'Sick people.'
'Rich, sick people.' He stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray then levelled his stare to meet mine. 'Better they see a trick than the real thing.'
'Better they get treatment.'
He shrugged.
'Maybe it could be treatment of a sort. Get it out of their system. Seriously, we should talk about it. You’re a conjurer. We find the right sick people and make it look real enough
— it could be a good way to get rich.' His gaze held mine. 'Remember, William, we’re all sick in some way.'
'Speak for yourself.'
'You’re a dying man, William.' Sylvie leaned forward with an intensity that might have been sincerity or maybe just drink. 'From the moment we’re born we start to die.'
I lit a fag and said, 'All the more reason not to hasten things along.'
Sylvie slid the cigarette from my fingers.
'You’ll not want this then?'
And for the only time that evening we all laughed together. But even as we laughed, Sylvie grinning at me through the smoke of my lost cigarette and Dix almost managing to look avuncular, I started to wonder if this was the only late-night place in the district or if there was a quiet bar somewhere that I could slope off to. Sylvie and Dix began slipping between English and German. I listened for a while, keeping my eyes on the girls up on stage, then stood up and made my way unsteadily across the room.
The saucy sailor was perched on a stool by the bar in a pose that made the best of her long legs. I guessed she’d grown too tall to be a ballerina, but I had no problem with her height. I looked up to tall girls. The barman was wiping glasses at the opposite end of the small bar. I feigned interest in the matchbooks tumbled in a round fishbowl on the counter next to the dancer, picking one up and reacquainting myself with the champagne bather, wondering how drunk I was. I swung onto a stool, grasping the edge of the bar to steady myself, realising I was pretty blasted. But a man fit enough to get his leg over a barstool still has some hope. I treated the sailorgirl to the full force of the William Wilson grin and said,
'Great song.'
Close to, the girl’s thick stage makeup grew malicious. Face powder had drifted into the fine lines around her mouth; it rested in the creases that framed her dark eyes and hung amongst the fine down coating her cheeks and upper lip. She looked ten years older than she had on stage, but she was still out of my league. She gave a slight nod of the head, but there was no trace of the smile that had glittered throughout her performance.
'Thank you.'
Her accent was Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Ingrid Bergman all coiled into one well-tuned set of vocal cords. The barman gave me an amused look, then turned his attention to the glass he was cleaning, holding it up to the light, making no move to serve me.
I said ‘Ein Bier, bitte’, pleased my German was coming along, then turned to the girl and gave her my best chat-up line.
'Can I buy you a drink?' She hesitated. I followed her gaze to the table where Dix and Sylvie were deep in conversation, then caught her eyes in mine, forcing her to look at me instead. 'Singing must be a thirsty business.'
It was nowhere near hypnosis, just a cheap use of her good manners, but it worked.
'OK, that would be nice.'
I wondered if she’d put on any underwear, and if my new status as exotic foreigner would add to my pulling power. The ballerina said something to the man behind the bar then turned back to me.
'You’re from London?'
'Via Glasgow.' She looked uncertain and I said, 'Scotland — wind, snow, rain, tartan, haggis, heather, kilts, all that crap.' She nodded and I added, 'We don’t wear anything under our kilts either.'
She laughed, pretending to be shocked, hiding her mouth behind her hand geisha style.
'Then we have something in common.'
'Aye, cold arses.'
The girl giggled. I appreciated the effort.
'My name’s William, William Wilson.'
I stuck out my hand and she took it in her soft grip.
'Zelda.'
The name suited her and I wondered if she’d had it long. The barman returned with something pink and fizzy in a tall fluted glass and said a price that suggested he’d just handed her the elixir of life. I slid a fifty-euro note across the counter and she raised the glass in a jaunty salute.
'Prost!' Zelda took a sip of her drink and gave me a smile that was worth the money.
'You’re a visitor to Berlin?'
'I’m working here, performing at Schall und Rauch.'
The smile was genuine this time.
