The Jazz Palace (20 page)

In the dark of a summer's night Benny listened to her speak. He couldn't remember names, faces, or directions. At times he forgot where he was. Streets he'd walked his entire life could suddenly become unfamiliar. But he never forgot a voice. His perfect pitch translated into remembering. Listening closely, he heard it in her voice. But it wasn't a good memory. It was one of cold, greasy water and ships going down. It made Benny shiver, but he knew that Pearl was right. They had spoken before.

The gem sisters were outgrowing their bed. They slept, arms and legs entwined like some strange subterranean beast—the kind you'd only find at the bottom of the sea or in the deepest of caves. There was an odor about them and about their room. It was a mingled scent of oil and sweat and blood. At times they talked of moving into the extra room where the brothers who drowned used to sleep, but they never did. It didn't matter how crammed they were into their Murphy bed; it would never occur to any of them to sleep elsewhere.

But on this night, her wrists still sticky from ice cream that she didn't want to wash away, Pearl couldn't sleep. And it was impossible for her to toss and turn, wedged as she was in the middle. She tried to ignore Ruby's heavy breathing and Opal's nighttime coughs. Pearl had stayed up until the bar closed, and she was so tired she could hardly stand. But still she was awake. She longed to shake her sisters and talk to them. Especially Ruby. Surely Ruby harbored her own thoughts about young men, though she'd never said. She'd know what to do. But both girls were sound asleep. Pearl jostled Ruby who slept hard and was slow to wake. “Ruby,” Pearl said, “I want to ask you something…”

But Ruby grumbled, turning her face to the wall. Pearl's limbs were prickly as if she couldn't stay inside her skin. It wasn't a feeling
she'd known before. It wasn't love. It was more like danger. Something you were supposed to stay away from but could not. She thought of Benny, bent over the keys. That flicking tongue. The long reach of his fingers, those slow tempo climbs.

W
henever she could, Pearl went to the lake. She wanted to get away from the din of the house. The clatter of plates, the clomp of shoes, the whispering that never stopped. She found that when she was down there, she could forget whatever was bothering her. Lake Michigan never looked the same. When it was still, it was green as a frog pond, and before a storm, it turned a shade of muddy brown. At times it was a steely gray; at others it was the deepest blue. The lake had its moods as Pearl had hers.

She took a streetcar to the North Avenue Beach where the white people swam. The blacks stayed on the South Side. It was hard to believe that there were still beaches only for white people and others only for blacks. No wonder Napoleon wouldn't go near water. She recalled the summer when Eugene Williams drowned. Nothing had changed. She wore a bathing suit underneath the clothes she quickly peeled off. The cold of the lake startled her as she dove deep and did a long breaststroke under water. She dove and came up again, opening her eyes in the murky water.

When she dove into the water, she drank it in. She took big gulps, pulled the lake into her body. She liked the fact that it was fresh, not salty. She couldn't begin to imagine the oceans and their briny taste. Yet her lake, as she'd come to think of it, was still so big you couldn't see across it. Pearl had developed a thirst she couldn't quench. Though she drank all the water she could find, glasses and glasses of it, and peed until Fern thought she had a kidney problem and took her to see Dr. Rosen, there was nothing wrong with her. She just wanted to drink. She swam in long, even strokes as if she were swimming toward something that was just beyond her reach. She loved the lake for its sudden changes, its unpredictability, its unseen dangers. It was along this lakefront that Pearl came to understand that there could be places you never wanted to leave—places
that seemed as much a part of you as the color of your eyes, the curve of your spine.

The water was warm for this time of year and greasy. She preferred it in the late spring when it hadn't lost its winter chill. At times even in May it could be freezing. She swam, up and back past the lifeguard's stand. At first she counted her laps, but then she gave herself up to the water. Even as her arms ached, she kept going. The dark water. At times she gulped for air. She knew there was nothing in the water to hurt her—to nibble at her toes, to pull her into the deep. Still she couldn't get it out of her head that something lurked below her. Something could come out of nowhere and tug her down.

She wanted to forget about the piano man who kept her up at night. She wanted to forget his name. His familiar ways. Who made her long for something she'd scarcely ever thought about before. Pearl was a practical woman. She wasn't the type to want something she couldn't have. But she wanted Benny. She swam as if she were swimming away. As if she could keep going, farther and farther out to sea—even as she hugged the shore. She didn't notice the shadows grow long. It wasn't until she heard the lifeguard's final whistle that she stopped.

As she dragged herself to shore, the sun was dipping behind the buildings. A chill was in the air, and she stayed on the beach until a breeze came up. She walked to the trolley stop, smelling of lake water, sand clinging to her skin. She rode with sea grass in her hair, her nipples tingling and erect, past merchants, ragpickers, and hot-dog stands along the bustle of Halsted Street, where she'd once struggled to bring her mother and Opal safely home, then walked west to the saloon with Benny still on her mind. Nothing had willed him away.

When she got home, Opal was napping in their bed. Since she'd stopped sucking her thumb, Opal slept with her head tilted back, her mouth wide open, making Pearl want to drop a goldfish down it. They hardly spoke these days. The sisters found themselves locked in a silent battle neither could explain, nor even discuss. Pearl paused, staring down at her sleeping sister.
Sleep looks so much like death
, Pearl thought, walking by.

R
udolph Valentino was coming to Chicago. He was going to dance the tango at the Trianon Ballroom with his lover, Natasha, who would soon become his wife. Valentino had come to America from Italy where he couldn't find work. In America he bused tables. He became a taxi dancer at Maxim's in New York. This was where he learned to tango. In Hollywood he did the tango in a silent film and became a matinee idol. Everyone wanted to see him. Everyone wanted to touch him. Valentino and Natasha were coming to promote Mineralava Beauty Clay. Opal begged Pearl to let her go.

Opal wanted to dance. Rhythm was in her blood. She wanted to kick up her legs and flap her arms the way she'd heard the Ziegfeld girls did. When she felt the beat of the band downstairs, she couldn't help herself. She had no choice but to move. It seemed as if no part of her was ever still. She practiced when no one was around. She stretched her legs far above her head and lay in splits, splayed like a rag doll, her head sweeping the floor.

At night she danced in her nightgown before Ruby made her go to bed. On Saturday afternoons she snuck out when her siblings were napping or at shul and entered contests that were held in the city's ballrooms. She strutted the Buzzard's Glory, the Big Apple, the Stevedore's Stomp, the Black Bottom. She could keep up with the finest of the rug cutters, but Pearl made her stick to a curfew. Home by nine. But she was wild as a colt. No mother had raised her, and now she was a feral creature no one could contain.

The best contests didn't even get going until one or two in the morning. Some of the winners went on to become professional dancers. Or taxi dancers, earning a nickel a song to dance with the male patrons. Opal thought she was good enough to be one of these. In the clubs strangers picked her up and spun her over their heads or slid her on the floor between their legs. She needed a partner as lithe and limber as she. Someone who could hold his own. And stay out all night.

Pearl wouldn't hear of it. “You're just sixteen,” Pearl hollered at her. “You are not going to be out until all hours.”

“I'm old enough, and I want to dance.”

“You can dance at home.” So Opal danced in the living room and downstairs in the saloon. She twirled and kicked her legs, working on her Slim Betty and her Bunny Hug. In the saloon she danced all night. When she asked Pearl to let her go see Valentino, Pearl agreed, but she couldn't go alone. On a cold Sunday in February the two sisters, dressed in long wool dresses, wrapped themselves up in Anna's old furs and set out for the Trianon. They arrived hours early and were among the first people in line. They stood shivering, huddling against each other in the Chicago wind.

As the doors opened, six thousand fans stormed the room. The throng pressed against Pearl's back. “Opal,” Pearl called out as they were swept into the giant hall. Women screamed as they were thrust against the stage. Others were almost trampled. The lights dimmed and, dressed in spurs, sombrero, and chaps, Valentino swept onto the stage. Natasha, in a long red gown, was at his side. He gazed at her with his dark, Latin eyes. He lifted her into his arms and turned her so that they were cheek to cheek. His face was sweaty, and his pancake makeup streaked as he led her up and down the stage. In three years he would be dead of a ruptured appendix, but for now he exuded heat. Pearl was so close she could smell his cologne. They danced for four minutes. In the crush of bodies Pearl swooned. As Valentino was autographing slips of paper, the hems of skirts, and the arms of girls who swore they'd never bathe again, she fainted and Opal had to follow as two attendants carried her outside for air.

In a matter of moments Pearl recovered, but it was too late to go back inside. Instead they made their way home where Opal sulked in a corner, and Pearl stood in her slip in front of the mirror. She struck erect poses, kicked a leg up behind her. She cupped her breasts, ran her hands along her thighs. In her nightgown with broom in hand, she danced. Downstairs the next evening as she poured drinks and kept the tabs, she imagined Benny, guiding her across the floor. His hand at her waist. He'd whisper, “I didn't know you could dance like this.”

“There's a lot about me you don't know,” she'd reply.

Pearl was gliding across the barroom floor when she heard
Benny's shave-and-a-haircut knock. But it was Opal with shrimppink lipstick and hot-red nails who raced to the door. Opal who had fashioned a red blouse from some old damask looked as if she were on fire. The sweat seeped through Pearl's pores as she pulled Opal aside. “What is wrong with you? You look like a slut.”

“You aren't my mother,” Opal shot back.

“You're parading around like a whore.” And Pearl handed Opal a rag. “Wipe your face.” Then turning to Benny, “What'll it be, Benny?” Pearl patted her hair. “The usual? One round if Benny plays.” Benny was surprised because Pearl never served drinks on the house.

“The usual,” he said.

He pulled back the bench and ran his fingers across the keys. He struck a few chords, then launched into “Wild Man Stomp.” Opal leaned across the piano, her fingers tapping out the beat. Her smile softened; her eyes were bright. She was listening not just with her ears, but with her eyes and her hands, with the curve of her mouth, with her hips. She threw her head back and began to sway. She was moving. First her legs, then her arms. Then the rest of her. She pushed away from the piano and danced fast with a cigarette in one hand, a drink in the other. Beads of sweat covered her face. Pearl glared at Opal. She'd tell her what she thought later. For now she turned to Ruby. “She's making a fool of herself,” Pearl said.

“Yes, she is,” Ruby replied. But Opal wouldn't stop. She was unaccustomed to the scent of men. She wasn't used to the clomp of shoes, to deep voices at the dinner table. She was young when her father died and not much older when her bird brothers drowned. And Moss and Jonah were nocturnal creatures whom she rarely saw and who trudged upstairs just before dawn. She had no memory of strong arms carrying her from the sofa to her bed. She'd never felt a man's beard scratching against her cheek as he tucked her in or sniffed the strange mix of tobacco, beer, and sweat that made a man what he was. All she knew were the soft hands of sisters, the rise and fall of their breath, the gentle strokes of a hairbrush, and the edge of the bed from which she struggled not to slip onto the floor and into darkness.