The Demi-Monde: 79th and 80th Days of Winter, 1004
What is reBop? That, cats and kittens, is a real killer-diller question. So let me lay it on you straight, no chaser: reBoppers are the beat-daddies toot cool who dig jad music, the music most wigged-out and wonky coming to us from the fly and sly hombres who liveth in the nuJu Autonomous District of NoirVille. But think not that reBop is just about the music. Dig to the maximum that reBop is a way of life and a way of afterlife. ReBoppers are zoned in and mucho de able to diggeth the most secret and strange of DemiMondian happenings. In terms of the dark, dark WhoDoo magic they are, like, high, fly and too wet to dry.
– Greetings Gate, Let’s Agitate:
Cab Calloway, Bust Your Conk Books
It took a moment when Ella woke up for her to remember where she was. She remembered being spewed out of the sewer, remembered landing in the icy-cold waters of the Rhine, remembered Vanka dragging her ashore and bustling her through the night-black alleyways of Berlin and she remembered him bringing her to these rooms which belonged to…
She struggled for a moment trying to recall the name. It was a funny name.
Rivets.
That was it: Rivets, the young guy who seemed to be Vanka’s friend, who had taken them in and given them a bed for the night. It was Rivets who’d shown her to the bedroom she was now occupying. She remembered taking off her foul and soaking wet clothes, wrapping herself in a blanket and lying down on the bed, but after that, nothing.
She focused her sleep-heavy eyes towards the clock ticking on the wall. It was two o’clock… two o’clock in the afternoon if the sunshine streaming in through the window was any indicator. That meant she’d been asleep for almost ten hours. Using an elbow she levered herself into a sitting position – trying to ignore the protests of her aching body as she did so – and looked around. It was really quite a pleasant bedroom, with high ceilings and elegant furnishings. It was also very neat and tidy, the only jarring note being the pristine white shirt hanging from the wardrobe door with a sheet of paper pinned to the collar.
Odd.
Grudgingly relinquishing the warmth of her bed, she swung her legs out from under the covers, got to her feet and stretched, arching the pain and the cramps out of her back and reaching high with her arms until her muscles announced that they were recovered from the torment of crouching in the sewers. Then, keeping her blanket wrapped tight around her, she tripped over to see what was written on the message.
Good afternoon Ella,
I’ve had to pop out for a couple of hours. I’ll be back at 4 o’clock. I suggest that you spend the time ridding yourself of some of the friends you’ve brought with you from Warsaw and making yourself presentable for a night on the town. You’ll find some towels and other useful items on the dresser. I’m sorry but your clothes were beyond salvaging so I’ve had them burnt. I’ll bring you a new wardrobe back with me. In the interim all I can offer you is the use of one of my shirts.
Your friend
Vanka Maykov
It took nearly an hour, four big pans of piping hot water, lots of scrubbing, savage use of a nit-comb and nearly all of a bottle of Mrs Murdock’s Patented Lice Lotion before Ella began to feel clean and human again. Spirits revived, she’d put on Vanka’s shirt and then set about brewing herself a mug of coffee.
She was just enjoying a second mug when a very smartly dressed Vanka arrived back at the rooms, looking freshly barbered and laundered and with his arms laden with boxes.
‘Ah, so Sleeping Beauty returns to the land of the living,’ he announced as he placed the boxes onto the table. ‘You look marvellous, Ella, and I have to say that that shirt never looked as good on me as it does on you. How are you feeling?’
Ella curtsied her appreciation of his compliment. ‘A little battered and bruised but still in one piece. You were very considerate regarding the toiletries.’
‘I trust you found everything you needed. Please, treat my humble apartment as you would your own home.’
‘This is your apartment?’
‘It’s a bolt-hole I have in Berlin, but because of fears that it might be being watched by that swine Skobelev I’ve steered clear of it of late. Rivets has been looking after it for me.’ Vanka must have sensed the unvoiced question. ‘Rivets is my partner in crime. He helps me with some of my more unorthodox business ventures.’
As explanations went it explained precisely nothing, which Ella guessed was exactly what Vanka intended. ‘What’s in the boxes?’ she asked as she settled down on the couch.
‘Presents… presents for you.’
‘Oh, good: I adore presents.’
‘The sad fact is, Ella, that having seen you in that shirt I find myself loath to give them to you. You have very fine legs and it is therefore with some reluctance that I must provide clothes designed to hide them from view.’ With that he tapped a finger on top of the packages. ‘But first an apology: I must confess to have taken advantage of you when you were asleep last night.’
The sudden concerned look on her face provoked a laugh. ‘Forgive my clumsy phrasing: I took advantage of you to measure your feet whilst you were asleep. I have taken the liberty of selecting two costumes for you. Louffie Louverture – the man we are to negotiate with regarding the delivery of blood to Warsaw – has a penchant for fine clothes and beautiful women so no expense has been spared! And all this is courtesy of Aleister Crowley and the really quite outrageous fee he paid for us to put on the seance at Dashwood Manor.’ He opened the first box. ‘This costume is quite mundane: it is something a fashionable young lady might wear in the afternoon.’
Once the package’s contents had been laid out across the back of the couch, Ella found herself astonished by the care that Vanka had lavished on the selection of her outfit. The long skirt was cream-coloured with deep vents at the back which would, she suspected, give it an elegantly flowing line. There was a contrasting short-cut jacket of the deepest blue with a high collar and gigot sleeves, and a white blouse in the most delicate of lace. The whole ensemble was to be topped off by a straw boater dressed with the inevitable veil.
‘Do you like it?’ he asked anxiously.
‘It’s marvellous. Vanka, you have exquisite taste.’
‘But wait! There is my second selection, an ensemble for you to wear when we visit the Resi tonight.’
‘The Resi?’
‘It’s a nightclub here in Berlin.’
Ella scrolled through PINC to be told that the Resi in the Berlin District of the ForthRight was a duplicate of the original, Real World nightclub that had been famous – infamous, more like – as a hotbed of immorality and decadence in Weimar Germany.
This should be interesting.
‘Strange that there should be a nightclub in the centre of the ForthRight. I wouldn’t have thought the UnFunnies would have permitted it.’
Vanka laughed. ‘You can thank Beria for the Resi: he wants somewhere where he can let his hair down. He goes there to hunt for girls.’ Vanka lit a cigarette. ‘Anyway, as rumour has it, he also keeps it open to piss off Crowley: the pair of them hate each other.’
‘Why are we going there?’
‘It’s where we’ll find Toussaint Louverture… Louffie to his friends. He’s one of Shaka’s chief lieutenants and he’s the chap who can organise the shipment of blood.’
‘You know him?’
‘Yeah, I know him. He owes me for a consignment of blood.’ He gave Ella a rueful smile. ‘We’ll have to be careful: Louverture’s a very dangerous man. He’s a Blood Brother so the last thing we want him to know is that you’re a Daemon. If he finds out then you’ll get to NoirVille all right but you’ll find yourself being exsanguinated for your trouble.’ Vanka took a nervous drag of his cigarette. ‘Hopefully though he’s mellowed a little since I saw him last. Word is that since he’s hooked up with Josephine Baker he’s a changed man.’
‘Josephine Baker?’
‘Yeah. Louverture isn’t just one of the big dukes in the Blood Brothers, he also runs the Revue Negre – which is currently performing at the Resi – though he only does that so he can keep an eye on his Bronze Venus.’
Ella clapped her hands in excitement. ‘We’re going to see Josephine Baker tonight?’
A nod from Vanka.
‘Then tonight’s going to be one of the most memorable nights of my life.’
‘I just hope we find Louffie in a good mood, otherwise it might also be the last night of your entire life. That’s why I took so much trouble selecting your evening gown.’ He opened a second box. ‘I wanted to find a dress for you which would do more than just adorn your superb figure: it had to be a dress so glamorous, so daring, so risque that no man seeing you in it – especially Toussaint Louverture – would be able to deny you anything. We’re lucky that Louffie’s one of the few males in NoirVille who isn’t enraptured by men. Therefore… voila!’
From out of the second package he conjured a dress of such sublime elegance that for a moment Ella was lost for words. Made from cream satin, it was long, close-fitting, backless and, from what she could make out, nigh on frontless. It was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen.
Vanka seemed unsettled by her silence. ‘I trust you approve of my selection, Ella, but now having seen you, I think even if you appeared for this evening’s rendezvous in that shirt Louverture and every man in the Resi would applaud.’
‘Oh, Vanka, you’ve been so very kind to me. It’s a wonderful, wonderful dress, but you do realise if I wear it I won’t be able to disguise the fact that I’m a Shade.’
‘The Resi is the one place in the ForthRight where you don’t have to hide what you are, Ella. With Josephine Baker’s Revue Negre performing there you’ll be just one woman of colour amongst many. Tonight you are quite at liberty to flaunt both your colour and your beauty.’
Before she quite knew what she was doing Ella had skipped up from the couch and kissed Vanka on the cheek.
There was an embarrassed pause, then Vanka raised his hand to the place where she had planted the kiss. ‘I warned you once before, Ella, that beautiful young ladies being so free with their affections might find themselves in danger of having their affections reciprocated.’ And with that he leant forward and placed the lightest of kisses on her mouth. It was like a dam breaking. Before Ella quite knew what was happening she was in Vanka’s arms, her mouth hard against his, their bodies merging.
She’d never felt like this about a man before. She felt dizzy with excitement. It was as though the pair of them belonged together.
They broke and spent a breathless moment simply holding one another, simply enjoying the comforting feel of each other’s bodies. Then Vanka stood back. ‘Ella… I will help you escape the Demi-Monde, I will guard and protect you, I will never leave you. But you must promise me one thing.’
‘Anything.’
‘I know here in this world we can never be together: you’ve told me that I’m just a copy of a Vanka Maykov living in the Real World. So, when you return there, will you find me?’
‘I’ll find you, Vanka, I’ll find you. Vanka… Vanka… I love-’
‘Gor, bugger me but it’s brass monkeys out there,’ complained Rivets as he barged through the door. Ella and Vanka jumped away from one another and urgently looked for something to occupy their attention. Rivets seemed not to notice the awkwardness of the situation that he’d stumbled into, he simply shrugged and dropped the box he was carrying on the floor. ‘I got most ov the stuff you wanted, Vanka. The point-two-two was a bit ov a pig to source but I found wun in a ‘ockshop.’
He dug into the jacket pocket of his overtight and overchecked suit, pulled out a tiny revolver and tossed it to Ella. ‘‘Ere’s a “Welcome to Berlin” present from your pal Rivets, Miss Ella. This ‘ere’s a lady’s gun: small and delicate but good at busting hearts.’ The boy stretched out a hand. ‘We didn’t ‘ave a chance for a proper introduction last night. Me name’s Rivets and I’m Vanka’s oppo.’
They shook hands and immediately Ella knew everything there was to know about the orphan: how he’d been found wandering the streets by Vanka who’d taken pity on him, how he’d become a dab hand at helping Vanka with his short cons and how his Jack-the-lad demeanour hid a penetrating intelligence. Undersized and scrawny he might be but he’d packed a lifetime of experiences into his fifteen years. In many ways he was a pocket Vanka.
‘Rivets: that’s an interesting name.’
‘Got it ‘cos I’m good at nailing birds,’ answered Rivets with a wink and then for emphasis made a leering examination of Ella’s naked legs. ‘Nice pins…’ he began and then stopped abruptly when he saw the still weeping cuts on her thigh.
‘Crikey, you’s bleedin’,’ he spluttered. ‘Wot is you: a Daemon?’
‘Yes, Rivets, she’s a Daemon,’ said Vanka quickly. ‘But she’s a friendly Daemon.’
‘A friendly Daemon.’ Rivets chewed the oxymoron around for a moment and then eyed Ella carefully. ‘I ain’t never met a real live Daemon before. You sure she’s ‘armless, Vanka? I ‘ear these Daemons are buggers for villainy.’
‘Oh, Ella is quite harmless, Rivets, except when she’s got her dander up.’ Vanka took a freshly laundered handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Ella, who used it to dab away the blood on her leg.
She gave the handkerchief back. ‘Thanks, Vanka.’
‘My pleasure.’ Vanka refolded it and put it back in his pocket. ‘I’ll treasure it.’
Cautiously Rivets stepped forward to study Ella’s legs more closely. ‘Well, I’ve got to say, Vanka, that she don’t look much like a Daemon, ‘ceptin’, ov course, that she’s a Shade but then there are a power of Shades down in NoirVille and they ain’t Daemons. Well… I don’t fink they is.’ He turned to look at Vanka. ‘Any’ows, Vanka, wot are yous doing palling up wiv a Daemon?’
‘It’s a long story, Rivets, but all you need to know is that by helping Ella here we’re going to make ourselves very, very rich.’
Rivets wasn’t convinced. ‘I don’t knows about this malarkey, Vanka. Helpin’ a Daemon: that’s not natural that ain’t.’
‘It’s worth ten thousand guineas to you, if you do,’ said Vanka quietly.
Rivets paused for a moment letting his imagination run around with the idea of having so much money to spend. ‘Well, iffn you puts it like that, unnatural or not, I don’t suppose there’s any real harm in it.’
‘No, there’s no harm in it, Rivets, but it might be an idea, Ella, if you were to get dressed. We don’t want anyone else seeing your legs.’
As Ella collected her new clothes she was struck by a thought. ‘Have you heard anything about Norma Williams?’
Vanka shook his head. ‘No. She’s probably dead, drowned in the sewers. I presume you Daemons can drown?’
‘Oh yes, we can drown. We Daemons can die in the DemiMonde just like we can die in the Real World.’
‘Then it’s a penny to a pound that she’s a goner. So my advice is that we concentrate on our own problems, and stop worrying about the late and very unlamented Norma Williams.’
It was harsh advice but, when Ella thought about it, utterly pragmatic. Norma Williams was in all probability dead and if she wasn’t the chances of her finding her way in the black labyrinth of the sewers without the help of PINC were virtually zero. She’d done her best to fulfil the mission she’d been given: better now to look after herself and to do everything she could to get home in one piece.
That evening – cleansed, coiffed and clothed in her really quite outrageous gown – Ella walked with Vanka up to the Resi’s grand entrance. She felt giddy with anticipation. She was going to an exciting place with the man she loved.
There… she had admitted it to herself. It might be a ridiculous and stupid and impossible and nonsensical thing to have done but she couldn’t deny what she felt. When she was with Vanka she felt alive, more alive than she had ever felt in the Real World. And tonight, no matter what happened with Louverture, she was determined to enjoy herself.
The nightclub was very busy. There were crowds bustling around the pavement outside trying to cajole the doormen into allowing them into the place: everyone in Berlin, it seemed, wanted to see Josephine Baker perform. Ella wasn’t surprised; in a Sector where everything considered even mildly outre was crushed under the dead hand of UnFunDaMentalism, the chance to witness such a decadent, prurient, yet officially sanctioned event made the Revue Negre the hottest ticket in town. In fact the competition for tables was so intense that even Vanka, usually so confident in his powers of persuasion, seemed doubtful of his ability to talk his way into the nightclub.
Ella had no such apprehensions. She nodded towards the three doormen guarding the club’s entrance. ‘Which one of those doorstops is the main man?’
Vanka looked and frowned. ‘Karl. The biggest one, the one with the waxed moustache, but it’s no use, he’s already turned down a ten-guinea bribe.’
Arm in arm with Vanka, Ella strolled – putting a coquettish little wiggle in her walk as she did so – over to Karl. ‘Miss Ella Baker and her friend Colonel Vanka Maykov, here at the invitation of Mr Toussaint Louverture,’ she announced.
Karl spent a few moments running an appreciative eye over Ella’s long, slinky, cream-coloured gown, and, of necessity, the long, slinky, caramel-coloured body the gown was so desperately striving to contain. This done, he checked the guest list. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Baker, but I don’t have you on my list.’
‘That’s because I only decided to take up my big sister’s kind invitation to see the show an hour ago.’
‘Your sister?’
Ella tapped a finger on the poster that decorated the entrance to the nightclub. ‘My big sister, Josie.’
‘I didn’t know Miss Baker had a sister… er… Miss Baker.’
‘Well, you do now.’ If anyone could pull off the trick of playing Josephine Baker’s sister, Ella knew it was her: she had the colour, she had the same slim figure, she was wearing a suitably elegant and quite risque gown and she had put a decidedly arrogant lilt in her voice. She had spent so much time trying to sing like Josephine Baker that she was pretty confident she would be able to talk like her.
Ella could tell from Karl’s expression that he was faced with something of a dilemma. Probably his manager had told him very forcibly that under no circumstances was he to allow entry to the club to anyone not on the guest list but the scene he could imagine ensuing if he turned Josephine Baker’s sister away was really too horrible to contemplate. In the end he capitulated.
He unhooked the red rope guarding the club’s entrance. ‘Monsieur Louverture has table number sixty-seven, Madem -oiselle. It is on the far side of the club. I trust you and Colonel Maykov will have an enjoyable evening.’
Together they swept regally into the club, Ella doing her best, as she sashayed through the foyer, to restrain herself from laughing out loud at her triumph. Even the tawdriness of the interior didn’t dampen her exuberance.
The Resi’s reputation was that it had been the epitome of decadence; instead it seemed decidedly low-rent. The club was built around a large rectangular dance floor surrounded by packed tables themselves bordered by more intimate booths set on two low balconies. It was garishly decorated – to Ella’s mind it resembled an old-fashioned cinema that had been tricked out in pink and gilt – and lit by dozens of candelabras. There was nothing subtle about the Resi; it looked just what it was: a huge, brash pick-up joint.
Yet when Ella entered the room with Vanka, there was only one couple who grabbed the attention of the crowd. That Vanka was, without a doubt, the best-looking and best-dressed man in the room – with his figure, he was born to wear black tie and tails – contributed to this, but it was probably that he was accompanied by a Shade that ensured they would be the centre of attention. And Ella, knowing that she looked devastating in her gown and her fur wrap, found being the focus of so much whispered gossip really quite exciting. This, she decided, was what it must be like to be famous, to be a celebrity.
Putting an outrageous sway in her bottom, throwing back her shoulders so her figure was shown to its best advantage, Ella led Vanka in what PINC told her was the direction of Table 67, smiling and nodding to the other patrons as she undulated past their tables, acting out every fantasy she’d ever had about being a film star.
There was only one man sitting at the table, a tiny Shade – Ella guessed that when standing he would be a good head shorter than she was – aged about forty, sporting an Imperial beard, oddly scarred cheeks – Rite of Passage scars, so PINC told her – and nursing a glass of champagne. Small and ugly he might have been but he was immaculately dressed and his jewellery – his over-large cravat stud and cuff links – twinkled with diamonds.
‘Good evening, Louffie,’ said Vanka.
Louverture pulled his gaze away from a very appreciative examination of Ella’s bosom. A rather unpleasant smile split his face: he didn’t seem pleased to see Vanka. ‘As I live and breathe… Vanka Maykov. I heard you were dead, Vanka, I heard they deep-sixed you back in Rodina.’
‘I decided to stay alive until you had paid me the two thousand guineas you owe me.’
Louverture studied Vanka in cold silence for several seconds. ‘I don’t remember any debt…’
‘I doubt that, Louffie, I doubt that.’
‘I really hope you haven’t come here tonight to cause a disturbance, Vanka, as I’m not in the mood to be leant on.’ Louverture made a signal to a large, bearded Shade with a bald head and similarly scarred cheeks who was lurking nearby. ‘I think Gaston will show you out, Vanka. I think it’s time you hit the bricks.’
Seizing the moment, Ella leant across the table, making sure that as she did so she displayed a quite reckless amount of cleavage for Louverture’s enjoyment. ‘Vanka and I aren’t here to create waves, Monsieur Louverture. My name is Ella Thomas and I’ve come here tonight to make you a rich man.’
‘I am already a rich man, Mademoiselle Thomas,’ said Louverture in a distracted voice, Ella having no doubt what was distracting him.
‘An obscenely rich man,’ she countered.
‘This frail of yours shooting straight dice, Vanka?’
He nodded.
‘Then you and Vanka may join me, Mademoiselle, but not because you promise me riches but because you are a Shade with the courage to disport yourself in such a dissolute manner in this den of racism. In the ForthRight such moxie – such foolhardiness – is to be encouraged.’
Ella needed no second bidding: she slid into Louverture’s booth closely followed by Vanka.
‘May I offer you a drink, Mademoiselle… Vanka? The champagne provided by the management is quite palatable.’
Both Ella and Vanka nodded their agreement and Louverture signalled Gaston to serve his two guests.
‘Monsieur Louverture…’ began Ella, but her host held up a hand to silence her in mid-sentence.
‘I am afraid I must forgo the immediate satisfaction of my curiosity, Mademoiselle, and the enjoyment of the no doubt enthralling explanation of your intended philanthropy. The entertainment is about to begin and I have a managerial responsibility to ensure that the Revue performs seamlessly.’
Barely were the words out of Louverture’s mouth than a line of seven musicians, all painted in blackface and wearing tuxe-does and bowler hats, trooped onto the dance floor playing their instruments as they marched. Ella shuddered in disgust: it was the first time that she had seen real black people sporting this sort of make-up. With their huge white lips and their goofy eyes there was something grotesque about them, something almost golliwog-esque. Ella had to stifle the urge to leap to her feet and harangue them for having no self-respect, for somehow demeaning their race. But then she remembered that she wasn’t back in twenty-first-century New York, she was in a pastiche of a time-lost Berlin dropped seemingly at random in the middle of the most racist Sector of a make-believe world.
And as she listened to the band, Ella realised that the combo’s one saving grace was that even if their make-up and costuming were comical and degrading, then at least the same couldn’t be said of their playing. Each and every one of them seemed to be a master musician and the driving jazz – or rather, jad – they conjured soon had the whole audience swaying.
Happy that his musicians were playing to his satisfaction, Louverture seemed to become bored. He turned back to Ella. ‘So, Mademoiselle, you were about to tell me how you would make me fabulously wealthy.’
There was, Ella decided, no point in beating around the bush. ‘I understand that you are able to secure large quantities of blood.’
Louverture leant back in his seat and gave a doleful shake of his head. ‘You are a beautiful young woman, Mademoiselle, and as such I would recommend that you limit your interests to gowns and to other feminine frivolities. As Vanka has no doubt told you, the trade in blood is a robust occupation, suitable only for men.’
Ella smiled. ‘I take my inspiration from Miss Baker: I do not let the opinion of others deter me from doing what I feel I need to do. And what I need, Monsieur Louverture, is to secure the supply of sixty thousand litres of blood, more if I can get it.’
Louverture gawped. ‘I think you, Mademoiselle, are as much the comedienne as Josephine herself. Such a quantity of blood is enormous, simply incredible. The cost…’
‘I understand that the black-market rate is one hundred guineas a litre, which makes it a transaction worth six million guineas.’
Louverture covered his discomfiture by taking a long gulp of his champagne. ‘Six million guineas? You got pockets that deep?’
A simple nod from Ella. ‘
Where would you wish this outrageous quantity of blood to be delivered?’
‘To Warsaw.’
Louverture gave a loud guffaw. ‘Impossible! It might have escaped your notice, Mademoiselle, but the powers that be in this pestilential place they call the ForthRight have decided to eliminate that part of their population. Warsaw is now a war zone and hence the Rhine is patrolled by ForthRight naval vessels with orders to sink any barge entering those waters without requisite authorisation. Even the most courageous of captains would be reluctant to undertake such a mission.’
‘I will offer two hundred guineas a litre, delivered to Gdansk dock.’
Ella felt the gaze of Louverture settle on her, as he tried to assess whether she was on the level. Louverture shook his head. ‘It is still impossible. To smuggle such a quantity of blood is beyond the wit of man.’
‘Of course, Monsieur,’ Ella said sweetly, ‘if such a transaction is too big for you, then I must find a more powerful partner.’
As she thought it might, the prospect of letting twelve million guineas slip through his fingers caused Louverture to make a hasty reconsideration. ‘Twelve million guineas? That’s a fortune.’
Ella took a sip of her champagne and waited for greed to work its magic. ‘I promised you I was going to make you an obscenely rich man!’
Louverture laughed. ‘Beautiful women like you, Miss Thomas, promise men many things. Unfortunately they generally promise much more than they ever deliver.’
‘Monsieur Louverture, believe me, I never disappoint. I never tease. When I say I will do something, I always deliver. I have never left a man unsatisfied.’ Vanka choked on his champagne and it took both men at the table a few moments to digest Ella’s little announcement. ‘But for twelve million guineas, there is one other service I would ask to be included in this bargain.’
This had been Vanka’s real brainwave. The problem Ella and Vanka had struggled with was how to smuggle Ella out of the ForthRight: as a Shade she was too easily identified and hence would never be able to get through CheckyaPoints, especially now her alias of Marie Laveau was known and the passport Vanka had acquired for her useless. But if she travelled as part of the Revue Negre she would be just one Shade amongst dozens.
Louverture’s right eyebrow arched in suspicion at Ella. ‘And this is?’
‘I need to travel to NoirVille, but unfortunately I lack the necessary documents. I want to become a temporary member of the Revue.’
‘That’s not a problem: better too many beautiful women than too few. No, the problem is the blood: that I’ve gotta think about.’ Just then the music coming from the dance floor shifted and immediately Louverture turned towards the stage. ‘But if you will indulge me for a moment, Mademoiselle, this is the climax of the evening. This is Miss Josephine Baker’s piece de resistance.’
Ella recognised the dance immediately. It was the danse sauvage, the dance that had made Josephine Baker into one of Europe’s biggest and most controversial stars. As the music mutated into a rippling pattern of African rhythms, Josephine Baker, accompanied by a tall, muscular male partner, took the stage.
For a moment Ella could barely breathe with excitement: Josephine Baker was her heroine. Josephine Baker was the girl who had achieved everything that Ella was determined to achieve. She had been born into poverty in St Louis at the turn of the twentieth century and had the courage to quit her native America to seek fame and fortune. She had made a new life for herself in a far-away country and found stardom as a dancer and singer in Paris of the 1920s.
Josephine Baker was a girl who had triumphed over adversity; just like Ella intended to.
Ella was simply thrilled to be seeing Josephine Baker in the flesh
… and there was a lot of flesh on display. All the dancer was wearing as she whirled onto the dance floor was a pair of black satin bikini pants and her iconic skirt made up of a string of artificial bananas. The pants, the skirt and her broad smile – which seemed to illuminate the Resi – constituted all her costume. Her near-nakedness drew gasps from the audience and there were some jeers and catcalls from the more UnFunDaMentally inclined customers but these were drowned out by the cheers and the applause of Josephine Baker’s fans.
For Ella it took a moment for the dream and reality to mesh. Somehow La Baker seemed smaller than she had imagined, younger too, but when she started to dance there was no mistaking her. No one could mistake the sheer energy and exuberance the girl brought to her dancing. But there was more than energy and a dancer’s panache in her performance… there was also an unbridled eroticism.
When she had read about Josephine Baker’s danse sauvage, Ella had imagined that apart from the nudity, it would be pretty tame. She had been wrong. It was obvious that the authors who had described the decadence that had washed through Continental Europe in the early 1920s hadn’t been brave enough to tell the truth about the levels of salacious debauchery plumbed in post-war Berlin and Paris.
Now Ella realised what all the fuss had been about, just why Josephine Baker had shocked European society a century ago. Her dance was earthy, it was animalistic, it was erotic and it was untamed. Shit
… it was borderline pornographic.
As Josephine Baker spun and twirled across the floor, snaking and slithering her slim and wonderfully toned body around her partner, Ella began to understand why the dance had been labelled ‘degenerate’ by the critics of the day. Josephine Baker connived to include all the moves and gestures in her dance that any ‘respectable’ person would know to be taboo. The one saving grace was that the dancing was performed at such break-neck speed that it was almost impossible to appreciate just how down and dirty it actually was. And it was obscene
… obscenely artistic.
The girl, Ella decided as she watched open-mouthed, must be double-jointed; there was no other way to explain how anyone could leap and cavort as Josephine Baker did. Dressed in her tiny costume, she tore across the stage in a whirlwind of splits and pirouettes, wriggles and shakes. Her arms, rump, head and legs all moved seemingly independently of one another, shaking and snaking to the various rhythms laid down by the band’s pulsating jad.
The remarkable thing was that though her audience was liberally flecked with a sizeable number of Shade-hating SS officers – the quantity of black uniforms Ella could see attested to that – the vast majority of the audience loved her, clapping and cheering, laughing and shrieking as the black dervish whirled across the dance floor. In two or three breathless minutes the danse sauvage was over, leaving the audience stunned… agog with astonishment.
She was replaced on stage by a chorus of crooning men, who obviously ranked much lower in Monsieur Louverture’s affections than Josephine Baker. ‘She’s amazing, is she not?’ breathed Louverture as he mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, gazing all the while in a rapturous manner at the stage where Josephine Baker had just performed. Here, Ella thought, was a man in love.
He was also a man who was no longer in the mood to talk business: for the next ten minutes he resisted all Ella’s attempts to get him to commit to supplying blood to Warsaw. Even the prospect of earning twelve million guineas didn’t seem enough to overcome his intransigence. She was just on the point of admitting defeat when she became aware of a woman standing next to her clad in a gown of shimmering blue silk, a colour that set off her tawny skin to perfection. The huge brown eyes of Josephine Baker gazed down at Louverture and his guests.
Looking at her, Ella realised the photographs she had studied of her heroine didn’t do her justice. Sure she was as lissom as she had been pictured, sure her hair was flattened down in her trademark slicked-down, Eton-crop hairstyle, and sure her eyes were as expressive and as enticing as Ella had imagined they would be – but no photograph could ever capture the sheer vitality that radiated out of the woman. Just standing there, hip cocked, smiling down at Louverture, Josephine Baker pulsed with energy and unsuppressed joie de vivre.
‘Say, Louffie honey, ain’t cha gonna introduce me to your new friends?’
Louverture and Vanka leapt to their feet so quickly that they rattled the table. ‘Ma cherie,’ crooned Louverture as he kissed the dancer’s hand, ‘may I have the pleasure in introducing Colonel Vanka Maykov and his friend, Mademoiselle Ella Thomas. Colonel, Mademoiselle, I have the great honour of introducing the Black Venus… the Shade Goddess… Mademoiselle Josephine Baker.’ Josephine Baker held out her hand to Vanka who bobbed his head to kiss her fingers, then shimmied herself into the seat next to Louverture, rewarding him with a flirtatious little peck on his cheek. As Louverture poured her a glass of champagne, she looked up and smiled at Ella.
‘You a dancer, honey?’ Josephine Baker asked. ‘You sure got the chassis for it.’
‘I was a dancer when I was younger, Miss Baker, now I sing.’
‘No kidding?’ Josephine Baker raised her left eyebrow in surprise. ‘You looking for a job, honey?’
‘Miss Baker, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to sing in a show in which you were starring. And hopefully, if the business proposition Monsieur Louverture and I have been discussing comes to fruition, then I will be able to do just that.’
‘Business proposition? What kind of business proposition, Louffie baby?’
Ella answered the question for Louverture. ‘I’m in the market to buy blood.’
‘A lot of blood,’ added Louverture quickly. ‘Mademoiselle Thomas wants me to ship sixty thousand litres of blood to Warsaw.’
Josephine Baker eyed Ella shrewdly. ‘And what’s a Shade like you getting so het up about all those Blank cats holed up in the Ghetto?’
‘Because, Miss Baker, if we don’t help the Poles today, then they won’t be around tomorrow to help us. One day everybody, black and white, is going to have to help defeat Heydrich.’
Josephine Baker smiled and then raised her glass in acknowledgement of Ella’s reply. ‘Good answer, Miss Thomas, good answer. You know, I pulled outta the Rookeries two years ago when Heydrich started to get hot and heavy with those cats who weren’t of the pale persuasion. This UnFunDaMentalist jive ain’t warm and welcoming to us Shades so I hauled ass to Paris where no one gives a rat’s fart whether I’m black, white, green or blue… well, they didn’t use to until that piece of shit Robespierre started mouthing off. That cat and the rest of the Gang of Three are really screwing the Quartier up. Bastard Dark Charismatics: I hate them all.’ She took another long pull of her champagne. ‘This is the first time I’ve been back to the ForthRight since then and I can tell you, Miss Thomas, it’s gonna be the last time. To me what colour your skin is don’t matter a fig, what matters is the colour of your soul and Heydrich’s soul is blacker than my skin will ever be.’
Ella nodded her agreement. ‘I hope the day will come when skin colour just means nothing more the tone of your skin, when your religion is just seen as the way your soul speaks, when the place where a person is born has no more weight than the throw of a dice and when we are all born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.’
‘That’s a big piece of mouth for a girl as young as you, Miss Thomas,’ said Josephine Baker quietly. ‘Did you write that?’
‘No, Miss Baker, you did. It’s one of the most important things I ever learnt.’
Josephine Baker stared at her. ‘I don’t remember…’
Ella moved swiftly on. ‘The problem, Miss Baker, is that Heydrich is making war to ensure the racial purity of the DemiMonde. Conquest will give him the opportunity to erase all those he perceives to be UnderMentionables – subhumans. And both of us, Miss Baker, and you too, Monsieur Louverture, are included in that category.’
That had a salutary impact on the mood around the table.
‘So do the cats in Warsaw have a chance?’ asked Josephine Baker.
‘It all depends on how you define having a chance,’ said Ella. ‘The Poles will never be able to defeat the Anglos but the longer they can keep fighting, the more people will come to realise that the ForthRight can be beaten. And that, I think, will be the greatest gift the Poles can give the people of the DemiMonde: belief that fighting the ForthRight isn’t just an exercise in futility.’
‘Is such a thing possible?’ asked Louverture. ‘Are the Poles really willing to fight on despite the odds?’
‘Only if the other Sectors help: the Varsovians can’t survive and fight without ammunition, without food and without blood.’
The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a waiter who handed Louverture a note. He unfolded it and read the message. ‘Ma cherie, your no-account Count over there on Table Twenty-Five’ – he nodded across the floor of the nightclub – ‘has invited us to join his party.’
He gave Ella and Vanka a smile of apology. ‘Monsieur… Mademoiselle… you must excuse us, but unfortunately Miss Baker has her duties as the foremost star of musical theatre in the whole of the Demi-Monde to attend to. If you will excuse us.’ Both he and Josephine Baker rose from the table, but then Louverture paused. ‘I will consider your proposal, Mademoiselle. Perhaps it might be possible for you to attend me again, say at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon? We are rehearsing a new routine…’ He left the sentence unfinished as he bowed his au revoir.