When Goodman started the clarinet lick of ‘When It’s Sleepy Time Down South’, the notes jetting out like liquid, he turned to his father. Nick expected to see his face soft with nostalgia, but it was cramped, white, and he realized that his father hadn’t been preoccupied but worried. Even the music couldn’t reach him, wherever he was. Nick looked at him for a second, wondering what was wrong, then made himself turn back. Don’t ruin it. He’d find out later. Now they were here, not in some troubled past, not even anymore in Prague.
There was an intermission after ‘Avalon’ and he went with Molly to the bar, his father staying behind, sitting it out. The lobby was filled with smoke and spilled beer, and the crowd was even more energetic than before, loud with drink. It took a while to get the beers, then a few more minutes to find Molly. She was standing near the door, her back to him, talking to someone. For a moment Nick hesitated. Jiri again? Then she moved slightly and he saw that it was Marty Bielak. Why not? It was his music too.
“Hello,” Bielak said. “Enjoying it?”
I was, Nick wanted to say, but just nodded, handing Molly her glass.
“Of course, I remember the Meadowbrook,” Bielak said. “Before your time. Helen Ward was the vocalist then. And the Long Island Casino. That was something.”
Nick tried to imagine him young, skinny, with a date by the bandstand, raring to go.
“The good old days,” Nick said.
Bielak glanced at him. “Well, the music was good. Maybe not the days.” And then, wanting to be pleasant, “It was another time. Everybody danced. It was always dance music, you know. Not for sitting. To think I’d be here in a concert hall-”
“In Prague,” Nick finished.
“Yes, in Prague. But the music doesn’t change.”
The lights flashed, the signal to return.
“Well, it’s good you could come,” Bielak said. “A taste of home, eh?”
Did he really think this is what they still danced to? An exile’s memory, stopped in time. Nick saw his father suddenly, walking down streets he thought he knew, amazed at buildings that shouldn’t be there.
“They seem to like it,” Nick said, nodding to the crowd.
“What’s not to like? Well, it’s that time.” He tossed back his drink.
He seemed to be waiting for them, but when Nick said, “We’ll just finish these,” he nodded and said, “Enjoy. I’d better get back upstairs. I don’t want to miss anything.”
“You’re in a box?” Nick said involuntarily. With the Party men. A bird’s-eye view, to look over the crowd.
Bielak smiled weakly. “No, higher. The cheap seats.” He moved toward the stairs.
“C’mon,” Molly said, “they’re starting.”
“No. I don’t want him to see us.” A legman. “Wait a minute.”
The crowd had started yelling and clapping, and Nick heard the opening drums of “Sing, Sing, Sing.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Don’t you think it’s funny, his running into us like that?”
“Maybe. Anyway, he has seen us, so what’s the difference? Come on.”
But he held back. Were their seats visible from the balcony? “Not yet. Give it a minute.”
“Okay. So what’s our cover?” she said mischievously. “Want to dance? Can you?”
“Can you?”
“In this crowd?” She laughed, and Nick took in the couples around them, exuberant but awkward, as if they had picked up the steps from old movies.
“Chicken,” she said, leaning into him. On the stage, the brass section stood up, horns blaring, infectious.
“Say that again.”
“Chicken,” she said, putting her hand in his to start the movement. And then suddenly he didn’t care who was there and he swung her out and they were dancing, his arm reaching over to turn her around, then lead her back, laughing at the surprise in her face. How many years had it been? You’ll never know when it will come in handy, his mother had said. Mrs Pritchard’s class, an agony on Tuesday nights. The girls tall, in flats to mitigate their growth spurts, the boys resentful, shirts never quite tucked in. When am I ever going to have to know the rumba? On boats, darling, she’d said. They dance on boats. And the lindy, another generation’s dance, learned step by step but now, like riding a bicycle, all familiar and fluid, so that he could do it fast, Molly trying to follow, arm over, then back, finally come in handy, here of all places.
