Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(54)
She may have been willing to settle for security, but he had to give it to her – she sure as hell didn’t settle for mediocrity that afternoon in Dessau Hall.
The beer garden was all decked out with velvet wallpaper and crystal chandeliers. Unlike saloons such as Stonewall’s Sawdust, German beer gardens were convivial places that opened their doors only at scheduled times or for familial events like summer concerts. The Germans, not the Mexicans, had been Texas’s predominant population in the prior century.
Granted only a handful of patrons, mostly older folks, had turned out that blustery February afternoon, but they were riveted from her first, “Guten tag,” as she settled atop the stage stool and adjusted her spread of ruffled skirts. Sally’s ruffled skirts, maybe, but he doubted they had ever looked so good on Sally.
At the welcoming applause, Romy gave that goofy grin, which slid away into the solemnness of concentration while she propped Arturo’s guitar upon her lap and tuned the strings.
Duke snagged a table at some distance from the stage and ordered a beer to wet his whistle.
Amazingly, she did not appear nervous. Head cocked to the right in that quaint way she had, she riffed through the strings, then eased softly into a flamenco rendition of what he identified as Malague?a.
When she accompanied her playing with singing, in Spanish, his jaw dropped. He had no idea she had such a rich voice. Her fingers danced over the strings impossibly fast. Hell, he couldn’t even think that fast.
Interspersing the melody with rhythmic flourishes, she suddenly switched to the German lyrics, and the spectators clapped enthusiastically along with her accelerating pace and the staccato thumping of her palm on the guitar. After she finished the piece, they were on their feet.
She smiled shyly, or at least that was the impression the rip-off artist meant her smile to impart She waited until the applause ebbed, then launched into several more songs, none of which he recognized – but he did recognize Goldman, stein in hand, making his way toward Duke’s table.
Pulling out a wooden chair, Goldman doffed his felt hat onto the table. “Who knew? She is a guitar virtuoso.”
Duke was well aware the German attorney was slick and smart and self-serving – and naturally mistrusted him while grudgingly liking him. Somewhat. The question was, how much did Romy like him? “How did you get here, being without wheels?”
Goldman glanced from the stage to him. “You are looking at the right honorable Gideon Goldman, newly hired Assistant Press Secretary to Congressman Johnson.”
He swigged some beer. “Moving up in the world, are you?”
Goldman nodded his golden head at the stage. “So is she.”
The ‘she’ to whom Goldman referred peered out from under the brim of Sally’s sombrero, seemingly staring right at their table. Coming to her feet, Romy began to strum another song, a tempo largo, one limed with longing. Singing softly, so that patrons quieted and strained to listen, she slowly descended the stage’s five steps and meandered among the tables.
“I’m lost in your smile, think I’ll stay here a while,
A vacation from a lonely life.
My heart’s beating wild, I feel like a child.
I’m happy here, lost in your smile.”
This was the Gypsy girl? Romy Sonnenschein? S&S’s cook? Duke downed the remainder of his beer and signaled for another.
“I’m feeling free, floating down the stream.
Memories and unfulfilled dreams.
No frustration, no strife, they are not part of my life.
I’m happy here lost in your smile.”
She directed a meaningful glance at his and Gideon’s table.
“Some people, they need a hand to hold,
Some people, they need a kiss,
Some people need to make love for a while.
But me? I’m happy here, lost in your smile.”
At last, she strolled to stand before him and Goldman.
“Don’t look away, share the rest of my stay.
You need not a word to say.
Won’t look around, keep my feet on the ground.
I’m happy here, lost in your smile.”
For which of them was her song intended? Duke swallowed hard. He had not bargained for this. Hells bells, it was not he who was lost in a smile but his good sense that was lost. Period. And yet, watching her, he was transfixed, unable to remove his gaze from her.
Finished with her performance, she settled her wealth of spangled skirts into a chair across from him and Goldman, who said with apparent sincerity, “I haven’t heard anything quite as comparable in artistic quality since Django Reinhardt.”
Laying aside the guitar, she flashed her ready grin. “Aye, another Gypsy. Me grandfather and meself saw him perform at a Paris dance hall musette. I tried to memorize some of his techniques, but, alas, all too soon the management caught up with us and threw us out.”
Duke sat uncomfortably, while, with the kiss of her Irish brogue, she and Goldman exchanged fond reminiscences about Weimar Berlin street life, its cabarets, its artists and intellectuals.
For someone who could barely write her name, her knowledge on a wide range of subjects was eye-blinking astonishing. “Aye, I saw both The Three Penny Opera and Blue Angel. And do ye know now Albert Einstein himself visited the Europahaus, when some of me people were performing a juggling act there?”