The Prince of West End Avenue Read online

  "Mag-Maghas a copyright," I said bitterly. "Try Da-Da."

  There was an awed silence. They looked at one another. Tzara and Huelsenbeck screwed in their monocles in unison. Then Tzara lifted his glass of beer. "Little brothers and sisters," he said quietly, "we celebrate the absoluteness and purity of chaos cosmically ordered. I give you . . . Dada."

  "Hurrah!" they cried. "Hip-hip-hooray!" They had caught not even a glimmering; to the contrary, in a fever of new excitement they began to discuss their first issue. I got up in disgust and left.

  No one seemed to notice.

  In THE MONTHS that followed, Magda and I avoided one another. The hurt still rankled; my pride still burned. She seemed indifferent.

  One bitter day in February 1917, however, I was walking in Niederdorf, on Spiegelgasse, to be precise. A light snow had begun falling the previous night, and now the streets were covered. In Niederdorf the houses huddled together like tramps

  in search of warmth. I was en route to a rendezvous with Herr Ephraims Minnie, in whose ample and perspiring body I found some solace for my misery. Walking toward me through the falling snow was Magda. I crossed the street. She crossed it, too, and stood before me.

  "Otto," she said, "let us be friends again."

  She wore no hat upon her head, no scarf. The snowdrops glistened on her hair. The glove that held my arm was worn and split. She was a graced palace in whose purlieus no slime adheres. Selinger, I knew, was a rival no longer. He had absconded, it was rumored, to Lausanne, with the bootblack from the Pension Bel-Air, a pale and bony youth whose black hair stood up in frighted spikes. I was suffused at once and once more with love for her.

  "Magda, dear Magda," I said, "we will forget what happened, we will start again where we left off. Come with me, live with me. Let me take care of you."

  She hesitated not even a moment. "No," she said, and placed a finger to my lips. "No, junger Mann, you must never forget. But you must never go back, either. March always to the horizon, keep your eyes on the future."

  "But Magda—"

  "No." She was firm. "Friends?"

  "Friends."

  I turned and watched her make her way through the snow. She paused briefly before Spiegelgasse 14, opened the door, and disappeared.

  I never saw Magda again. When next I heard of her, it was to learn that she had left Zurich for good.

  My OWN FIRST, MINUSCULE ROLE on the world-historical stage, Days of Darkness, Nights of Light and the article in the NFPhzd been quickly cut from the play in the interest of more

  dramatic events: the guns of Europe boomed. My second, as we have just seen, was farcical, and like Polonius, I was hastily buried. But at least both roles were relatively harmless: I alone was the victim. My third appearance was to be a catastrophe that reverberates still, that gives me no peace, that causes me endless pain.

  What questions is Kunstler asking about me?

  prompter and thus can keep an eye on him, at least some of the time.) "Perhaps we should take a break."

  "Thank you, Kunstler," I said icily. "When it's time to break, I'll know it."

  "Fair's fair," he said.

  "I've got to go to the little girls' room," whined La Da-widowicz. "You wouldn't want I should disgrace myself in front of everyone."

  "Me too," said Wittkower.

  "The little girls' room?" said Hamburger.

  "You know what I mean, Benno," said Wittkower, aggrieved. "I've got to go real bad."

  I threw up my hands.

  DURING THE BREAK Kunstler came up to me.

  "A man like Claudius deserves to my way of thinking a little understanding," he said.

  "Please leave the actors to me."

  "No, I don't mean Blum, I mean the real Claudius."

  "That's what I've been trying to pound into Blum's thick head all morning."

  "Of course, he is a murderer, there's no getting around that. But he's got to live with what he did, and naturally it's not easy for him. Probably he'd turn back the clock if he could, poor feller. Now he's trying to make the best of it. I guess we can't escape our past." He paused. "I like what you're trying to do here. You're serious, you show a good understanding."

  Can one respond with rudeness to ostensible flattery? "Thank you," I said, and walked away.

  Flattery, yes, but is there no offense in't? The man knows something.

  I HAVE ADVISED MANDY DaTTNER, I hope wisely, to say nothing to Blum about his paternity—not yet, at any rate. What good could it do her to tell him? He would crow like Chanticleer, parade before us all in that squat, distasteful way that thrusts his sexual equipment forward, encased, I am convinced, in some kind of metallic jockstrap, a codpiece, that grants it special prominence. Blum in leotards already crowds our rehearsals with a giggling audience of ladies. Besides, its difficult enough to keep Blum's attention on the role; it would be sheer folly to invite distraction. Then, too, there are Miss Dattner's reputation and career to consider, at least in immediate prospect: I have not forgotten the suit that Hermione Perlmutter spoke of, which sparked her husband s rise from legal obscurity. The Kommandant is sensitive to publicity, especially since Lipschitz's mysterious accident and death. He is not above dismissing Miss Dattner for "immoral turpentine," for "interfering" with a resident, for who knows what, an innocent victim of sexual politics.

  Needless to say, she is not anxious to tell her parents. "Oh, sure, they'd like that back in Shaker Heights, wouldn't they just. Like, come on home, Mandy, what's a little pregnancy? Mom would be real keen on filling in the girls at the temple, and as for Dad, jeez!"

  "They might be more understanding than you think."

  "You kidding me? Anyway, I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. Dad'd insist on an abortion for sure, probably in Siberia."

  So that avenue is blocked, at least for the time being. If all else fails, Blum can be forced to make some kind of financial settlement. But that is for later. In the meantime, Mandy is calm, almost blithe, already suffused (or do I imagine it?) with a maternal glow, content to leave her problem in the hands of her "Grampus," as she has taken to calling me, a man who has failed miserably, again and again, to bring order to his own life.

  teeth shone between the fleshy lips. "If I were you, as a simple precaution, not to admit to more than I know, but I can guess your reason for concern, and that's why I'm prepared to advise you, since it can't hurt one way or the other, to think about, at least theoretically, the possibility of beginning to work, for a while anyway—you know, a word to the wise—with, in theatrical parlance, one of her understudies."

  One of her understudies indeed! Lottie Grabscheidt has only one understudy: Hermione Perlmutter. It's too late to train anyone else.

  After some huffing and puffing, Hamburger admitted that he had the Manhattan telephone number of Hermione's daughter. He brought his address book to my room and stood by me anxiously while I phoned.

  "Ms. Morgenbesser's residence."

  "I'd like to speak to Mrs. Perlmutter, please."

  "One moment, sir."

  "She's there," I mouthed to Hamburger, who looked faint.

  A different voice: "My mother's resting right now, but I can give her a message. Who'll I say is calling?"

  I told her.

  There was a pause. "All right, I knew it was only a matter of time. Listen, I've already spoken to my lawyers. You creeps haven't got a case, so why don't you just piss off and give my mother some peace?"

  "But Mrs. Morgenbesser—"

  "Ms. Got that, asshole?"

  "Ms. Morgenbesser—"

  "You've got your autograph back, right? So why don't you just take a flying ruck?"

  "But all that's forgotten. It never happened. A mistake on my part. We want your mother to come back to the Emma Lazarus."

  A pause; then, quietly, "Oh."

  "The Old Vic depends on her. We want her to play Gertrude."

  "Oh."

  "It's an understudy's dream."

  "Perhaps I was a
little hasty. You have to understand, she's very upset. I can't bear that."

  "Naturally, naturally. You're her daughter, after all. Perfectly understandable."

  "Look, I can't promise anything. I'll talk to her."

  "That's all I ask." Hamburger was tugging at my sleeve and whispering in my ear. "And tell her Benno sends his best." Another tug: "His very best." Liao.

  "Ciao." I hung up.

  Hamburger looked sheepish. "If you can make such a sacrifice, Korner," he said, "I can swallow my pride. Your need is greater than mine."

  So now we wait. The mood in the company is glum. As for me, I call upon my depleted reserves of stoicism. In all this, there is Purpose.

  A TOUCHING SCENE in the lobby this morning. Hamburger and I were standing by the bulletin board; he was trying to dissuade me from canceling the production. The notice was in my hand.

  "You mustn't do it, Korner."

  "What do you want from me? Osric can go. The Assistant Gravedigger we can do without. But Hamlet without Gertrude is an impossibility."

  We were whispering. The lobby's sedentary leaned toward us.

  "But after all the work—the weeks, the months, your own high hopes?"

  "You think I want to cancel? Perhaps we can manage some sort of program, recitations, excerpts from a few scenes. I Solisti can help out in the intervals."

  "Wonderful. A regular Flo Ziegfeld. Maybe the Red Dwarf could juggle a few plates. You I wouldn't have put down for a quitter. In those lonely days, Korner, when I championed you for the directorship, little did I think it would mean the dissolution of the company."

  "Not the company, the production. Besides, why should you care so much? You were never the keenest member. 'It's only a play, Otto': how many times have you said that to

  me

  "It's you I'm thinking of, and the others."

  From the sedentary there was a sudden stillness, an almost palpable quietude, as if they were sitting on the brink of the extraordinary. We stopped our bickering and turned.

  Through the open portal, accompanied by a younger woman of Wagnerian massiveness, a woman swathed in an ankle-length mink coat, came Hermione Perlmutter. She was back!

  As soon as she saw us she stopped, confused, timorous, a little round figure in a jaunty naval officer's overcoat cut mod-ishly short and adorned with shiny brass buttons. Tilted back on her head, roundness upon roundness, was a flat flying saucer of a hat, rather like those worn by Italian priests, navy blue, from which a ribbon of the same hue depended. Eyes abased, she took a shy, a tiny, step forward.

  The play of emotions on Hamburger's face was something to see. He, too, took a step forward. From his throat issued a small cry.

  "Benno!"

  "Hannah!"

  Suddenly they were running to one another. He caught her in his arms, leaning forward over their stomachs. There in

  the lobby they kissed and embraced. When such a mutual pair and such a twain can do't, they stand up peerless.

  "Oh, Hannah!"

  "Oh, Benno!"

  The sedentary were all atwitter: "Worth the price of admission"; "Better than a movie"; "A person with a heart of stone would melt."

  Hamburger shook hands with Lucille Morgenbesser and relieved her of her mother's overnight bag. The daughter is a formidable woman whose gums figure prominently when she smiles. Hamburger brought mother and daughter over and introduced Ms. Morgenbesser to me.

  "Mr. Korner," said La Perlmutter, "I am quite overcome with embarrassment. What can I possibly say?"

  "You can say you're ready to take on a starring role in Hamlet!"

  Hamburger, almost bursting with happiness, gave me a playful punch on the shoulder. "But first, champagne! I'll ask one of the porters to go out."

  For the benefit of the sedentary, I raised my voice. "When you offered to have my Rilke letter framed, Mrs. Perlmutter, I didn't expect such elegance. I must reimburse you."

  She thought at first that I was mocking her. Her little hands flew up to cover her eyes. "Oh, oh."

  "No, I insist."

  She peeked at me between her fingers, was reassured, blushed, smiled. "Not at all, it's a present."

  Lucille Morgenbesser glanced at her watch. "If you don't need me anymore, Mother, I'd better run."

  "But what about the champagne?" said Hamburger.

  "Another time."

  "She's lecturing at the New School," said La Perlmutter proudly. " 'Sappho, Leviticus, and the Limits of Faith.' Run, darling, run."

  I tore up the notice canceling the performance and put the pieces in my pocket.

  The return of Hermione Perlmutter has given new life to the company, a shot of adrenaline that today carried us through rehearsals like seasoned actors. We were running through act 4, scene 5, 215 lines packed with dramatic tension and the most subtle interplay of individual emotions. From the opening line, Gertrude's "I will not speak with her," it was impossible not to sense the electricity in the air. La Perlmutter, in a quilted red dressing gown, might have been preparing for the role all her life. Freddy Blum abandoned his histrionics, his melodramatic posturings, and caught the very life of a king at bay, found out, inwardly squirming, but through sheer force of will putting up a facade of imperturbability. Even Milos Pasternak, the Messenger, who hitherto had delivered his dozen lines in monotone and in the disquieting accents of the Lower East Side circa 1910, conveyed convincing alarm—"Save yourself, my lord!"—as he fell upon one knee before the king, pointing to the wings as if the Furies, not merely Laertes, were about to issue from them.

  But of Tosca Dawidowicz I lack words to praise. Her talent, dormant until this afternoon, burst into sudden blaze. Since the Prince does not appear in this scene, I was able to watch her performance from the third row center. And I confess that I was entranced, transported to that unhappy court at Elsinore, the Emma Lazarus forgotten.

  Tosca Dawidowicz was Ophelia. One did not see an obese, embittered old woman in a gray sweatsuit, her face in profile like a heavy crescent moon, nor yet the large pink curlers marching like a plastic army in tight ranks across her head. One saw instead the poor demented girl, Hamlet's "most beautified Ophelia," bereft of her sanity by blows too powerful for her

  gentle spirit to withstand: "There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me. . . . There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died." That look of tender bewilderment as she distributed the flowers, that hesitant gesture as if she half feared a blow in return, that exquisite shudder, as if for a second she had been granted respite from madness and insight into the bitter truth, these were moments to treasure. Not Sinsheimer, not Lipschitz, not I, no one but Tosca Dawidowicz could claim credit for this triumph. The spell was broken only when the scene came to an end. "My bladder's about to burst! Me first for the little girl's room." The whole company applauded her as she ran for the wings.

  Yes, this was a moment to savor, and I am proud of our little troupe. Still, the excitement threatened to get out of hand, with Hamburger, whose drinking perhaps bears watching, even calling again for champagne. I was forced to remind them that much hard work still lay ahead, with little enough time left in which to complete it. "Just the same, ladies and gentlemen," I added, "I think we have here a winner!" Shouts of jubilation and raucous back-slappings.

  THINKING OVER the scene later, and remembering mad Ophelia's wistful songs, I was put in mind of Mandy Dattner:

  By Gis and by Saint Charity,

  Alack and fie for shame,

  Young men will do't if they come to't—

  By Cock, they are to blame.

  Precisely so: by "cock" they are to blame. And if Freddy Blum cannot qualify as a young man, Ralph Comyns can. I determined then and there to have a few exploratory words with the reluctant doctor.

  I found him in his office, a bottle of Dr. Pepper in his hand and his feet upon the desk. He was leafing through a copy of Geriatrics Today.

  "You gu
ys give me a pain in the neck," he said genially, putting his feet down. "To what do I owe what, knowing you, you probably think I should regard as this honor?" He gestured at me with one ear of his stethoscope, a visible question mark, a concrete metaphor. "If you want me for the play, you'll have to see my agent."

  I pretended to a slight sore throat.

  He took a look. "Seems fine to me, you old goldbricker, pink as a baby's bottom. Beautiful tonsillectomy, they really knew their business in those days. Suck a lemon drop."

  "How's Lottie Grabscheidt?"

  "Coming along nicely. Tomorrow she can have visitors. You can toddle along there and bother her instead of me."

  "But she'll be well enough to take part in the play?" In fact, given today's wonderful teamwork on stage, it occurred to me that we would be better off without her. La Perlmutter, excellent in herself, has proved a catalyst to excellence in others. (Of course, I wish La Grabscheidt no harm.)

  "That I wouldn't count on," he said. "Patience is the operable word." He winked and narrowed his eyes. "No pun intended." He squinted at me. "You look a bit gray, now that I look at you. As long as you're here consuming my valuable time, I might as well give a listen." He adjusted his stethoscope. "Strip to the waist."

  I began to undress. "You should take a look at Miss Dattner when you get a chance."

  "Why, you old goat, whatever are you suggesting?"

  " 'She has of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all her mirth.' The effervescence is gone. She sighs a lot and seems sometimes on the brink of tears. As a layman, I would diagnose a case of unhappiness in love, a broken heart. But a doctor

  might think differently. It might be something truly organic, maybe a virus, a low-grade fever."

  He looked thoughtful.

  "She's a beautiful girl, a good family, too, pillars of the community, Shaker Heights. But she's all alone here in New York. I worry about her."