Cabaret (10 page)

“Would you know it was me, Freda?”

“Not in a million years.”

Holding her mechanical hand (I thought I could allow her this final indulgence), we ran up the stairs. I was pleased to see that nearly all the rat corpses had by now been disposed of, and were no longer littering the gangways, causing people to skid on them and break their legs.

When we arrived panting at the first-class deck, I told Clodia that for the sake of safety, we had to separate until we got inside the Entertainment Room.

“They know we go everywhere together,” I said. “They won’t recognize you if you’re alone.” Clodia looked at me with suspicion, as though sensing a trick.

“Then can we cuddle up together in the back row?” she asked.

I nodded, and stepped out into the vestibule, where I quickly mingled in with the crowd. I liked to think that even if I didn’t look quite like a first-class person, I could easily pass for second-class. I took a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, ready to toast my freedom, and struck up a conversation with a gap-toothed woman wearing a mink stole and a tiara.

All the while I scanned the vestibule for signs of a rumpus that would indicate Clodia had been apprehended. Then, when the sound of a gong announced the cabaret was about to start, Clodia burst out of the stairwell like a cuckoo from a clock. The whole room went silent. It was clear to all there was an interloper in our midst. Immediately uniformed guards surrounded her.

“I’m not Clodia Strozzi,” she stammered. “I’m someone else.You have to believe me.”

It was no use. In a well-drilled motion the guards shuffled her back into the stairwell. Before the door clanged shut, I caught her eye for a moment, and I could see clearly in it the pain of love, longing, and despair.

I
swallowed my champagne too quickly, hurried into the Entertainment Room, and fell into the first empty seat I saw, hoping nobody had noticed me. I felt guilty about what had happened to Clodia, and nervous because I knew I was breaking the rules. Suppose I too was arrested?

Yet, at the same time, I was exhilarated. I wasn’t used to champagne (in fact I had never had it before), and I think it had gone to my head. Something about the Entertainment Room—the dim lighting, low-pitched murmurs, a sense of expectation, the odors mingling in the air (French perfume, cigar smoke, cognac, a certain brand of furniture polish)—

reminded me of the cabaret clubs where Mamma used to perform.

When she was younger, before Fiamma and I were born, Mamma had sung on cruise liners, and had traveled all over the world. I fantasized that she had met our father on a ship, although he was a total mystery, a forbidden subject that was never discussed. Perhaps it was in a room just like this one.

I could imagine him, like a character from a silent film, handsome and sophisticated, mustachioed probably, in a dinner jacket and bow tie, carnation in his lapel, sitting alone at one of the little tables, a glass of whiskey in his hand in which the ice cubes clinked. Perhaps, between his slightly yellow teeth a fat cigar glowed, its aroma combining in a cloud with his expensive eau de cologne.

Up on the stage, the curtains drew back revealing Mamma in a spotlight and a slinky black dress. Her hair was piled high; her smile was dazzling.

When their eyes met, time froze, the audience, the cocktail waitresses, and the band, all melted into nothingness, the tinkling of the piano died gracefully away, and immediately it was love, except, of course it wasn’t Mamma, it was the Great Fango, the magician.

I roused from my reverie to see him produce the usual rabbits from a top hat, hard-boiled eggs from the mouths of the ladies in the audience, and doves from the ear canals of the gentlemen.

There followed fire-eaters, jugglers, two comedians, and a troupe of acrobats who performed amazing feats with a bottle, an orange, and a piece of string. After the interval, dancing girls in the skimpiest of costumes gyrated around to the numbers performed by Mel Cartouche, the international artiste: “There’s a Kind of Hush,” “Michelle,” and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.” Admittedly his strong Polish accent made them sound somewhat strange, compared to the original ver-sions, but he endowed them with his own charm, and I have to say, he had a very powerful voice. In fact, listening to him made me long to sing too, and although I wouldn’t claim to have a voice like Mamma’s, I prided myself that I had inherited a little of her talent.

All too soon, the final act was announced, and the shock of it left me reeling, feeling dizzy and weak. The last act was a ventriloquist. Yes. A ventriloquist! The unparalleled, the extraordinary, Alberto Lippi. My brain was flooded with the recollection of Mamma’s dying prophesy, “Fredina… I see a ventriloquist…” Yet until now, I had never come across one.

When the curtains opened again, I sat up straight and craned my neck to see between the woman at the table in front of mine with the enormous shrub of hair (honestly, it was so big that some of the magician’s doves had built a nest in it) and her companion, who had the ears of an elephant.

To my absolute and overwhelming astonishment, framed between them both, I beheld the short, fat man I had first encountered in the deck chair, up on the stage, with a dummy of almost equal size seated primly on his knee. My heart sank until it came to rest in my stomach. So he was the ventriloquist.

My first thought was that I could never, ever, have sex with him.

He introduced the dummy as Malco the naughty schoolboy.

“I’m not naughty,” squeaked the dummy.

“I’m afraid he is naughty, ladies and gentlemen,” the ventriloquist replied. “Only the other day…” The two went through their predictable routine, but I have to say that when the dummy was talking, the voice did actually seem to come out of him, and certainly the mouth of the small, fat man never moved a muscle.

At the end of this part of the act, the small, fat man told the schoolboy it was his bedtime, and had to coax him into his case. The big black suitcase I recognized. Even when the dummy was shut away, he continued muttering and his voice was muffled by the lid of the case, and finally his complaints were replaced by gentle snores and whimpers.

Then the ventriloquist began to throw his voice among the audience. He put his words into the mouth of a burly, beefy man and made him sound like a eunuch. He gave a countess the voice and vocabulary of a vulgar fishwife. A young girl was made to sing like Frank Sinatra, and all the time, on the stage, the short, fat man stood in silence, seemingly saying nothing.

Then, as the finale was about to begin, the captain’s voice came over the public address system, calling for us to abandon ship. Just as the panic set in and the ladies started screaming and were hoisting up their evening dresses preparing to run for their lives, a plant in the audience started the thunderous applause. It had been the ventriloquist, of course, having the last laugh.

The passengers filed out of the Entertainment Room, laughing and chattering, and I looked around nervously for the guards before making my escape. As I reached the door, I heard a voice, a man’s voice, whispering inside my ear, so close it tickled. It said my name over and over again:

“Freda, Freda, Freda.”

I looked rapidly around me. There was nobody there. I shivered, and felt a prickling sensation at the base of my skull.

As I walked away the voice said softly:

“I am your destiny.”

I scuttled downstairs like a beetle. It was after the curfew and the third-class deck was blacker than the night. I felt my way back to what I hoped was the right cabin. Inside I fumbled beneath my mattress for the candle and matches I had managed to acquire earlier that day on the black market that was already flourishing in third class. In the flickering light, for which I had traded a bathing costume and a bread roll (buttered), I was amazed at what I saw.

Every trace of Clodia had been erased. All the shirtwaist dresses I had swapped with her were gone. This was a bitter blow. Now I would have to wear my own unsuitable clothes.

The very whiff of her had vanished, as had her plush panda pajama case, and her gray and repellent underwear, which she’d festooned like bunting around her bunk. Her toothbrush and candy-flavored toothpaste were missing. Even the giant petrol can had gone. It really was as though Clodia Strozzi had never existed.

Perhaps, though, and this thought cheered me, the authorities had simply removed her stuff and taken it for her convenience to her place of detention.Yes, that was it. It was good that she had those familiar things around her.

I climbed into my bunk, congratulating myself on the fact that I had had the foresight to use the first-class powder room while I was upstairs. The third-class washroom hadn’t been decontaminated since the start of the cruise, if indeed then, and besides the ever-present queue made access near impossible.

I snuffed out the candle, not wishing to waste it, and lay back thinking of the ventriloquist. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I could still hear that voice whispering in my ear. I could feel the tickle of breath that formed those words:

“Freda… I am your destiny.” Was it really true?

As I dozed I remember hearing an enormous splash coupled with the sort of gulp that a body of deep water makes when it swallows something heavy. Then I slept a thick, dreamless sleep.

A
t five AM the Klaxon sounded in third class.

“All rise. All rise,” insisted the robotic voice.

There was an air of happy excitement as we scrambled to get ready. We were coming into harbor at Port Said, for our once-in-a-lifetime visit to the Sphinx and the pyramids. I still remember the thrill of standing on the deck in the fresh new air, watching the shore draw near, seeing all the boats and bustling action of the port, and behind it the domes and minarets, the huge advertising billboards, jostling blocks of flats, and plenteous palm trees that herald the traveler’s arrival in that fascinating maritime city. For those moments of joy, it had all been worthwhile; I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

There was the usual delay as we moored, and then, class by class, like in school, we were allowed to disembark onto the pontoon of floating oilcans that led to the dockside. I loved the pontoon. The bobbing up and down. I thought of Clodia. I know she would have liked it too.

Once through customs we emerged into Egypt, and a heat that was like a bread oven. Immediately my senses came alive. My eyes smarted at the incredible intensity of the light, and colors seemed so bright: blinding blues, reds, yellows, the whitest possible whites. The air was filled with an exciting din: the call to prayer from the minarets filled me with delight; the cries of the street vendors were wonderfully exotic; even the roar of traffic and sirens seemed new and mysterious. Smells bombarded my nostrils: diesel fumes, drains, cumin, overripe bananas, roasting goat flesh, melting tarmac, garbage, dung.

I was in love with the place already.

The stewards directed us to the dusty parking area in front of the customs shed, where first- and second-class passengers embarked on their air-conditioned luxury coaches that boasted a chemical lavatory and hostess service providing ice-cold drinks and gastronomic nibbles.

We in third class were to take local transport. So much the better, I thought. I would much rather experience the real Egypt than be in a hermetically sealed pod.

While we waited for our bus, the luxury coaches pulled away. Some of the occupants waved. None of us waved back.

The sun grew hotter by the minute. Soon we were beset by a gang of small children offering cool water from a glass tank with half a lemon floating in it.The lemon didn’t appear to be in the first flush of youth, but no doubt it was flavorsome.

Other children offered postcards of camels wearing sun hats, fezzes made of felt, packets of biscuits, toffee apples, chewing gum, and slices of mango.They were cheeky little fellows, and reluctant to take no for an answer. When their sales tech-niques were becoming threatening rather than endearing, a police officer approached and beat them away with a stick.

By this time the more anxious of the sightseers began consulting their wristwatches with increasing urgency, and demanded to know when our bus would be coming. But I was enjoying myself; it was part of the adventure, after all.

Finally, after a delay of about two and a half hours, during which three of our number developed sunstroke and had to be taken back to the ship, a bus drew into the parking area, sending clouds of rich red dust up into the air. Even the dust was more appealing than our own Roman dust. At first the driver kept the doors firmly shut and wouldn’t let us in, even though some of the gentlemen in our group threatened him through the window with their fists.Then, when at last he did open the doors, out of nowhere came a swarm of local people who surged onto the bus accompanied by their herds of animals and children. The cruisers fought back and pushed their way in, although the maximum capacity was soon ex-ceeded and many of the third-class passengers were forced to stand for the entire five-hour journey.

I was fortunate to get a window seat next to a jolly big lady swathed in black robes who carried a cabbage of monstrous size on her head. Behind were her five little children and a sheep, which seemed overcome by the heat. Beyond them, I was amazed to see the ventriloquist. How had he managed to get on board without my seeing him? He was cooling himself with a fan of flamingo feathers, and above his head—in the luggage rack stuffed with chickens, watermel-ons, sugar cane, and kettles—was the big black suitcase.

I was delighted with my view from the window and kept my eyes glued to the constantly changing kaleidoscope of interest.Yet I could not feel entirely comfortable with the ventriloquist so near.

The bus baked, and the occupants gave off a riper odor, and the noxious fumes of the traffic penetrated the open window and mixed with the vapors created by some of the passengers who had lit fires to boil up stews or roast slabs of mut-ton. The bleating of the sheep and lambs, the gobbling of the geese, the lilting conversation in Arabic of my fellow travelers—everything had the mesmerizing, confusing quality of a dream. And as I succumbed to the heat and the fug, I imagined other voices that seemed to come from far, far away: