaning in deeply over the fish bisque and inhaling.

  Calvin, alone seated at the table, signaled the filmmaker to a chair across from his. “Eat. No one else is smart enough to.”

  Moments after von Sommerberg sat, bodies moved into chairs, conversations continuing and Lena, alone standing, slowly paced sideward, holding a stead benign gaze on the faces of those seated at the table.

  “This Suite was my mother’s demand if she were to leave the Royal Troupe to join my father in America.”

  “Really something,” said von Sommerberg, serving soup with a heavy ladle to his own bowl and plucking a finger-fetched assortment of two breads and three long crackers.

  Calvin sat back and looked at the director piling his plate with potatoes and cabbage. After he had set his plate down and looked up, von Sommerberg extended his hand to Calvin.

  “Tres... Tres von Sommerberg,” he said, with a glow, “from Denmark, the film director.”

  “Calvin van der Bix,” said Larry’s dad, standing up to shake hands in a grip strong enough to cause the director to grimace. “Pure American.”

  “Ingeborg’s nephew,” said von Sommerberg.

  “Don’t know who that is,” said Calvin “Excuse me, but I need a beer.” Calvin walked off as Lena filmed the platters and dishes on the table, hands traveling past the camera’s enormous unit. As Calvin returned with two opened bottles, he took more time then needed to slowly pass Lena, watching as she bent forward to film the table. “Welcome to America,” he said, as he passed. He set both bottles down in front of him and, sat, openly staring at Lena as she worked.

  “Carlsberg?” said von Sommerberg.

  Good shit,” said Calvin, drinking from the first bottle.

  Larry, standing across the table from Calvin, motioned with his head towards Emma, and Calvin put down his bottle, stood, walked behind his mother, pulled out her chair and, after she sat, helped her scoot in, before he and Larry also sat. Lena continued filming.

  Larry’s cell phone rang. He quickly pulled it out of his pocket, as Calvin scowled.

  “Son, how many times have I told you not to have your phone at the dinner table?”

  Larry looked at his father, at his phone, pressed “reject” and, upon letting the call go “missed,” changed to silent. “Right, uh... Dad,” said Larry.

  “My God, look at this food,” said von Sommerberg, as Calvin reached across to snap off a piece of crackling fat off the cooked roast, only to have Larry swat his hand away.

  “Don’t swat me, boy,” said Calvin, returning to his beer, finishing the first bottle.

  “Beer?” Emma asked the director. Von Sommerberg nodded, and Emma slid from her chair and, a moment later, returned to the table with four opened bottles of Carlsberg, nuts, pretzels and frosted glasses on a tray that she wheeled on a small, silver cart.

  “Nej,” said Lena, under her breath.

  .

  Under the shade of the balcony’s two main parasols, Emma sat stiffly on her father’s rattan loveseat and von Somm
erberg filmed and Lena, with her notebook, asked questions.

  Calvin and Larry each drank silently.

  “Did your mother ever travel with her son to visit you or ask that you meet them in Denmark?”

  Emma held her hands together on her lap and fixed her gaze slightly downward. “She did not, because my mother did not have another child.”

  “Did your mother write to you or place telephone calls, to talk with you about life in Denmark?”

  .

  My Child,

  Nights grow longer and the cold bites as I ride my bicycle home each evening to the apartment. The performance tonight filled all seats. The King brought his young family. I rarely see sunlight, winter’s curse; only as I ride to the Theatre. The sky is black at 4. I await my return to the lightness and warmth of life in California.

  Mor

  .

  “Did your father tell you about Astrid’s life in Copenhagen, and that she had borne a son?” Lena asked, looking up from her notes.

  Emma sat motionless, without answering.

  “I’m sorry if this is difficult,” said Lena.

  “Only that everything you believe is incorrect,” said Emma, a tear falling from one eye.

  Calvin, watching his mother cry, turned to Larry, and slurred out, “What is she asking her?”

  “How would I know, Dad,” Larry said. “It’s in a foreign language.”

  “You spe... oh... okay,” said Calvin. “Right, you don’t know.” Calvin watched his mother. “Well, when you do know, tell me.”

  Von Sommerberg suddenly turned the camera onto Calvin, who grunted with anger as the enormous camera lens suddenly closed in to within a few feet of his face. Lena shifted to English.

  “Did you know that your grandmother bad given birth to a boy in Copenhagen?” Lena asked.

  “Me?” said Calvin. “Why would I know that? I never met the cow.”

  Larry winced.

  “You never knew you had a famous cousin in Denmark?”

  “We’re the ones who’re famous, lady. We’ve got parts of this town named after us. What’ this mystery cousin got?” Calvin reached to his mother’s setting and took her half-full beer glass, which he swiftly emptied.

  “I think maybe this is a good time,” said Larry.

  “No, no,” said von Sommerberg. “It’s just getting good.”

  “Look, you’re taking advantage of both my grandmother and my dad,” said Larry.

  “Do you want to continue?” Lena asked Calvin.

  “Depends on what we continue doing,” he responded, letting out a glimmer of the movie-star qualities that enticed women like Candy to linger in Calvin’s world. “I’m free all night, if you’d like to sashay around for me.”

  ‘‘Dad.’’

  “ ‘Nuther time, boy. I got a hot one.”

  Emma stood and pushed the rolling silver tray towards the kitchen, as von Sommerberg followed her with the camera. At the table, Calvin continued, “You know, this mansion’s been in our family for almost 100 years. If the Cow goes before I do, this whole thing is mine. I could use someone in this suite who appreciates the beauty of California.”

  Lena said nothing, using the time to go through her notepad, crossing out lines and marking up others.

  “A lot of money here,” said Calvin, in a casual tone. “A pretty easy life for the right person... yep, pretty easy.” Having finished Emma’s beer, Calvin reached for von Sommerberg’s glass and, as his hand drew near, Lena, without looking up, swatted him on the wrist with her note pad.

  .

  Emma, with the director filming her, wheeled the silver cart out to the balcony, where the sun beat down harshly, drawing sharp lines between the brightness of the day and the shaded area where the main parasols on three sides of the long glass-and-rattan table met the red-and-white striped awning extending from the French doors. Atop the cart rested several thick leather-bound albums. Bougainvillea flower petals floated one-two-three from the trained overhang and landed nine-ten-eleven onto the leather book.

  “I traveled with my dear father to Copenhagen when mother performed in her first role as Principal Dancer,” said Emma. “We took the train to New York and boarded the Queen Mary and then took a miserable ferry across the North Sea to Denmark.” She slowly opened the first bound volume, as a seagull landed a few feet from the book of photos. Emma waved her hand and the bird hopped to another part of the table. Lena threw bread across the table, causing the bird to hop off for the snack. As Emma picked up her magnifying glass, the gull hopped up to the far end of the balcony table, pecking at a remnant of bread on a nearly-empty plate. The bird pecked tentatively at von Sommerberg’s keyring, as the director filmed the bird poking and then lifting the keyring with its bill. Larry threw a breadroll that hit the bird square in the chest, causing it to squawk, dropping the keyring.

  “My father could not stay for the full performance,” said Emma, slowly turning each of the pages, showing one picture after another of a woman who just as easily could have been Lori, in flight, in pose, in the arms of her male partner. “We ate ice cream and saw the Little Mermaid. She told us that her life would never be complete without Copenhagen and the ballet.”

  The final image in the volume was a close-up, showing Astrid, sweating, smiling, coming up from a bow, with a look of triumph and ecstasy on her face. Calvin, in his stupor, leaned in to view the photo, and did a long second look. “Damn, granola girl looks good.”

  Emma closed the volume and let her hand rest on the leather cover. A teardrop splashed onto the leather, instantly soaking into the cover and leaving a dark circle. Several more tears fell, and she pushed the album slightly forward to spare it more tears. “She did talk of having another child. My father, my dear father, said no, ‘Let’s love the child we have,’ he told her, our last night in Copenhagen. I pretended to sleep while they talked into the night. ‘But she’ll never be a dancer,’ Mor told my dear father over and over.”

  Emma stood and walked to Larry, whispering in his ear. Larry left the balcony and Emma guided Lena and the director to the main quarters and then through the French doors, back into the main studio, where Larry was on his knees, going through books of 78s, seeking a specific disc. Standing, with a single record in his hands, Larry carefully set it on the small table next to the Victrola, removed the orchestral piece he played earlier. He placed the new disc onto the turntable, cranked the handle, and set the needle into the groove.

  Up came “The Charleston.”

  Emma Mathilde walked the two filmmakers to a framed newspaper clipping from Politiken Dagbladet, from September 1928, showing a smiling, wide-faced blond man in a straw hat, standing behind a young child and a tall, elegant blonde, all on a stage with about a dozen men seated behind them.

  “This is me,” said Emma. “And mother.”

  A caption below the photo read: “American presidential candidate Herbert Hoover (center) enjoys performance of “The Charleston” by the daughter of Royal Ballet dancer Astrid Ullagård, now Mrs. Carl van der Bix, of Long Beach, California, during the politician’s visit to that city.” Hoover is beaming as Astrid wears a look of horror and disgust. Emma Mathilde’s face, closest to the camera, is filled with joy and pride.

  The slightly twisted, funhouse-feeling of “The Charleston” filled the studio. It’s a song that a good band could stretch into long minutes or which the mind, if fixated, could never be rid of. Everyone can hum it; no one could hate it.

  “Farmor?” said Larry. “Why are you crying?’

  Emma Mathilde slumped into the sofa beneath the framed newspaper clipping, her eyes glistening, tears rolling down her cheeks. Calvin, drunk, stumbled into the studio, and on hearing the song, began to dance as best a drunken man could, before blurting out, “It’s our song, Cow!” Calvin staggered a few more steps, before falling heavily onto the floor.

  .

  Lena sat just off camera as von Sommerberg kept his huge unit aimed at Emma, seated, deflated, on the
sofa she had slumped into while showing the clipping with Herbert Hoover. Calvin lay on the floor, his head on a pillow that Emma had insisted Larry place under his head. Larry sat at the far end of the sofa, listening.

  “How did he come about?” Lena asked, pointing with her pen to Calvin.

  Emma gazed at her son, passed out. There was a faint red glow on Emma’s eyeglasses from the “on air” light, no more than two feet from her face.

  “I think we should stop,” said Larry.

  “No, please,” said von Sommerberg.

  “Emma? Do you wish to stop?” asked Lena.

  Emma only gazed down to her son, whose mouth hung open. He was snoring lightly. “Mor forbid me from going alone to the Pike,” said Emma.

  “The what?” said von Sommerberg.

  “Oh,” said Lena, “you mean the pleasure zone?”

  “The amusement area, yes,” said Emma, “with the Cyclone Racer that went out over the sea and I could hear the screams from our suite.” Emma looked slowly around the room. “We rode the Red Car,” said Emma. “We got off the train in downtown.”

  “We?” said Lena. “We, your mother? Your father?”

  “The girl... from downstairs,” said Emma, distantly, “and the air smelled like salt and sugar, cotton candy and hot dogs. So many people... she held my hand while we walked and I looked up to the Cyclone racer.”

  Lena leaned forward in her chair. “Yes.”

  “She pulled me....”

  “The girl?”

  “And then we were in the hall of mirrors.”

  “The House of Mirrors?”

  “She walked up to boys,” said Emma. “She laughed and kept holding my hand.”

  “Oh, no,” said Lena.

  “She didn’t let go. I could hear the clack-clack-clack and smell the candy,” said Emma, “and then we were behind the mirrors. I could hear children on the other side....”