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

one: Professeur de danse Miguel Ferrer. Spaniard. Not tall, but finely chiseled facial features. Doesn’t speak a word of German, only French, Flemish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and, of course, Spanish. If he has something to tell the others, he raises his fingers to his eye, his ear, puts them on his nose, crosses them over his lips, twists his elbow, and points in all directions. That is his sign language, seeing as the other three speak only German, aside from the Viennese man, who doesn’t quite have a command of that language either.

A waiter serves me coffee, apple cake with whipped cream, ice cream.—Like a guest.—And I’m asked if I want more whipped cream.

Then Ferrer asks, “Parlez-vous français?”

“Mais oui.”

“Épatant. Je suis heureux de pouvoir causer avec vous.”*

I scrape the last bits of my pie from the plate. The other four are already on the dance floor. Willy is entwined with a chubby woman, the Spaniard is lifting his legs languidly, indifferent to the beat, but his partner doesn’t notice; her little eyes are fixed on the ceiling in rapture. I’m back at work, table 91.

It’s unbearably hot. My collar is as soft as pudding and totally sweaty, my arms are aching. The two bands up there are playing without a break. On the dance floor, which is just over twenty feet long and fifteen wide, there are thirty couples. The paper sales representative watches my moves, and the corners of his mouth curl into a pitying grimace: novice. Roberts sits at a table, quite close to the dance floor, and winks at me: courage. And Ferrer, who was just poked in the ribs by someone’s elbow, comes out with some sort of Spanish curse word.

Seven o’clock. The ballroom is already half-empty, table 91 gone. Ferrer and I are standing at the cloakroom.

Herr Isin shows up again.

“Well?”

“How’s that?”

Isin taps me on the shoulder.

“You’ll get it.”

Then: “Be here at 9:30. The waiter will show you where you’ll eat. Adieu.”Table 103

It is bitterly cold at my place. It needs to be heated starting tomorrow, at least a little. It’s not the least bit pleasant to spend two hours half-naked, pedantically carrying out my dressing routine, knotting my bow tie with fingers that have turned blue from the cold.

From 7:00 to 9:30 I have a “break.” Only a seeming break, because I have to spend this time changing out of the suit I was dancing in for the tea and into my tuxedo; also changing my shirt, shoes, socks. No, tomorrow there will definitely need to be a little heat. People like us can afford that, can’t we, Herr Isin?

Nine thirty, in the hotel ballroom. Guests are already there. The good tables reserved for theatergoers. Ladies in silver evening gowns with coiffures that smell like burnt hair. Gentlemen in dress suits, studying the prices on the wine list through their monocles. One member of the tango band is playing a violin solo, “Butterfly.” The plump woman at the corner table places her hand on her eyelids in a sentimental gesture.

I sit down in some corner. Three waiters around me. One slides the complete menu under my nose, a second one the wine list, the third puts a flower vase on the table.

“The gentleman is awaiting someone, please?”

“Oh, no, I’m the new dancer.”

The one with the fat cheeks and a pale goulash stain on the front of his shirt squints over at his colleague with a grin.

“Dancer? That is not here. Not yet.”

To the bellboy at the door, “Take the dancer to his dining room.”

My dining room can be reached by way of a wooden staircase and is set up on a balcony that is barred to the guests: two bare tables and a couple of chairs. The table on the right only for the maître d’, the one on the left for the others, namely, waiters, bellboys, lift operators, porters, door openers, coffee girls, and so forth, and also for the dancers.

Ferrer, the Spaniard, and Willy, the man from Vienna, are already there. And someone else, the chauffeur for our boss, the “hotel co-owner.”

Set menu for the staff: consommé—larded filet of beef with baby vegetables and Madeira sauce—parfait—a bottle of beer—countless rolls.

Well, that’s wonderful. Willy always gives the little guy who serves us three cents, and he eats two portions of ice cream. “Because you have to, the Charleston makes you damned skinny, word of honor.”

Herr Isin comes up, just for the inspection, because the managers eat downstairs in the main hall. A splendid tuxedo, double-breasted, wide lapels, milky white shirt, gold buttons. Shaved, coiffed, perfumed.

“Enjoyed your meal? Off to work, gentlemen.” Downstairs everything is already in full swing. Good people.

Champagne.

“Go over there, to table 103. You see, a lady, a gentleman, and two young girls. Try to pounce.”

“Pounce” means—Willy told me—engage the ladies, ask them to dance. I blow my nose and go over when the first fox-trot starts. With the gentleman’s permission—

Oh, Papa at table 103 has absolutely nothing against my dancing with his daughters. I alternate between them. Both still have thin arms and bashful mouths. The older one, maybe seventeen and a half, nestles up against me gently. She tells me that she greatly enjoyed dancing in Neuchâtel, in Switzerland, where she was in boarding school. And she wondered if I wanted to come back for the tango. Yes. But during the tango, she no longer said a single word. No doubt Mama had strictly forbidden conversation with the dancer for hire.

Eleven thirty. Yvette and Roberts dance—Boston, Charleston, paso doble. During the main attraction, Herr Isin stands next to me.

“In the evening you dance only with tables that I instruct you to go to. Or with ladies who send for you. Be very careful.”

Willy tells me he has an old customer, a Frau Doktor. Ferrer daydreams listlessly in the corner of the bar until Herr Isin directs him to three ladies who have expressed the wish to move around a bit.

It is much less comfortable than in the afternoon.