Till We Meet Again (10 page)

“No, of course not, Madame de Biron. Anyone can tell from the way I sing, can’t they?”

“Not at all. I guessed only from the fact that I’ve never heard of you, and if you were a professional I’d be sure to know it. I daresay the whole of France would know it. Nothing that happens in the music hall escapes me. I have little enough to occupy my days. The music hall was my life, now it is my hobby, my passion, if you will, and no one ever had a better one.”

“The whole of France would know? Why do you say such a thing?”

“But it’s evident! You must realize that your voice is enchanting—no, more than enchanting. And your interpretation! You’ve moved me to tears with silly little songs I’ve heard a dozen times. But I couldn’t possibly be the first person to tell you this.”

This was Eve’s first frank, unconditional compliment. Professor Dutour in his grumbling way had always seemed to be not quite satisfied with her, and her mother thought of her voice only as a ladylike accomplishment, useful for making a good impression. She didn’t know how to respond, and Vivianne de Biron, seeing this clearly, realized it was the moment to change the subject. “Have you been to many of the music halls, Madame Laforet?” she asked.

“No, unfortunately,” Eve answered. “You see, Monsieur Marais sings at the Riviera every night except Sunday and I
wouldn’t feel at ease going out to a music hall alone. Is that very foolish of me?”

“On the contrary, it is wise. But what about matinées?”

“I haven’t thought of a matinée.”

“If I were to get some tickets—for me, you understand, the management always provides complimentary tickets—would you like to go with me someday?”

“Oh, yes,
please
, I’d enjoy that so much, Madame de Biron. It’s strange, when I first met Monsieur Marais I felt it was all right to go backstage, but now, somehow, I don’t feel comfortable hanging about when he’s performing—I have no real place there—and … and I find that I miss it,” Eve said wistfully.

“Ah, I know exactly what you mean,” Vivianne answered. She had been in love with a young singer once, long, long ago. Give her two broken ankles, give her fifteen beestings on the tip of her nose, give her a never-ending itch, but, Dear Lord, never give her those days back again! That paradise, those torments, that final, bitter deception.

Thus began Eve’s introduction into the world of the first-class music hall. When the sumptuous Eldorado had been built in 1858, it became the first true theater to replace the café-concert, that uniquely French mixture of singing and drinking that had grown too big to be contained within a mere café. Eve and Vivianne de Biron were soon on first-name terms as the older woman led the way from La Scala to the Variétes, from the Bobino to the Casino de Paris, pouring into the ears of the fascinated girl the lore and experience of twenty years.

“Now for Dranem. There are few singers who can make me laugh the way he does. He can fill a theater all by himself, but he’s not much to look at, is he, with those enormous galoshes and that minuscule, ridiculous hat—a hat in gold, I tell you. He calls it his
‘Poupoute’
and there isn’t enough money in Paris to buy it from him. And notice how he sings, without making the slightest gesture, rouge on his nose and his chin, with his eyes closed—he invented that specialty, and no one has ever done it better, although they have tried for years. Dranem, Polin and Mayol; they’re the great originals, my dear, and imitated by a thousand young singers. Polin, sweet as he is, doesn’t understand anything about publicity. He always used to say, ‘The secret of success
is to leave the stage five minutes before the public wants to see you go.’ So he goes home every night, like a postal clerk, and you never read a word about him. I’m convinced that’s why he doesn’t make as much money as some who haven’t half his talent. As for Mayol, that big, rosy creature, he would be more popular too if he loved women instead of men—the women in the audience can tell right away that he doesn’t sing to them.

“Ah, look closely now, that third girl from the left, the one with the purple feathers and red hair. Yesterday someone whispered to me that she was four months pregnant by her impresario, but her stomach’s flat as a board. It just shows you can’t believe a word of the gossip you hear. Ah, I see you appreciate Max Dearly. I adore him—my old Max, I’ve always called him. He was the first comic singer who didn’t paint his face like a clown or wear silly clothes—imagine the sensation he caused, a singing comic with chic, and he dances as well, which the others don’t. The ladiės are all mad about him, and he likes them almost as much as he likes horses. I wish I had the money he’s lost at the track in his day.”

Eve, captivated, followed every word of Vivianne’s commentaries. It was not merely her knowledge that kept Eve riveted, but the new possibilities of human behavior, revealed by the older woman’s words, that were the object of Eve’s closely focused attention. Pregnant by her impresario—a man who loved men—losing money at the track—could anyone in the music hall have endured the colorless life she had led?

“Just look at young Chevalier,” Vivianne said. “He took his inspiration from Dearly, in my opinion, but he’s gone a long way since. Did you ever hear about the number that launched him? He and Mistinguett did a dance called
‘La Valse Renversante’
—they knocked over all the stage props and ended up rolled up together in a rug. Naturally, one thing led to another and he became her lover. Just look, Madeleine! There’s Viviane Romance, next on the bill. I still think she took her name from mine. She had guts, I’ll say that for her. She actually dared to get into a catfight with Mistinguett after the Miss had her fined for laughing during a big tableau. She told the Miss that she was nothing but a grandmother and that one day she’d dance on her grave and
got a good slap for her nerve. It took two men to separate them—I wish I’d been there to see it!

“Next week we’ll go to see Polaire—you must have heard about her waist. No? It’s so tiny that she can span it with a man’s collar of only forty centimeters. To my taste her nose is too big and her skin too dark, she reminds me of a little Arab boy, but I have to admire her eyes. Enormous they are, almost frightening. Imagine, when she toured America they had the nerve to bill her as ‘The Ugliest Woman in the World’ and those crazy Americans liked her looks so much that they demanded their money back! She’s on the same program as Paulette Darty. Now there’s a true beauty, if you ask me. Big where she should be big and pink where she should be pink. ‘The Queen of the Slow Waltz’ they call her, and not without reason. She found Rodolphe Berger, a real Viennese, to write all her music—not stupid, eh?”

“Vivianne, I was wondering,” Eve interrupted, “perhaps it’s too hard to get tickets, but I’m really dying to go to the Olympia.”

“Don’t you want to see Polaire?”

“Of course I do, but I’ve been reading so much about the Olympia’s new show. The Dolly Sisters and Vernon and Irene Castle and Al Jolson! All the papers say that no show has ever had such a wild success. Don’t you want to see them?”

“Pah! A bunch of Americans. A novelty, that’s all. My old boss, Jacques Charles, went to Broadway and hired everyone he could find. Not stupid either, I’ll grant you, but not very patriotic of him. Personally, I’m boycotting it. No one will notice, but you couldn’t drag me there,” Vivianne sniffed, and the subject was dropped.

However, Eve was determined to go to the Olympia, Vivianne notwithstanding, and by now she felt enough at ease in the huge theaters to go alone. It was late November and the fragrant, mellow days of October had made way for an unusually cold and wet autumn, but she had a heavy new coat and a huge fur “pillow” muff and a head-hugging fur toque in which to venture forth. Alain had made some money at cards and had been more generous than usual with her. She hadn’t dared to ask how much he’d made, for he didn’t encourage questions about his life with his friends, but from the way he insisted on treating everyone he knew to oysters
and champagne every night, she imagined that it must have been a great deal.

Indeed, now that rehearsals for the new show were over, Alain’s afternoons, when he wasn’t performing, all seemed to be spent playing cards, she realized, and then pushed the thought out of her mind. He worked so hard at his profession that he earned the right to any diversion, Eve told herself, as she dressed to go to the matinée.

Vivianne should have come, unpatriotic or not, Eve thought, as the curtain rang down on the Castles’ ten curtain calls. To have missed them! To have missed that floating grace, that fresh charm! Her hands hurt from clapping, yet there was still one more number before the intermission, a singer named Fragson.

Vivianne had never mentioned his name in her many discussions of the stars, but nevertheless the audience had settled down into the clenched hush of excitement which Eve now knew preceded the appearance of a reigning favorite, a performer so established, so beloved that he or she had nothing to expect from the public except worship.

The curtain went up on a dark stage and then a powerful spotlight picked out a single figure; a tall, dark-haired man wearing a dark English clubman’s suit, a high, starched collar, the chain of his gold watch just visible under the knot of his somber tie. He inclined his head unsmilingly at the avalanche of applause that greeted him. As soon as he sat down at the piano and began to play the first notes of
Folie
, the audience interrupted him with thunderous applause and it wasn’t until he began to sing that they finally became silent. Eve heard the familiar words of Alain’s signature song, “I only dream of her, of her, of her,” in a nightmare in which she understood nothing. Did Alain
know
that someone named Fragson had stolen his song? How could this be allowed? How could the Olympia present this Fragson when only a few streets away, at the Riviera, Alain was singing the very same songs—the new one she loved so much,
Adieu Grenade
, and the droll song he’d just learned,
La Petite Femme du Métro
, and now, dear God, now even
Reviens
, Alain’s most precious piece of music, the one he always sang at the last, just before
Je Connais une Blonde
.

She looked about the theater frantically, as if she expected the police to come in and arrest Fragson at any minute, but
she saw only hundreds of faces nodding in delighted recognition as each song was performed, all so well known to them that they needed no announcement. The woman seated next to her knew the words to all the songs by heart, for her lips were moving silently as she sang steadily along with Fragson, Eve realized in cold horror. She forced herself to focus on Fragson as closely as possible, and she realized that he must be many years older than Alain, that he had considerably less hair and considerably more nose and that he sang with an English accent. Otherwise it might have been Alain Marais on the stage of the Olympia.

As soon as the final applause was over and the intermission began, Eve left the theater as quickly as possible, walking home in a trance.
Fragson
. Fragson, who was a greater attraction than even Polin or Dranem or Chevalier, for she had heard them all now and none of them had aroused the extreme fervor of the audience as he had. Fragson, who sang Alain’s songs. Fragson, who sang in Alain’s style, a style she had never heard anywhere else in the music halls.

Fragson, Fragson—the name filled her mind inescapably, like a drumbeat, until finally Eve had to admit the truth. It was Alain Marais who sang Fragson’s songs, Alain Marais who sang in Fragson’s style, Alain Marais who even dressed like Fragson. She was certain that if she looked in Fragson’s shirts she’d see a Charvet label and if she looked inside his suit jacket she’d see that it had come from Old England.

Fragson’s existence explained everything she had wondered about in silence ever since she and Vivianne had begun to go to the music halls twice a week. It explained why Alain was content to stay in a music hall that she had thought was second-rate, but now realized was no better than third-rate. Fragson’s performance explained why a man with Alain’s splendid voice had never auditioned for one of the great impresarios, for now that Eve’s first shock at the sight of Fragson was lessened, she was forced to admit to herself that he sang with an extraordinary authority. He sang with the powerful presence of a grand seigneur, with a special charm of personality that could never—
should
never—be imitated. Fragson was the
real thing
.

Fragson explained everything about Alain’s career except
why
he had chosen to become an imitation Fragson. Did he even possess the ability to be original? She could never ask him. She could never let him know that she had heard
Fragson. Whatever had caused Alain to decide to live as a mere copy of one of the greatest entertainers in France was not for her to question. She could guess; she could imagine that perhaps it had been easier to get his first job that way and that, for some reason, he had never dared to stray from that first success, but she could never,
never
ask.

Eve’s heart broke for Alain, as she remembered how he had told her how he had invented the Fragson way of singing; her heart broke for herself as she remembered how she had believed him. Was it possible that had happened only five months ago? She felt ten years older. No wonder Vivianne had tried to keep her away from the Olympia. With her encyclopedic knowledge of the music hall, she had known all along.

Automatically, Eve took the elevator upstairs to her landing. Vivianne, hearing her return, poked her head out of her door and asked, “Well, did the walk help your headache, little one?”

“Not really, Vivianne, but I’ll get over it,” Eve said. “A headache can’t last forever.”

The wet month of November began to seem like the tropics as December settled over Paris. Only the displays in shop windows lent a touch of color and cheer to a city where crossing the street had become a polar ordeal. Never, people told each other, had it been so cold, so windy, so dismal, so downright disgusting