Mrs. Goldstone said with an amiable smile, shaking the girl’s hand, “Too bad we’re not staying. I’d like to see you repeat that dance with him you did this afternoon. I think Sandy would have enjoyed it.”
“Turkey leg and all, I sure would,” Sandy said. He grinned affectionately at her and, Marjorie was sure, just a shade sadly. “You’ll have to show it to me sometime.”
In a moment they were gone, with the Connellys in their wake, all murmuring thanks and farewells. Left at the table were Marjorie, Geoffrey, Aunt Dvosha, the gently snoring Samson-Aaron, and five pushed-aside empty chairs.
Marjorie suffered over this debacle for six terrible days. On the seventh all was forgotten, and her young spirit soared higher than ever. For her life turned a great corner; Marjorie Morningstar was triumphantly born.
Chapter 10. MR. KLABBER
The girl playing Ko-Ko, prancing on stage at the start of The Mikado, dropped her executioner’s axe with a silly plop of hollow cardboard. The squeals from the audience so demoralized her that she never recovered. She forgot her lines, scrambled the action, and panicked the other players. As the show struggled feebly on, the dialogue began to be drowned out by the coughing, whispering, and shuffling of feet in the audience. All was confusion, shrieks, and lamenting backstage between the acts; and it was in this climate of fiasco that Marjorie went out to face the audience for her first appearance, with My Object All Sublime.
She felt it was up to her to save the show. And she was carelessly, senselessly confident that she would do it, that she could not fail, that she was Marjorie Morningstar, the one glittering professional among these poor frightened painted-up college girls in red and yellow cheesecloth. Sandy was in the audience, and so were her parents and Seth; but awareness of them dropped away as she stepped from the gloom of the wings into the glare of the stage. The dim mass of faces beyond the footlights was as one face, one presence, something like a new vast collective Boy she intended to captivate.
She came out with a flourish, striking an imperial pose, and there was scattered applause. Her scarlet and gold silk costume was the most spectacular in the show, and Marsha had painted her strikingly, in the traditional fashion: flour-white face, huge black eyebrows and mustaches, crimson mouth. When she began her song, the audience grew still. In this rattled company her mere self-confidence gave her some of the authority of a star. She performed as she had rehearsed, with a little extra vibrancy brought out by having an audience, and after a few seconds her grotesquely dignified gambols began to bring laughs from the darkness.
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time…
The chorus, taking heart, responded in unison for the first time, and with something like verve:
His object all sublime
He shall achieve in time…
Marjorie picked up the song, rapping out the sharp Gilbert words so that they rang through the hall; then it was the turn of the chorus, sounding better and better as she capered to stronger laughter. She finished squarely in mid-stage in a pompous attitude, and bared her teeth at the audience with comic ferocity. There was dead silence perhaps for one heartbeat. Then came an electrifying solid CRACK! of applause.
She swung into her rehearsed encore. Now the chorus and even the orchestra, catching fire from her success, seemed to acquire precision, wit; the air of the audience began to sparkle, as it were, with the true radiance of Gilbert and Sullivan.
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time…
Marjorie felt bodiless, floating free; she had no thought of making a mistake; she could not; she was inventing this song like a bird. The handclapping when she finished was stronger than before. The conductor signalled to the actors to go on with the show. They tried to speak lines, but the handclapping drowned them; and now came a few shouts, cleaving through the air like thrown roses, “More! More! More!”
Marjorie, frozen in mid-stage in her regal pose, felt shuddering thrills along her spine; the hairs on her head prickled like warm needles. The conductor looked at her, shrugged, and nodded for another encore. She had stopped the show.
She glanced around at the chorus, all staring at her with shining-eyed admiration. She allowed herself a bashful, grateful smile at the audience, her first break out of character, and strutted forward to sing again, her face contorted in the fierce Mikado frown.
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time…
Her mind cooled and became detached while she paced through this encore. She was back in the school auditorium. She saw individual faces in the audience, friends sawing at fiddles in the orchestra, the chorus capering clumsily in wretched costumes, the smeared rickety set. She thought, “It’s just a ratty college show, after all. But it’s the beginning. Now I know I can do it. And I will, I will!”
With secret personal meaning, tossing her head and waving both clenched fists in the air, defying the audience and the gods, she sang from an exulting heart:
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time!
The evening was hers. “Mikado! Mikado!” the audience called when the principals stepped forward for their collective bow. The curtain dropped. The shouts continued. Miss Kimble came darting out of the wings, clutching the prompter’s script, her hair flying, her eyes and nose red, her glasses falling off as she ran. She threw her arms around Marjorie. “You’re a star! You made the show!” She ran off again, picking up her glasses. “Curtain! Curtain! Solo bow for the Mikado!” And when Marjorie stepped forward the noise was louder, and the cast applauded too; and somebody dragged Miss Kimble on stage squeaking protests and fumbling at her hair, and all theatrical discipline collapsed, and the curtain came down on an orgy of weeping, giggling, hugging, kissing, and jumping up and down by the entire cast.
Ko-Ko slunk off the stage unnoticed (she married a bald young dentist two weeks later and dropped out of school). Marjorie was set upon by the cast, and by Miss Kimble, and by the stagehands and the musicians, all pounding her back, pumping her hands, kissing her, and shouting congratulations. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Her face stiff from smiling, her costume soaked with sweat, she was pulled this way and that. “Please, please, there are my folks, let them through!” Mrs. Morgenstern’s eyes were glittering with pride. The father, quite pale, was holding a handkerchief, smiling weakly, and it was obvious that he had been crying. She threw herself at him. “Papa, Papa!” Then she embraced her mother, and Seth.
“I’m beginning to think you’re somebody after all,” said her mother. “You were fine, really fine.”
Seth said, “The show was lousy, but you were okay.”
Miss Kimble pounced on the Morgensterns and began to gabble about their daughter’s great gifts. Sandy came edging through the crowd, trying not to jostle the girls; as she watched him come, Marjorie found herself wondering whether his blue serge suit was unbecoming or his hair needed cutting, or whether something less obvious was wrong with him. He looked, all at once, like an overgrown and not very bright boy. He clasped her hand. “Hi, kid. Nice going.”
“Did you really like it, Sandy?”
“Well, you know, these things are always so fierce. You were the only one that didn’t blow up.”
Marjorie said, frigidly, “Oh, sure. What can you expect from a college show?”
“How about getting that stuff off your face? We’ll take your folks out for a soda, and then maybe go dancing.”
“Sure, Sandy. Love it.”
She made her way with difficulty out of the ecstatic crowd around her. Marsha fell on her when she opened the dressing-room door. “Where have you been? God, Morningstar, what a triumph! Unbelievable! Hurry, hurry, hurry! Mr. Klabber has been going stark mad. He’s waiting for you.” She pushed and pulled Marjorie about, removing her costume and paint. “You’ve got the job, sugar bun, it’s a lead-pipe cinch, and believe me, it’s—”
Marjorie grabbed the fat girl’s hands, which were s
loshing cold cream on her face and neck. “Marsha, for heaven’s sake, who is Mr. Klabber?”
“Why, dear, haven’t I told you? He’s the owner of Camp Tamarack, where I do arts-and-crafts. He needs a dramatic counselor next summer, the one he had got married. You’re it! Okay, rub it all off with the towel, now, I’ll get at your ears and—”
Outrage and disappointment clanged in Marjorie’s voice. “He runs a camp? A children’s camp?”
“Don’t be a little idiot, I tell you it’s marvelous. A free vacation, the food is terrific—go over your lips again—what’s more, the dramatic counselor does nothing, nothing but put on a half-hour show every week, it’s a cinch, and you get paid, dear, two hundred dollars for the season—there’s still a lot of black in your eyebrows—”
“Look, Marsha, I’m not—”
“Will you let me get in one word? I haven’t told you the main thing. Tamarack’s on the same lake as South Wind! It’s ten minutes by canoe, two minutes by car, a fifteen-minute walk on the road, and—” She stopped rubbing Marjorie’s ears and looked at her blank face. “Now don’t—don’t tell me you haven’t heard of South Wind. I’ll absolutely shoot you to put you out of your misery.”
“Go ahead and shoot,” Marjorie said crossly. “I haven’t. Wait—that’s just a camp too, isn’t it?”
“Monkey face, it’s the adult camp, the most famous in the world. It’s unbelievably beautiful, grounds like Windsor Castle, the social hall is like the Waldorf grand ballroom. They put on fantastic revues there every single weekend, regular Broadway shows. The talent they have on the social staff! The connections you can make! Why, the head of the staff is Noel Airman, he’s written dozens of big song hits like It’s Raining Kisses, and the set designer is Carlos Ringel, he’s done ten Broadway shows, and he happens to be a dear friend of mine, the evil old wretch. The dances, the parties! Not only that, you’ll learn more about the real professional theatre than—”
There was a knock at the door. Marjorie, in her underwear, shrank behind a dressing screen. Marsha went out and came back in a moment, grinning broadly, a little white card in her hand. “Honestly, if old man Klabber isn’t a riot. Standing with his back to the door, so he wouldn’t catch a fast peek by mistake! Real religious, I swear. He had to run along, Margie. You’re to phone him tomorrow.”
Marjorie glanced at the card. “What’s all this? Jewish Educational Association?”
“That’s what he does winters. Solidest citizen you ever saw—”
“Look, Marsha, haven’t you gone way off the deep end here? How can I be a dramatic counselor? I don’t know beans about sets, or lighting, or—”
“Sweetie, you can bone up on all that in a week. It’s child’s play. You can imagine, if Dora Kimble can do it—”
“Herding around a lot of snivelling kids—I don’t know, Marsha…”
“Marjorie, sweetheart, I tell you the dramatic counselor’s the queen of the camp, does absolutely nothing, lives in lone grandeur in a cabin on top of the hill, contemplating her art—and South Wind, kitten, South Wind, which she can see plain as day, smack across the lake, the Promised Land. I tell you we’ll be spending the whole summer at South Wind. It’s heaven on earth. You’re going to discover a new world, I swear to you.”
The after-theatre crowd at Schrafft’s was very noisy; so when her parents and Seth began eating their sundaes, Marjorie ventured to say in a low voice to Sandy, “Ever hear of a place called South Wind?”
“Hear of it? I’ve been there. Mighty gay. Why?”
“South Wind?” said Mrs. Morgenstern, not looking up from her chocolate sundae. “What do you want to know about South Wind? I’ll tell you about South Wind. It’s Sodom. That’s South Wind.”
“Mom, I didn’t ask you—”
“She’s not far wrong,” said Sandy.
“Why are you suddenly interested in South Wind?” said Mrs. Morgenstern, peering at her daughter. “If you think you’re going there this summer, start thinking again. My daughter is not going to South Wind.”
“Oh Lord, I’m sorry I started the subject. Let’s talk about something else.”
Later, when she and Sandy were dancing at the Biltmore, he described a couple of weekends he had spent at South Wind. From what he said, and from what Marsha had told her, she began to picture the adult camp as a coruscating evil wonderland bathed in a reddish glow.
She let a week go by. Then one evening after dinner she casually mentioned that her Mikado performance had brought her the offer of a job at a children’s camp teaching dramatics. Mrs. Morgenstern was pleased at first, saying it was high time Marjorie found out what it felt like to earn a dollar. But when she put her daughter through the question grinder and Marsha’s name came out, her face changed. “It doesn’t sound good.”
“Mom, Mr. Klabber is the president of the Jewish Educational Association. Why, he’s like a rabbi, Marsha says—”
Her mother was staring at her. “Tell me, what has all this got to do with South Wind?”
“South Wind?” said Marjorie, with a merry little laugh. “Why, whatever makes you ask about South Wind?”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Morgenstern. “First you start asking questions about South Wind, and next thing you have a job at a girls’ camp—”
“Mom, we were talking about South Wind weeks ago.”
“Well, I don’t know, it’s one thing right after the other. Is there a connection or isn’t there?”
Marjorie, thoroughly exasperated at her mother’s clairvoyance, calculated that a lie would break down. “It happens,” she said lightly, “that South Wind is on the same lake, that’s how I happened to hear of it. If you call that a connection. It has nothing to do with Mr. Klabber’s camp—”
“That’s where the dog is buried,” said Mrs. Morgenstern. “You think you’ll have a good time for nothing at South Wind all summer. Don’t you know you can’t get in there at night if you aren’t a paying guest? They have guards with guns, and dogs—”
“How do you know so much about it, if it’s such an awful place?”
“It’s just by accident, I assure you. Papa’s lawyer, Mr. Pfeffer, was suing the place, they didn’t pay a big linen supply bill. He drove up there and took us with him. It was all free, the owner was trying to be nice to him. That owner. A devil. The right owner for Sodom.”
The upshot was that the mother agreed, with many skeptical reservations, to go with Marjorie to Mr. Klabber’s office later in the week. She was most happily surprised when she met the camp owner, and he seemed equally gladdened at the sight of her. He was a small old man with a large bald head, thick greenish glasses, and very hairy ears. The hand he held out to Marjorie had a dry papery feel. The walls of his tiny office were lined with diplomas, plaques, and certificates hailing his work in Jewish education.
He began with elaborate compliments about Marjorie’s talent. Mrs. Morgenstern wasted little time on these preliminaries. “First of all, Mr. Klabber, I’d like to ask you about South Wind.”
Mr. Klabber managed the feat of looking sad through an unchanged smile. “Ah, yes. South Wind—”
“It’s near your camp, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I say unfortunately. It’s a most attractively laid-out place, but—”
“It’s Sodom.”
“That’s a strong term, madam. I grant you it’s more than a little bohemian—” The camp owner turned hurt eyes upon Marjorie. “But surely, my dear, you told your mother our rule about South Wind? No? But surely Marsha told you.” He turned back to the mother. “Why, we have an iron rule, Mrs. Morgenstern, a cast-iron rule. Any Tamarack counselor seen at South Wind at any time during the summer is summarily dismissed. She packs and leaves on the next train, be it by day or be it by night.”
Mrs. Morgenstern cast a pleased glance at Marjorie, who could not help looking stunned. “Good for you!” This news seemed to settle the matter for the mother. Haggling ensued over Marjorie’s salary, in which the gir
l took very little part. Mr. Klabber, citing Marjorie’s youth, tried to get her for fifty dollars. Mrs. Morgenstern, pointing to her genius as displayed in The Mikado, asked for at least three hundred. After extended arguing the mother allowed herself to be beaten down to the usual price of two hundred dollars, and handshakes all around closed the deal.
That night at the Zelenko apartment Marsha assured her that Mr. Klabber’s cast-iron rule was the joke of Tamarack. “Darling, the counselors all live over at South Wind.” She brought down tattered paint-stained play booklets from her closet shelf. “Here’s some of the stuff we’ve put on. He doesn’t care if you repeat. We’ve still got most of the sets up there. We can lay out the whole season tonight. Nine weeks, nine shows—God, sugar bun, what marvelous fun we’re going to have…”
During the next weeks Marjorie spent more and more time with Marsha and her parents, and less and less with Sandy Goldstone. On the West Side she still formally held the title of Sandy Goldstone’s girl, and only she knew how hollow the title was. Thus glamorized, she could go out as many nights a week as she wished. Dates were so frequent and so commonplace that they were losing charm. Nobody could ever have made Marjorie believe, when she was seventeen, that there could be anything finer than going out every night in the week with boys from Columbia and the out-of-town colleges. But now, one year later, a date with a wealthy boy like Norman Fish, who went on droning about jazz bands, Haig & Haig pinchbottle, and convertibles, began to seem like a ridiculous waste of time when she could be with Marsha Zelenko.
She was in the dark cluttered Zelenko flat four or five nights each week, talking about summer plans, or about the Broadway theatre, or about painting and music. By silent mutual consent Marsha seldom visited the Morgenstern apartment. The mother’s open dislike of Marsha fell little short of rudeness. The disorder at the Zelenkos’, the balalaika music, the cherry brandy, the wreathing Turkish tobacco smoke, all made a congenial, a sort of tropic climate for the luxuriantly unfolding friendship. It tended to droop and curl among the cool modern furnishings, the heavy cream satin floor-to-ceiling drapes, and the big spaces of the El Dorado apartment, always hospital-clean under the fanatical housekeeping of Mrs. Morgenstern.