Leslie Epstein

Ice Fire Water

An Excerpt, Part 2 of 2

"Figaro! Figaro! Demandez Le Figaro!" What was that cry? A newsboy! A French newsboy! "Pluie de verre dans les rues de Berlin! Une mer de cristal! Dernières nouvelles! Les Allemands en guerre contre leurs Juifs! La vérité vraie! La grande synagogue de Berlin en flammes!" What was he saying? Ah: in the capital of the German Reich it was now raining glass.

This was the night, the dread ninth, the November navity, that all the world still recalls. One hundred Jews murdered. Thousands sent off to the camps. Two hundred synagogues burned to the ground. How many businesses destroyed? Seventy-five hundred. The broken glass! Equivalent to half the output from Belgium for an entire year. Believe it, says Ripley, or not. The cost: five million marks. And who would bear this expense? The insurance companies of the Reich? The brown-shirted perpetrators? Do not force me to laugh. The answer is—and here we see, in the master race, diabolical cleverness—the victims themselves! For creating a public disturbance. Special tax: one billion marks. The Jews would pay for their own pogrom! Kristallnacht!

Of all the inhabitants of Paris only one at that moment was filled with joy. It was Leib Goldkorn. At once I pulled my wrinkled feet from the river's watery embrace. I danced on the embankment, to the accompaniment of my penny panpipe, a Scottish-style jig. Why such callousness of feeling? It was because I realized that at long last the world would be forced to listen. All these Frenchmen, and Frenchwomen too, with their berets and baguettes, and on their lips cynical cigarettes: they all would have to admit that this wretch, in rags, possessed the truth. My Esther would make the pariah a prophet. Aux armes citoyens! Or, in the words of "A Loud and Bitter Cry," the solo of Mordecai from Act One:

I throw off my sackcloth!
I wipe off my ashes!
I must speak in spite of ten thousand lashes!

Then, as the Hebrews press closer, so as to hear:

In each man's life there comes a moment to choose.
For him in the heavens there shines but one star.
—On the thirteenth day of the month of Adar,
—Haman will cause to perish all of the Jews.

Strings; trumpets; celesta; the beat of the drum.

For one giddy moment I forgot that I had not, in my pockets, even the point of a pencil with which to finish my musical score. What did it matter? Was I not, like Mordecai himself, a stranger in a strange land? Would not my rags, like his sackcloth, be replaced with royal apparel of blue and white, and with, as it is written, a garment of fine linen and purple? A triumph at L'Opéra! Esther, my masterpiece, A Jewish Girl at the Persian Court, might yet change history's course. Surely the subtle French, so wise in the ways of the world, would understand the association of Haman with Hitler. Both begin with the letter H. Formez vos bataillons!

I put on my stockings. I put on my shoes. I climbed to the upper embankment and made my way down the Quai des Tuileries and the Quai du Louvre. The United States embassy was then on the Boulevard Bourbon, in the shadow of the Bastille. By the time I arrived the sun had risen high enough to cast, over the expanse of the boulevard, the swath of open lawn, and the steps of the building itself, a dark shadow. I blinked. I looked again. Not a shadow: a crowd, in black coats and black trousers, with black hats on their heads. Jews! Hundreds of Jews! Enough for three Philharmonics. Or for my chorus, the multitude of the City of Shushan:

Woe to our menfolk, our women, the old and the young.
The trials of the Jews have only begun.
For Haman has persuaded the good king Ahasuerus
To smite us, confound us, kill us, and harry us.

These might have been the words of the refugees, who now besieged the six-story embassy. In some magical fashion—perhaps, like ants, passing an invisible substance from member to member—the news from the Third Reich had reached them even before the newsboy's shouts had rung in my ears. They were lined up around the block's four corners and part way down the Rue St. Antoine. I took my place at the end. The time went slowly by. An hour. Another hour. We seemed, my co-religionists and I, to move forward invisibly, like the minute hand of a clock.

What these Jews wanted from the embassy was a visa. So did I. But what was required was a relative in America. In New York City alone there were millions and millions of people. More Jews than in Warsaw, more than in Kiev. Alas, not one Goldkorn, a cousin or half-cousin, among them. Never mind relations! Never mind New York! In all of the forty-eight states, was there not a single person willing to guarantee a woodwind player, also skilled at the percussion group, piano, triangle, glockenspiel, employment? Gott! Gott! Surely there must be kindly souls who would assist the multitude who were heeding the warning of the Jewish Queen:

Flee on horseback, on mules, by dogsled, by camel
The sword of cruel Haman will strike each living mammal.

I looked up. On the Place de la Bastille the shadow from the Colonne de Juillet no longer stretched westward, over the Rue de Tournelle and the Place des Vosges; indeed, the dark finger pointed now to the east, toward the Porte de Vincennes. In other words, according to the needle of that great sundial, the whole of this day had gone by; it was now almost, post meridiem, five o'clock. A different newsboy passed by, with issues of Paris-Soir. The crowd passed the papers from hand to hand, groaning as they learned of the noose that was tightening about their necks. Now they broke ranks. They pushed forward, toward the embassy steps. There they milled, shouting and waving their arms. It was almost as if, taking courage from their surroundings, the masses were once again about to storm the Bastille.

The embassy staff appeared in the open and attempted to reason with the mob. The desperate refugees were weeping. Their wails and curses rent the air. Clearly they had no relations in America, nor prospects of employment. Finally, one of the undersecretaries shouted over the tumult: "Business hours are over. We must close. We have only these left. Here—take them!" With that the diplomatist hurled a dozen slips of paper into the air. Oh, terrible lottery! The exiles hurled themselves forward, struggling each against each, their hands clutching at the precious documents.

"Pardon," I said, addressing one of my co-religionists. "Are these the visas? Or steamship tickets? To America?"

"Quoi? America?" returned my companion, thrusting his copy of Paris-Soir into my hand. "Crétin! Imbécile!"

I glanced down at the journal. There, in a boxed announcement, I saw the following:

I had, it seemed, been mistaken. These were not exiles. They were not even Jews. Here were theatergoers, mummers, and lovers of film. Also a claque for Anita Louise. In their disappointment they surged up the steps. The diplomatists had retreated behind their closed doors. Undaunted, the crowd beat upon the heavy panels. And I? I was among them. The ambassador himself would be at the gala. And the premier of France. The renowned Jacques Warner, as well. Who better, with a single stroke of the pen, to secure me a visa? Who better, with the aid of his magic lantern, to send my message to the world? With my fists I beat upon the wooden portals. All about me the cinéastes were pounding as well. We would be heard. We would not be denied. Nothing could stop us from attending the premiere of The Story of Louis Pasteur.

Knock! Knock-knock-knock! The blows fall upon the fragile door. In the eyelet the hook shudders and jumps. Who could the invader be? Boxer dog? Gentleman from Consolidated Edison?

"Who the fuck is in there? It's been over an hour. Goldkorn! Goldkorn! I know it's you. You're five months behind on the rent! Five months!"

Fingerhut, fils!

I sit, like a forest beast, a yearling, caught in the grip of a bear. The hammering persists, as powerful as stones of hail or balls from a cannon. Surely this thin beaver's dam, the door of the cabinetto, will give way in the torrent. No: with abruptness, the thunder ceases. There is only the rumble of Junior's footsteps, fading away.

I remain atremble upon the johnny. In my ears the heart fibrillations echo almost as loudly as the landlord's fists. On my knees, I note, the holiday Hustler remains open at the Fone Fancies. Here is Madam Knight. My Crystal. With red lips and apparatus of straps. Unfortunately, there has been a disruption in the mood of romance. Manual assistance, therefore, will be required. Easier to say than to do. It is necessary to lean forward, in order to anchor the rotogravure between left elbow and left knee. Next, an exhalation, to facilitate the withdrawal of solar plexus. Right-hand fingers must now blindly grope in the nether parts. Gott! This is a task for the rubber man of the Roumanian Circus.

Is Fingerhut truly departed? He believes I killed his father in a jealous rage. But with my own eyes I saw that F.F. père had expired from unnatural exertions. Let us hope my own contortions will not bring on a similar spasm. Crystal. From between her lips the protruding tongue tip. On her foot, the red-colored boot. Leib Goldkorn does not ask for mercy. Let this sweetheart walk, with her pointed heel, her pointed toe, upon his back. Back and forth, like a conquering army. Mach schnell! The quickstep. Like a Cossack. Oh, that stiletto! We now begin, not unlike the idiot of Iglau, a friction-polka.

Black stockings. Thigh flesh. White petticoats held up for view. In short, the saucy can-can. This, too, is a kind of polka, under the influence of the gavotte and the military trot. From my position in the orchestra pit I counted fifty ballerinas. Times two equaled one hundred feet. One hundred heels. Five hundred toes! Half of these limbs were hop-hopping on the lip of the stage. The calves of the others were oscillating, like so many admonishing fingers—naughty, naughty Nanette!—in the air. The froth of undergarments! The pungent perfume! Gott im Himmel! The way they kicked! And held their anklebones up to the sky! This was athleticism. This was art.

Tra-tra-la-la; la-la-la-la-la-la-la!
Da-da-dee-da; da-da-da-da-dee-da-da!

Even as I rendered, upon my penny whistle, the gay themes of the Israelite, Offenbach, I looked up toward the box of honor. There, behind the tricolor bunting, the dignitaries were straining forward for a garter glimpse. The premier of France had a chin twitch. Decadent Daladier! And Monsieur l'Ambassadeur? Mr. Umin? He licked his lips. The others, Jacques Warner, producer; E. W. Korngold, musical score; Dieterle, director: all of them seemed—and I include here Monsieur Paul Muni, leading actor—drenched in perspiration, as if it were they, and not the fifty filles, who were performing the exuberant dance.

How, this is what the world is asking, did L. Goldkorn procure in this pit a woodwind position? Yakhne! My strapping sibling! With her boy's Adam's apple and, in her teeth, a Trabucco D.D., a Doppeldezimeter. Her wire glasses. Sailing suit. Bosomless breast. Even now, almost sixty years later, if I were to employ the hand that is engaged in a chafing to touch instead the spot on my breast where her Silbermedaille once hung, I would experience a feeling of sadness and shame. Confession: I traded this Olympic treasure to the gatekeeper, who plucked me from amidst the stage door Johnnies and ushered me backstage. Forgive! Oh, forgive, beloved sister! A Doppeldezimeter, by the way, is a cigar of eight American inches.

Immediately I encountered a colony of naturists. These were, in a state of undress, the Moulin Rougettes. "Pardon," I declared. "I am not a Nose Parker. See? Here is my panpipe." At once I was taken through an escape trap and down a short flight of steps. This was the pit, where my colleagues were already engaged in sounding an A. With my back to the stage I ran through the scales. Then the conductor, a thin man, elegantly dressed, switched on the electrical bulb at the end of his baton.

Dee-da-dee-da-doodle-dee
Da-da-dee-da-tree-tree-tree
     Tootle-oo, o, tootle-oo
     Tum-tum, tum-tum, doodle-do

The moments sped quickly by. Why did I remain playing these dance hall tunes? Had I not come to bring my warning to the world? Could I not leap from this pit onto the stage? And with my basso sing forth Mordecai's message? But I sat as if in a hypnotic trance. Oh, the tramp-tramp-tramp of the terpsichordians! The thud of their heels! The heat waves of their thighs! Swish, in my ears, went the sound of their silks. The fine spray of their zest fell over my head, my shoulders. In truth, I could no more interrupt such a performance than I could, with the flat of my hand, stop the flow of the Seine. Suddenly, on its own, the music ceased, the dervishes departed and Monsieur le conducteur extinguished his beaming baton. Now, amidst the thundering ovation, was my chance. I clutched my panpipe. I girded my loins. And then, just as I was about to hurl myself upward, the lights went out and The Story of Louis Pasteur began to play upon the screen.

An excellent drama, in which, though the actors moved their lips to speak words in English, their voices came out in French. At the start, Louis—he had a black hat, pince-nez type spectacles, and a black beard, through which, in the manner of a rabbi, a plump lower lip protruded—was under attack for suggesting that diseases like childbed fever could be caused by little animals—in the vernacular, les petits animaux. His chief enemy, one Charbonnet, asks the Royal Empress, "Is it not preposterous to think that a human being can be destroyed by an animal no bigger than a flea?" Excellent dialogue. And excellent logic, to which even the audience in the Thé�tre Égyptien sagely nodded. Thus was the great Pasteur and his entire family, including his daughter, played by Anita Louise with genuine mammilation, banished from Paris.

While this action took place on the screen, Leib Goldkorn had not been sitting, as the saying goes, atop his hands. Quietly, in the darkness of the pit, I unbuttoned my peacoat and blouse. While the projectionist's beam played above my head, like a ray of light from a divinity's eye, I removed from my torso the sheets of my operetta and began to distribute them among the strings, the woodwinds, the brass.

Meanwhile, a crisis has befallen France. The livestock of the nation have been dying in astounding numbers. Dread anthrax! But in his exile Pasteur, with the help of the cream-shouldered Anita Louise, has developed a vaccine. Once more the doctors and Academicians heap scorn upon him. They propose a test. Fifty sheep will be injected with the pestilence, but only half will be given the vaccine. The disdainful Charbonnet, whose name sounds so much like an aperitif, hurls down the challenge:

"I dare him to try."

From Pasteur: "J'accepte!"

A tense forty-eight hours. The French nation trembles. Headlines of newspapers spin before our eyes. Scientists in every nation await the results. During the anxious night before the fateful dawn, we see Monsieur Muni atoss in his bed. From her own distant bolster, Madam Pasteur comforts her husband: "Try not to worry, Louis." Up comes the sun. First the Academicians drive to the pen of the unvaccinated sheep. Of course the unhappy creatures are stiff and unmoving. Moutons Morts! Now the carriage moves off to the treated animals. Hélas! These sheep, too, are stiff. They, too, are unmoving. Even Pasteur is nonplused. Then a sheepdog barks, and the lambs and lambkins jump to their feet. Baa! Baa! Baa! Only sleeping, the darlings! How bright their eyes! How frisky their gambols! Now they, and the citizens of France, and of the whole world, too, are awake!

Did I now, while everyone was caught up in this moment of celebration, spring at last into action? Pas du tout. Leib Goldkorn, like the thousands who sat about him, wanted only one thing: to know what would happen next.

Free at last, Pasteur returns to Paris, where he sets to work upon a treatment for the scourge of rabies. The injections work well upon poodles, but now the scientist is confronted by a cute-as-a-button boy. Dare he dare test the vaccine upon this infected child? If he does nothing the lad, bravely asmile, will surely die. "But if I fail," thus muses Muni, "it will mean prison—perhaps the guillotine!"

"You must do it! Das is ihr Menschen-Servize!" That cry came from the orchestra pit. From the throat of the panpipe player.

The result was a triumph for reason and for Louis Pasteur. He risked everything and found the cure for rabies. Not only that, but, by overcoming the hostility of the medical establishment, as well as the effects of a numbing stroke, he brought healthfulness to the entire world. Could I, with such an uplifting example before me, dither longer? Was it not my duty, my Menschen-Servize, to destroy the German microbes who were at that very moment infecting the continent of Europe? In three strides I moved to the front of the pit and, with a lightning stroke, plucked the baton from the hand of Monsieur le conducteur. Then, with a running start, I hopped, skipped, and executed a gambado onto the stage. Silence. Stillness. Only, directly above me, the elongated forms of the Academicians as, with accolades and laurels, they welcome Grandpapa Pasteur, his beard now streaked with gray, into their midst. Close view of Charbonnet, thirty feet tall. A changed man. A germ enthusiast. Close view: Anita Louise. Breasts the size of mattresses. A three-meter tear in her eye.

"Pssst, fellows!" Leib Goldkorn addressed his fellow musicians. "On your stands. The Wrath of Haman. Let us play it. Measure one-thirty-two."

No one moved. Not a note sounded. Now the premier of the nation greets the half-paralyzed Pasteur, "In the name of France and of all humanity." While the academy applauded, I flicked the switch on the baton.

"Ready, chaps? An eins. A zwei. Und a drei!"

Whether it was because the glowing bulb at the end of the stick had entranced them, or simply from force of habit, the Moulin Rouge band struck up the melody, con agitazione e abbandono. What a thrill for an artiste! To hear, for the first time, the sharps and flats, the whole and the half notes, the do-re-mi and la-ti-do that had, until that moment, existed only in his head.

At once the auditorium was filled with cries of amazement. The lotus-shaped lights in the house came on. The projectionist's beam fell full upon the perfidious Persian. With one foot forward and arms outspread, Leib sang the spine-chilling Lied:

Fall on your knees and pray, Amen! Amen!
You see before you the all-powerful Haman.
I won't be sated with the people of Israel.
My crimes shall not cease until all men are mis'rable.
Greeks, Turks, the French and the Dutch—
Even then I shan't have done much.
Arabs and Esquimaux, whomever I choose—
The whole world—Oh, hear me!—will be turned into Jews.

What happened next was almost a miracle. For week after week, with patois and panpipe, I had not been able to earn so much as a single centime. Now, so powerful was the message of Esther, the French people responded with all their hearts. Coins of many dimensions, five-franc pieces, ten-franc pieces, rained down upon me. A guinea flew straight at my head. A silver dollar—from the munificent Muni? From Director Dieterle?—struck me upon the collarbone. Pennies from heaven! Not only that, root vegetables plummeted from the balcony boxes. Also tomatoes. Also boiled eggs.

"No, no, dear friends. I am not singing, as they say, for supper. Ouch! Ha! Ha! Ha! I wish to warn you. The Germans! It is the Germans! They have killed Minkche! An intimate of Franz Joseph. Known for her beauty spot. And all the musicians of Vienna. Also the Jews! Heed my words! The words of Haman! Next they will be coming for you!"

A howl went up through the Thé�tre Égyptien. "Arr�tez cet homme! C'est un fou!"

Mr. Jacques Warner stood up in his box. "What the hell is going on here?"

Ambassador Umin rose as well. "Gendarmes!" he shouted. "Remove this idiot!"

Now all was pandemonium. The orchestra broke out in the Offenbach reprise. From both wings the Rougettes strode shoulder to shoulder across the whole of the stage. Meanwhile, in the Academy of Science, the Tsar of Russia was putting a Medal of Honor around the neck of Louis Pasteur. Immediately I reached toward the newly created void at my breast. "You! Daladier!" I cried out in anguish. "You should give me a medal. I shall save France!"

The premier heard my words. "Quoi?" he responded. "Mais c'est insupportable! Ce fou se prend pour Jeanne d'Arc!"

Then the police fell upon me. With a grip of iron they seized my arms. The dancers, with high-pitched shrieks, broke ranks. I could see, that's how close to them I was, the marks of lipstick on their incisors and the mascara that crumbled beneath their eyes. "Bravo! Bravo!" cry the Academicians as Pasteur, with the light dimming about him, makes a last oration about the nobility of man.

Just then, as the lawmen hoisted me into the air, there was another interruption. A disturbance at the back of the auditorium. Everyone turned in that direction. A little old man in a blue uniform was making his way down the aisle. He also had a blue cap with a red ribbon, and thick spectacles in plastic frames. "Télégramme!" he shouted. "Télégramme!" It was a Western Union boy. A silence fell over the multitude. The old gentleman, he had chin whiskers sprouting from his chin, stared myopically at the document in his hand: "Un télégramme pour Monsieur Goldkorn!"

"Present!" I declared, from my state of levitation.

Down the red carpet the messenger tottered, all eyes upon him. At the edge of the pit he halted.

"Monsieur Goldkorn?" he piped.

"Oui. Me."

Then the old man handed the canary-colored missive to the conductor, who handed it to the tuba player, who in turn passed it up to one of the chorines. She, not a full breaster, and with a long nose as well, started to open the telegram with the sharpened nail of her thumb. But the nearest gendarme took it from her and opened it himself. He gave a Gallic-style shrug. "En anglais," he said.

I seized the pale paper and read out the words upon it for myself:

DEAR MAESTRO
ESSENTIAL YOUR PRESENCE NEW SONJA HENIE VEHICLE STOP CURRENT SCORE UNACCEPTABLE STOP STAR INSISTS NO ONE BUT YOU STOP ALL MUSICAL DECISIONS YOUR HANDS STOP WARNERS AGREES TO LOAN OUT STOP MONEY NO OBJECT STOP TICKET PARIS-LISBON-LISBON-NEW YORK-NEW YORK-LOS ANGELES ENCLOSED STOP MALIBUE RESIDENCE FOR DURATION STOP ALL CONVENIENCES STOP EXPECT ARRIVAL UNION STATION 11/23/38 STOP/NEED COMPLETE SCORE END YEAR STOP NO LATER STOP

YOURS FAITHFULLY DARRYL ZANUCK HEAD OF PRODUCTION TWENTIETH-CENTURY FOX

The famed Zanuck! The famed Malibu! And—the ice dancer! The Olympian!—Miss Sonja Henie! My own first love. Could this be true? The words were attached to the paper with paste. I shook it to see if they would fall off. No. The message was real.

"Mr. Ambassador!" I cried. "A visa, if you please. I have employment! Yes, employment guaranteed!"

Then, still floating above the stage, like a fakir, a phantom, I folded the paper and pressed it to my chest. It burned there, as ice will burn. Here was, to replace the old one, a new silver medal. A gift from the tsar? No, the star!