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

air, although he was really no good at it. At the age of sixteen, he went to Vienna and became an apprentice for Kratky Baschik. Anyone who knows the Prater in Vienna is aware that a booth bearing Kratky Baschik’s name still exists today. Herrmann learned a great deal from his mentor and received thirty kreuzers for his presentation; that is, he was promised that amount but wound up getting five. Baschik had a problem with his lungs and had to stop one day, and Herrmann filled in for him.

He had always been a good speaker, and from observing chubby Baschik’s techniques, he had become a more adept magician than his mentor. Both masters and servants gave him enthusiastic applause, his success grew, a good-sized audience turned up, and one day, so did Herr Rosenbaum, who hired Herrmann for the newly constructed “Venice in Vienna” at fifty guldens an evening.

High society was in attendance evening after evening, and Herrmann made a name for himself. He was even invited to the Sacher Hotel, where some gentlemen wished to have a private performance. Herrmann went there with three sparrows in his left pocket, which he had been carrying for months. He had gathered them up on Hauptallee when they were half-starved and trained them with a precise regimen, so they would fly away and come back when he whistled. The people here seemed quite refined. One of them pointed to a plate with three roasted fieldfares and said, “If you can bring them back to life, I’ll give you my gold watch!” Herrmann put a fieldfare in his hand and deftly switched it for a sparrow, which fluttered up. Life came to the two other birds in the same manner. Herrmann was given the watch, and, because he had entertained the gentlemen so pleasingly, he also got a thousand guldens. As he then learned from the waiter, the man with the watch was King Milan of Serbia, the other gentlemen were Baron Rothschild, Baron Springer, Archduke Ferdinand, and Archduke Este.

Once he was in such fine company, Herrmann was not about to leave it. He spent forty years traveling back and forth throughout the world, always offering top-notch entertainment for the top people. He stayed at the sultan’s court in Constantinople for seven years. He accepted an assignment from the shipowner Ballin to travel to America and back a dozen times to zero in on a card shark who was taking all the money away from the American passengers in poker, and nobody could discover his trick. Herrmann, too, needed twelve trips to figure it out: the man, an Austrian officer, always kept a gold snuffbox in front of him during the games. The snuffbox was matte on one side and glossy on the other. When this officer dealt the cards, he held the deck over the glossy side and thus knew his partners’ cards: if he didn’t see the joker in the deck, he pulled it out of his sleeve, as he had prepared for this express purpose. Herrmann put a stop to the amiable man’s game.

Now seventy years old, he is indisputably the greatest card magician in the world. He turns down any offers to work in variety shows. He does perform, but only at private gatherings, whose hosts can offer him a thousand marks for two or three hours of work. At the moment, for example, he’s packing his bags and traveling to Monte Carlo, where he has two sold-out evenings in the casino. The Monte Carlo shysters’ eyeballs will be popping out of their heads, unable to catch on to even a single trick, let alone do the tricks themselves. Then Herrmann will be a guest at the German Club in Paris, and the following day the featured attraction at the home of a banking tycoon, whose guests he’ll baffle so thoroughly that they won’t be able to sleep for two weeks. The French ambassador won’t win a single one of the hundred games of écarté, the American consul will lose the poker game with four of a kind. For the ladies of the house the ever-so-suave Herrmann will produce the ace of clubs for the jack of hearts, and he will guess which card they thought of without even touching the deck. All this comes off with an elegance not seen among card sharks, for Herrmann is more than that. He is a phenomenon on a par with Rafael Schermann.

Der Querschnitt, issue 6, June 1929

“Hello, Mr. Menjou?”

HE SPEAKS A CHARMING GERMAN—HIS MOTHER IS FROM LEIPZIG

W. R. Wilkerson drinks Coca-Cola: Coca-Cola, which tastes like burned tires. But it is said to be very refreshing. W. R. Wilkerson is in love with Coca-Cola. He is now on his fourth glass. When someone is in love with Coca-Cola, you can bet your last pair of pants, with wonderful odds, that this fan is an American. And if he pours four glasses into himself at once, he is surely a tired American.

W. R. Wilkerson is an American and he’s tired. His card reads Hollywood—New York. He came with the S.S. Bremen; he didn’t sleep in his quest to set new records.

W. R. Wilkerson wants to set up business in Berlin. In Hollywood he publishes a film newspaper dedicated to the actor Adolphe Menjou. He follows him to Europe, hoping to make films with him here, now that Menjou has fallen out with Paramount. One hundred thousand dollars for a film; that’ll be the day. Adolphe had no intention of continuing to put up with this ridiculous price. No, he’d rather go fishing. He demands 150,000 dollars. Paramount doesn’t go for that. The contract falls through. All of a sudden Menjou is overwhelmed by a mighty desire for Europe, no, for work in Europe. He packs his world-famous clothes into eighteen steamer trunks and is now in Paris. Meanwhile, Wilkerson is sounding out the situation in Berlin.

They want to start as soon as possible.

W. R. Wilkerson drinks another Coca-Cola. Awful, how