As the spiritual ended and the applause faded away, the Interlocutor clapped his hands and a new backdrop fell. Now they were in Berlin, before a Reichstag with wonky columns and flags with a reversed swastika. Roman standards carried the Reich’s eagle with pendulous breasts and a harlot’s stockings and suspenders. As the audience laughed and booed, a performer detached himself from the semicircle and dragged a soapbox to center stage where a microphone was standing ready. A single spotlight shone on him.
The man was white, and a little rectangular patch had been omitted from his blackface to give him the infamous toothbrush mustache in negative. He climbed up on the soapbox, knocked himself off again with an overzealous Nazi salute, then climbed back on again to laughter.
The audience settled. From offstage came the sound effect of a wireless being tuned. The performer leaned in to the microphone and spread his arms dramatically.
“Dis is Jaaarmany callin’ . . . dis is Jaaaaarmany callin’.”
The audience howled.
“In August alone, de German navy did sink de followin’ British ships: De H.M.S. Pinafore. De African Queen. De Good Ship Lollipop.”
“My dear fellow,” the Interlocutor said. “What nonsense!”
“Oh, you don’t believe me? Den tell me, did you see any dem ships come into port recently?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Well den! Never doubt what de German wireless be tellin’ you!”
He wagged his finger at the audience, who catcalled and jeered.
“We ended resistance in all de followin’ countries: Xanadu. El Dorado. Atlantis. Although I think dere was something fishy ’bout dat last one.”
“Come on,” said Mary, “let’s get out of this dive.”
“Oh please,” said Hilda, “let’s give it five more minutes.”
Mary made a deferential bow. Up onstage, the Broadcaster was working himself into a frenzy.
“You British have no chance! We knows all your secrets! We knows everything ’bout your country!”
“Oh yes?” said the Interlocutor. “Such as?”
“Such as the intentions of your leader, dat Mistah Winsome Chivalry.”
“Ah, you mean Mr. Winston Churchill.”
The audience applauded his name, and the Broadcaster leered. “Dat’s right, de skinny guy. We know de man has no fight in ’im. He’ll never attack.”
From the audience: “Oh yes he will!” And the Broadcaster: “Oh no he won’t!”
As they went back and forth in raucous escalation, the semicircle of singers set up a low, wailing, rising and falling note, quiet at first and then louder until the Broadcaster, finally appearing to notice it, broke off from haranguing the crowd and cupped a hand to listen.
“Oh lordy! De air-raid warnin’! Surely not here in Berlin!”
As the Broadcaster cowered in fear, the audience cheered with delight. The spotlight snapped off, the stage lights fell, and the chorus carried on their wailing, the note rising and falling in the dark. A silver moon rose over the backdrop, which had changed to a blacked-out London by night. The chorus steadied their wailing at its highest pitch and held it in a clear hum that sounded over the moonlit city. The note sounded long and sweet and rose into “I Vow to Thee, My Country.” Beside him, Hilda wept. Tom appeared to have something in his eye, and it seemed to Alistair that even Mary was pacified.
The curtain fell for the interval. The house lights came up. The Interlocutor came out from backstage and sat at a baby grand, front of house. He rolled up the sleeves of his tailcoat, propped up the piano lid, cocked his top hat back and began an incidental.
“Why don’t you go over and say hello?” said Tom.
“Oh stop it. I’m ashamed.”
“But what did you expect?” said Hilda.
“I didn’t realize the joke would be quite so much on them.”
The Interlocutor’s right hand rippled up and down the high notes and his left pressed out the big chords, perfectly steady and regular, a steam hammer cutting out shapes. As he played he cast his eyes over the tables, smiling at the audience, giving a wink here and mouthing a thank-you there, while his hands played automatically. His face was calm under the thick white mask of grease paint. He smiled at the table where the four of them sat, favoring them no more or less than the rest, and then his gaze moved on.
“Doesn’t he recognize you?” said Hilda.
“Can’t you see he is being discreet?” said Mary.
“We all look alike to them, is what it is.”
“Go on!” said Tom, squeezing Mary’s arm. “Go and say hello.”
Alistair saw Mary’s discomfort. He said, “I’ll bet you can’t be quite sure it’s him.”
Mary threw him a grateful look. “I’m not at all sure.”
Alistair said, “He might be the Queen of Sheba under all that paint.”
Mary nodded quickly. “I . . . um . . .”
“I move we get more wine,” Alistair said. “What does the panel think?”
“Oh, wine!” said Hilda, clapping her hands as if it were a clever new invention.
Alistair signaled and a bottle arrived almost before his arm was fully extended. He filled all four glasses, displacing whatever volume of awkwardness had accumulated. It was obvious that the entire war could be solved in this way. The trick would be to reach for a corkscrew instead, every time some brass hat ordered artillery.
The interval ended, the stage lights came up and the Interlocutor climbed up into the beam of a spotlight. He waited for the crowd to settle.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Though these times are dramatic, the greatest drama of our lives still plays in the theater of the heart, which is why our next number is a love song. But before we sing slow for you, let’s all take a moment to think of our true loves. It could be you’re lucky enough to be sitting next to them right now. Or maybe they’re far away, posted overseas. Maybe the two of you haven’t even met yet, and you’re holding the idea of each other.”
As he spoke, the sound of the air-raid sirens came again. This time it was not the choir singing it—the effect came from offstage, as the wireless effects had—and it seemed to come from all quarters at once.
“So our next song,” said the Interlocutor, “our slow number dedicated to those who could not be with us tonight, is a particular favorite of—”
The sirens swelled, cutting him off.
“Isn’t it clever?” whispered Hilda. “I wonder how they do it.”
But Alistair saw the Interlocutor’s expression. By the instinct his body had picked up in France, his hand swept the floor at his side and located his uniform cap. His foot reached under the table and drew his duffel bag toward him. As he took hold of it, he felt the hard shape of the jar of Tom’s blackberry jam. He had meant for them all to share it at lunch—perhaps with scones if the restaurant had been able to rustle some up—but now of course it would have to wait. That was this war all over: just when you got comfortable, they dropped the fire curtain.
He kissed Hilda on the forehead, told her she was adorable, and took a long, cold drink of the wine.
It was ugly when the house lights went up. The stage manager made an announcement no one could hear. People were making a racket asking what was going on, and soon the theater was a confusion of people heading for contrary exits—not in panic but without decorum, and not minding if they trod on a few feet. Everyone was in everyone else’s way. No one seemed to know if there was a shelter in the theater or whether they were supposed to try their luck in the public ones outside, and as a result the whole thing was snarled up and nervous.
“What should we do?” said Mary to Tom.
Tom looked to Alistair. “What do you think?”
Alistair thought it strange that they deferred to him. His uniform was hardly native to these gilded columns and these pink
velvet seats. Civilians must surely outrank him in this theater. He laughed, then realized by their expressions how inappropriate it was. He held tight to the table. Now that he was standing, he understood that he was drunker than strictly necessary.
He looked around at the chaos of the theater, the stalls in packed disarray and the great circle jammed with people trying to circulate in opposite directions. He hadn’t a clue what to suggest.
“Miss North?” said a voice from behind them.
The Interlocutor had come down to their table. Alistair watched Mary compose herself and smile.
“You need to work on Zachary’s writing,” she said, offering her hand.
“Yes?” said the Interlocutor as he shook it.
“He uses punctuation as if it were rationed and vowels as if he had hit the mother lode.”
From above came anxious voices as the upper circle pushed downstairs.
“Might the rest wait until parents’ evening?” said the Interlocutor. “Only I came to invite you people to share our basement shelter.”
“If you’re sure it’s no trouble,” said Mary.
“Why, what are you going to do? Heckle us?”
The Interlocutor led them backstage and down into the theater’s basement. It was arched and vaulted, twenty feet from floor to ceiling at the apex of each vault and never lower than fifteen feet at the pillars. The basement was as long and broad belowground as the theater was above. It was lit by a hundred bulbs swinging on cloth-braided wire.
The Interlocutor ushered them along a narrow passage that had been cleared between the rolled backdrops and wooden facades and pantomime horses, to an area against one wall where the players and crew members were grumbling as they took their seats on wooden benches. Their voices echoed and boomed through the sound box of the basement. The mood was of annoyance—the performance had been hotting up nicely, and here was another false alarm.
“Make yourselves easy,” said the Interlocutor, and they all sat.
“Isn’t it a bore?” said Hilda. “There should be a law that they can’t do these drills at the weekend.”
The Interlocutor put two fingers in his mouth to give a whistle, and Zachary appeared from behind a rack of drapes.
“Fetch me the basin?” said the Interlocutor.
Zachary disappeared and came back with a cloth and a bowl of water, which he set before his father. The Interlocutor patted the bench beside him and Zachary sat down and grinned. “Good afternoon, Miss North.”
“Mary, please. You needn’t ‘Miss North’ me out of school.”
“Fine, then you needn’t call me Zachary.”
“Oh? What am I to call you?”
“ ‘Mr. Lee’ will do just fine.”
Mary smiled. “Very well then, Mr. Lee. I should like you to meet my friends Mr. Tom Shaw, Miss Hilda Appleby and Mr. Alistair Heath.”
“Good afternoon,” said Zachary, more shyly.
“Don’t say you live down here?” said Hilda, rather loud from the wine.
The Interlocutor looked up from scrubbing off his stage paint. “We rent a room above a cobbler’s. Which is fine except for the hammering. You might say the sole inconvenience is the sole inconvenience.”
Tom gave Zachary an avuncular smile. “And you come along to watch?”
Zachary looked down at his hands. “I help out.”
“Excuse the boy,” said his father. “He’s quiet around people.”
Tom ruffled Zachary’s hair. “No need to be shy, is there? We won’t bite.”
Alistair watched Tom in the lurching light of the bulbs, and wondered if his old friend had always seemed such an ass. Perhaps it was only the wine wearing off, making Tom clumsy and Alistair unkind. He wished he had thought to bring the bottle down with them.
“And how do you help out with the show?” Hilda was saying.
Zachary shrugged. “This and that.”
“He’s here to remind himself what not to do,’ said his father. “Boy’s going to be a lawyer or a physician.”
Mary smiled at Zachary. “That’s what you want, is it?”
“Sure.”
His father said, “That’s why it lifts me when he tells me how well he’s doing in class.”
Zachary looked to Mary, widening his eyes in appeal. She hesitated, then smiled. “He tries splendidly hard. And anyway, I don’t see what’s so wrong with what you do. You’re marvelously good.”
Zachary’s father wrung out the facecloth and the milky water ran into the bowl. “It’s a living, I suppose. And we don’t bother anyone.”
“I have to ask,” said Mary. “How do you find it? The show, I mean?”
He gave her a steady look. “How do I find it, Miss North? I walk up the Strand and make a left onto Wellington Street.”
“But since you say that you want more for Zachary, I’m wondering if you mean . . . in some aspects . . . oh, it goes without saying that the performance is fabulous . . . but don’t you sometimes find it just a tiny bit . . .”
“Sure,” said Zachary’s father. “You’d want more for your child.”
“But since you are—oh, you know, in it, aren’t you ever tempted—forgive me—to challenge the attitudes?”
Zachary’s father grinned. “You’re the ones fighting evil. We’re just the help.”
“Oh stop it!” said Mary.
“It’s you I feel for. We only do the act twice a day, but you people are on the whole time.”
Mary laughed. Hilda sniffed, doing her lips in a tortoiseshell compact. “Shouldn’t we have the all-clear by now? How long will they keep us down here?”
“Just till they’ve rattled their clipboards,” said Alistair. “These drills don’t mark themselves, you know.”
Hilda smiled. Alistair smiled back. It was nice that everyone smiled. Although something in her face was awry. Probably this, too, was just the wine wearing off. It was the least pleasant accident of consciousness, and poor Hilda could hardly be blamed for it. Ten minutes ago he’d been perfectly content with the press of her body. Whenever one thought about happiness, it was because it was wearing off.
Tom said, “I hate to be a bore, but I’m not wonderful with underground spaces. I’m starting to feel queer, truth be told.”
“Hear, hear,” said Hilda. “I don’t see why we should stay put, just for the form. Why don’t we go to Brown’s and have a cocktail? We could all—”
The first bomb hit London with unimagined force. The concussion was unambiguous. First it came to them through the ground. The benches jumped beneath them and everyone yelped. Then the sound came, a deep bass shock, the echoes rolling in the basement’s stone vaults.
“Oh Christ,” said Tom. “This is it.”
Zachary buried his head in his father’s chest. His father held him close, resting his chin on the top of the boy’s head, his eyes wide. Three more detonations came, even louder.
Hilda grabbed at Alistair. “Oh god . . .” Her breath came in quick gasps.
Alistair patted her hand. “Try to breathe. We’re safe down here.”
Zachary’s father had his mouth close to the boy’s ear. “ ‘The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night . . .’ ”
Mary stood abruptly and smoothed her dress. “I must go to the school.”
“What?” said Tom.
Mary picked up her handbag. “Will you come?”
“But why . . . ?”
“I have to make sure it’s safe. I didn’t bar the shutters, or anything.”
Tom was pale. “But we can’t go out there. It’s . . .”
Mary hesitated. Alistair stood and guided her back to the bench.
“It’s just a building,” he said. “The doctors can save them every time.”
Hilda gasped. “My parents!”
“Th
ey’ll be fine too,” said Alistair. “They’ll have taken shelter as we have.”
A string of sharper impacts came, much louder and nearer. Hilda shrieked, and shouts came from the players.
“It’s all right!” Alistair called back. “That’s ours. It’s anti-aircraft.”
The detonations sent dust pouring from the ceiling. Alistair went around to settle people. He got the players to have cigarettes, and one by one they lit up with shaking hands. This was what he always had his men do when they were rattled—or brew tea, or write letters, or polish boots—anything to get back in character. But smoking was best.
Alistair sat back down beside Hilda. Now the rumbling of the bombs was farther off. It boomed through the cellar and set up a discordant vibration in the untuned strings of an old piano.
“Which of you requested this?” said Alistair. “Worst tune I ever heard.”
Mary frowned. “Philistine. You soldiers want everything in a major key.”
“Quite right too. And in four/four time so we can march to it.”
Tom said, “I wish you two would stop pretending this is funny.”
Alistair nodded his apology. “I know this isn’t much fun.”
Tom pursed his lips. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t . . . it’s just that . . .”
“It’s all right,” said Alistair. “I was exactly the same, my first time. Here, I know what’ll cheer us up. Remember that jam you made?”
He was rummaging for it in his duffel bag when the array of electric bulbs flickered and went out. The players murmured in alarm. Beside Alistair, Hilda was tight as a board, the hysteria hardening beneath her skin. He was sobering up with every bang, and with each nervous twitch of Hilda’s body he felt less inclined to soothe and more disposed to snap at her.
He sparked his lighter so at least they could all see. “Does anyone have a piece of string I could hang this with?”
“I have some sewing cotton,” said Mary.
“Fine.”
“Does it matter what color? I have pink, red and white.”
Alistair understood that she was being less than serious. His irritation vanished. With her cotton he fixed the lighter to a bulb flex. His fingers did the work with their old skill. The shifting flame tossed their shadows back and forth, as if they were not fixtures in society but only tricks of the light.