Billy Wilder on Assignment by Noah Isenberg (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📕

Okito presents with the refinement of Paris models is already enough to give you your money’s worth.

Dance attractions: To be honest, these are a bit weak. We’ve seen much better modern dance than what Laczi and Änni do.

Chaplin II: Two acrobats, pretty fellows, and Charlie Rivel; that is the troupe. This Rivel is quite consciously doing a copy. But it comes from within, and it’s so strong that it’s justified. (Justified from a legal standpoint, at any rate, for the very reason that Chaplin, the great one, is no more an original than he is; people say it’s Billy Hurrydale, a second-rate British dope.) Rivel is a brilliant observer, he knows genius like the pocket of his threadbare trousers. In his discreet way, he manages to transport Chaplin into the three-dimensional sphere—and pulls it off surprisingly well. It goes without saying that his partners, who perform countless flips, deserve ample praise.

Incredible feats: Someone who calculates the square root of 33,000,262,176! This phenomenon is Emanuel Steiner, who plays around effortlessly with twenty-digit numbers; as he says himself, the only person in the world who isn’t thrown even by numbers in the billions. He also has an unnerving knowledge of all possible and impossible dates in history; he knows that Archimedes was born on a Thursday; and the result of 766 to the fourth power divided by 77. (A rosy-cheeked skeptic next to me keeps grunting: tour de force; I ought to have him work out my liabilities!)

Someone with gasometer lungs! Omikron is a slender blond man in a violet outfit, looking like an ad for a vacuum cleaner. He gulps in enough gas to send off a couple of people into the hereafter with some to spare. He uses this gas to light lamps, heat an iron, cook a fried egg. You wind up with a bitter taste in your mouth, but you’re amazed by this fellow, and how!

And someone who goes through the eye of a needle! Martin Sczeny, Mexican, with a slight Hungarian intonation; he’s barrel chested, and brawny from head to toe. An escape artist, a matador of breaking free. Twenty people from the audience put a straitjacket over his head, then swaddle him like a child in diapers. In one minute he is free. Lifts himself up onto the palms of his hands and does somersaults that make his joints crack with a spine-chilling snap. At the end he crawls through a steel ring no bigger than a soup plate. Gets off to a running start again and again, the ladies storm up from their front-row seats, then: yank, his spinal column bends, again and again, done! Lots of effort, lots of sweat. Bravo!

Berliner Börsen Courier, May 10, 1927

The Lookalike Man

TALE OF A CHAMELEON NAMED ERWIN

The dictionary may define individuals as unique and inimitable, but that doesn’t do Erwin one bit of good. The world around him doesn’t think in those terms. In flagrant disregard of the scientific definition, it confers on him the dubious ability to multiply. As lazily as the bureau that attaches descriptions to passport applicants, it denies the existence of any “distinguishing marks” he might have, ignores all the specific features of his appearance, and reduces him to a template. Because he is of medium height and has black hair—like Herr Klappke—it takes him for Herr Klappke. Because he wears dark horn-rimmed glasses and has brown eyes—like Herr Rednitz—it takes him for Herr Rednitz. Erwin cannot be Erwin. Fate has destined him to be the victim of the undeveloped physiognomic memory of his fellow men.

Over the years, Erwin has had to play every imaginable role. The roles forced on him range from a grocer’s apprentice to a film comedian, from a troubled youth to a cousin gone missing in Australia. At first he vehemently opposed any false identification. He refused to be the one who was supposedly “recognized,” and tried to clear up the confusion with denials and a stamped personal identification card. He had yet to learn how obstinately people insist on defending their mistakes. He had yet to foresee the mistrust his protests would sow. No one believed his avowals that he was not the one he had been taken for. If they believed him at all, it was the part that he didn’t want to be that person, that he had some painful reason to dispute his identity. Soon Erwin’s peaceful nature grew tired of the constant squabbling. He acquiesced, and sought to bear his destiny of “looking similar” with dignity. He good-naturedly turned into an unwilling swindler. He let mistakes take their course and strove to conform reasonably well to the roles demanded of him. If threatened with exposure, he would leave on the spot.

Two weeks ago everything was going along smoothly, but then, in a dance hall, a bony monster tried to reclaim Erwin as her bridegroom, who had deserted her before the year was out. Erwin put his foot down. He had been hoping for a pleasant mix-up, and did not have the slightest desire to spend the evening at the side of this skeleton draped in black. He understood at first glance why the groom had fled. So he resorted to denials and displaying his stamped ID card, the way he used to do. A terrible scene ensued right there. The bony bride shouted to everyone that he had already tried this fake papers maneuver once before, though back then his name was Egon. If he didn’t pony up his alimony back payments right away, she would hand him over to the police. She lunged at him threateningly, and the other guests took her side. Slaps in the face and worse followed.

When Erwin got home in a fit of desperation, his first thought was to grab a razor and slit his wrists. He later realized how little this sort of behavior suited his style. He moaned and groaned all the way till morning, having had quite enough of bearing the burdens of others on