You, Fascinating You

YOU, FASCINATING YOU

GERMAINE SHAMES

Based on the true story of Hungarian ballerina Margit Wolf and Italian composer Pasquale Frustaci aka the Italian Cole Porter

Published by Pale Fire Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 by Germaine Shames

This book is a work of fiction. Although based on historical events, characters and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission.

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ISBN: 978-0-9838612-1-8

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Cover image by Stanislav Belyaevsky: http://www.artballetphoto.com

You, Fascinating You online: http://palefirepress.com

Germaine Shames online: http://germainewrites.com

For information about subsidiary rights, bulk purchases, or author events, contact [email protected].

~ ~ ~

In memory of Margit Wolf

And for all the artists - dancers, musicians, singers, actors, painters, playwrights, authors, filmmakers - whose oeuvres were cut short by the Holocaust and whose loss history has yet to reckon.

~ ~ ~

ACCLAIM FOR GERMAINE SHAMES’

YOU, FASCINATING YOU

A love story reminiscent of that of my grandparents. I could not put it down. -Kinga Nijinsky Gaspers

Germaine Shames’ beautiful depiction of the life of Margit Wolf and Pasquale Frustaci is told with such vivid and haunting detail, it’s as if the reader is propelled back in time to witness a devastating journey of shattered dreams, juxtaposed with the strength and courage of the human heart. A tragic story, beautifully written. - Susan Jaffe, America’s quintessential ballerina

Germaine paints a vivid and accurate portrait of the world of ballet in pre and post-war Europe. The epic drama expected on the ballet stage is dwarfed by the tragic real life events of her ballerina heroine, Margit Wolf. Penetrating descriptions of political brutality and the prepossession of romantic love, an ever present theme in classical ballet, make for a page-turning, impelling read. -Janet Panetta, Ballet Master Tanztheater Pina Bausch, lnt'l Guest Teacher NYC & PARTS

An epic story and a true story. Margit Wolf's life is the kind of character journey that makes for great movies. -Howard Allen, the Script Doctor

In this heartbreaking and original novel based on the life of Hungarian ballerina Margit Wolf, Germaine Shames has crafted a story that will absorb readers fascinated not only by history and art, but romantic obsession. From Wolf's touching point of view, we see a valiant Jewish artist swept along by a combination of political horrors and her unfailing passion for her husband, famed Italian composer Pasquale Frustaci, who refuses to help her and her son escape from brutal life under the Nazis occupying Hungary. Shames' faithful, carefully researched portrayal of Wolf's blindness and history's cruelty makes this a compelling read. -Elizabeth Evans, author of The Blue Hour

Shames captures the essence of a ballerina with such expertise in her riveting story. Dancers succeed by creating beauty from effort; this book, too, shows that exquisite art can be made from history’s hardships. - Elana Altman, soloist dancer, San Francisco Ballet

"They say love is blind, and so is a ballerina’s resolve - in You, Fascinating You Germaine has captured both. The fact that Margit gave up everything - everything - to protect her son and defend her choices broke my heart. I have never read what happened to the Jews of Hungary told from this perspective, with evil seeping in like a shadow no one could detect. This beautiful story made me give gratitude for all the freedoms I have in front of me, and for the freedom to dance wherever, and whenever, I please." - Georgia Reed, actress and dancer

Compelling, heart-wrenching, and heroic. - Jim Bencivenga

~ ~ ~

ALSO BY GERMAINE SHAMES

BETWEEN TWO DESERTS

Shames, a former Middle East correspondent, handles the complexities of Eve's visit to war-torn Jerusalem with a subtlety seldom seen in this genre. She is careful not to pass judgment on either side of the political equation as she skillfully intertwines the lives of this diverse cast of characters to produce a tightly executed, emotion-filled work. -Publisher's Weekly

(The novelist) creates the intense atmosphere of an unstable world with grace and a sort of lyric power. -National Public Radio

"One might expect the journalist and novelist to approach this story quite differently, but in Between Two Deserts, foreign correspondent Germaine Shames has realized a combination of these crafts, lucidly capturing those immutable qualities that speak to our souls." -Rain Taxi

An evocative plea for the power of love in the heart of Middle East turmoil. -Kirkus Reviews

In Jerusalem where rhetoric and revenge rule, Shames shows us humanity and insight. -Bloomsbury Review

~ ~ ~

In the final weeks of 1938, in the shadow of Kristallnacht and imminent war, a heartsick Italian maestro wrote a love song called "Tu Solamente Tu."

Its lyrics lamented his forced separation from his wife, the Hungarian ballerina Margit Wolf, in the wake of Mussolini’s edict banishing foreign Jews from Italy. The song, first recorded by Vittorio de Sica in 1939, catapulted to the top of the Hit Parade and earned its composer the moniker the Italian Cole Porter. The German version, "Du Immer Wieder Du, would be performed by Zarah Leander, the foremost film star of the German Reich, and its English counterpart, You, Fascinating You," by the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band.

Twenty-two years would pass before the maestro and his ballerina again met face-to-face. This is their story.

~ ~ ~

Table of Contents

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

Eulogy Never to Be Delivered

Cesare Frustaci Remembers

Acknowledgments

About the Author

~ ~ ~

PART ONE

"You are, you are

That love I was waiting for all my life…"

"Ho Travato L’Amore"

I Have Found Love

They say ballet chooses the dancer. I, Margit Wolf, am twice chosen.

My father Mano Wolf worked as master tailor to the Hungarian State Opera. We lived a few doors away at 28 Andrássy út, an elegant address despite its dearth of plumbing. At every window flocked hosts of pigeons blown inland by a moody Danube, and in the parlor, between the spinet piano and my mother’s heirloom curio cabinet, stood the sewing machine that dressed half the Romeos east of the Alps. All the greatest actors, the greatest dancers of the day would come to our flat to be suited out as princes, satyrs, sylphs ... The sewing machine occupied the center of the living room. Clients would disrobe behind an oriental screen and step out transformed, standing tall with self-importance while my father crawled at their feet on all fours, his mouth barbed by straight pins.

Make like you’re on the stage.

The players would strut a soliloquy, the baritones belt out an aria, the ballet dancers camber and curtsey testing the reinforced seams, inspecting the flawless drape of the fabric. The tailor was no less an artist than his clients, yet he received no accolades, only more orders. He seldom left his machine. All the perfect little stitches, the dull and niggling little stitches, and the contraption chirring, always thirsty for oil.

I hoarded the scraps - silks, velvets, damasks. The feel of them spoke to me of worlds stitched together not with thread but light. Let others wield the needle, I would wear the fine costumes, I would make the hemlines sway and billow like a nimbus.

At the age of four, while my brother József learned the leather trade and my sister Rosa fine stitchery, I began training as a ballerina. At seventeen, having attained the swan-goddess ideal - spine elongated, execution flawless, ambition forged - opportunity trod on my heels. His name: Pippo Buffarino. Buffarino of Milan, who had the gumption to call himself an impresario.

A commanding figure the Italian was not. He had the dimensions of a milk crate with legs poking out. He parted his hair down the center and smoked pencil-thin cigars from an ivory holder the length of a billiard cue. Having no business with the administration, he loitered at the stage door. "Scusi! Scusi! When we dancers walked out he would charge forward, bow in reverence, and proffer a card monogrammed in gilt letters. Then came the one Hungarian phrase he had rehearsed to perfection: Kezitcsokolom." I kiss your hand.

My companion Karola and I stepped out together that night linking arms, radiant after a second curtain call. Finding no way around the little man, we took his card and studied it in the scant light of streetlamps: Impresario, La Scala, Milano … words to quicken the pulse.

"I was in the audience tonight, signorine. The stranger spoke a patchwork of languages punctuated by hand gestures. I have seen you dance. Such talent, it humbles me. Wasted here. In Italy we know how to appreciate exquisite ballerinas like yourselves, we worship at the altar of your talent. That is my business."

You work at La Scala? Karola replied in the archaic French of classical ballet.

Let us say I have connections. If I say, give this goddess an audition, she gets an audition.

Whether we dance like goddesses or scrubwomen makes little difference, said Karola. However hard we work, we languish in the chorus.

A waste, a waste…

We have trained from the time we could walk, we have had no life apart from ballet, and what can we look forward to? A dancer's prime lasts no longer than a few seasons.

What role do you covet, tell me?

I stood by while my friend, her dimples deepening, plucked a bit of lint from Buffarino's lapel. Any role will do, so long as I am prima ballerina. But it's starting to rain. Why don’t we discuss this over a coffee? The Lukács’ nearby.

"With pleasure, signorina, but I'm not a man to make small talk. I return to Milan within the week. I have space for four ballerinas. Accompany me, both of you, and I will strew your path with roses. You will have all Italy at your feet."

I could keep silent no longer. For a chance at La Scala, I would dance the Firebird on a tightrope!

Karola and the Italian turned to look at me, but I couldn't see their faces. The streetlamps cast them into silhouette, dark masks behind which comedy and tragedy mingled. Buffarino gabbled rather than laughed. A tightrope, eh? Why not? I can make something of a girl like you.

He gave a parting bow, faintly clicked his heels, and hurried off on his ten-pin legs, puffing smoke into a sky bare of the palest star. Gazing after him, Karola breathed into the fox collar of her coat, This is it, our ticket out of here.

And your family?

My mother will cry, my father will get drunk, and in the end neither can do a damn thing to stop me. I'm eighteen. I pay my own way.

A year her junior, I could only wonder at her bravado.

She turned to me and said with complete assurance, My parents would run off themselves given half a chance.

Unloved Budapest. People were always leaving - to escape hunger or persecution, to seek their fortune. Somehow I always knew that I would leave, too. The winters were endless, the summers a mere glimmer, and everywhere the same weathered facades, averted eyes, locked doors.

There was no question of sleeping that night. Beside me in the trundle bed we shared, my sister Rosa curled like a drying leaf. I lay awake and thought of my first ballet master, Nicola Guerra, whom I’d known only briefly but whose face I pictured vividly with its meteoric changes of expression, brooding one moment, playful the next. "So, little mouse, you want to be a ballerina? I will make you one, but first you must bring me the moon. It’s closer than you might think." At six, I heard my mother rouse from sleep and pad to the kitchen to start the hot chocolate. Minutes later, my father followed, silent but for the shuffling of his leather slippers. I rose from bed, washed, and took my customary place beside him at the kitchen table.

Up so early? How was the performance last night?

Nothing special.

Szidonia, he said to my mother, who stood stationed at the wood stove, come feel her head. She looks flushed.

I'm fine. You’d think I was an invalid the way you pamper me.

The late nights, and you hardly eat.

There's something you should know. A man came to the theater last night, an impresario, and he's offered me a place.

An impresario? In Budapest?

A Milanese from La Scala. He's offered me a place at La Scala. This wasn't entirely true, of course, but why trouble my parents with nuance, why torment them with doubt? They had little enough to believe in.

My mother turned from the stove with more than her usual gravity, both hands already wringing her apron. Can we trust this man?

Perhaps he has references, my father, shrug-shouldered in his worn dressing gown, suggested.

I could ask.

Fine. Good. Ask.

He drank his cocoa hurriedly, fussing with the cuffs of his robe. My mother busied herself with breakfast. They would never stand in my way, I knew, would never pit their loss against my ambition.

I saw Buffarino again after the next performance.

So, my firebird, what have you decided? He stood, cigarette holder in hand, looking more theatrical than foreign.

For me, there is no decision to make, but my father - what have you in the way of references?

Your father, I take it, has never traveled? Anyone in Milan, in Paris, in Vienna could tell him about Buffarino and his ballerinas. Name any of the grand opera houses and my girls have danced there.

Of course, but is there someone he might wire? Someone familiar with your reputation?

At that moment Karola stepped out from the stage door, and his attention fixed on her like a precision lens. The goddess herself! Breathless you leave me.

Whether or not I joined the troupe mattered little to the Italian, who could easily have left Hungary with a dozen dancers as avid and well trained as I. The slightest hesitation might have lost me my place.

This Buffarino is no small fish, I told my father at breakfast the next morning. Colleagues say he launched Grisi - Carlotta Grisi, the Italian prima ballerina - and also Fanny Elssler, the Viennese. Took her all the way to America.

He sat expressionless.

Your chocolate's getting cold.

His eyes fastened on my hands, which had acquired grace without losing a natural restlessness. I strained to hold them still. Having given me to ballet, my father could only admire its effect.

I don't like to think of you so far away, he said.

"You won't lose me, apa. I know my way home."

Go, Margit. He looked so small across the table, emptied of whatever it is that gives a man stature. Go as far as your talent will take you. I'll be here.

By week's end, our quartet of hopefuls - Karola, Teréz, Ilona and I, known throughout the ballet academy as the Pas de Quatre - had cast its lot with the itinerant Buffarino. Four girls who had entered the school awkward and unformed, and gravitated toward one another for no apparent reason. We had nothing in common apart from ballet - but then, what else was there? Long hours at the barre, at rehearsal, waiting in the wings… we seldom saw daylight. The same rigid alchemy had been worked on us all. Ilona, double-jointed with slanting eyes, could be moody; bottom-heavy Teréz stubborn; Karola, dimpled, everyone’s favorite, vain. But at night, when we lay down to sleep, we dreamed the same dream: to dance center-stage with all eyes upon us, to receive the bouquet of roses, to be loved. To be loved as only a Giselle or Juliet could be.

Having rent the family fabric and said our goodbyes, we piled into Buffarino’s waxed Fiat. Its roof sagged under the weight of all we could not leave behind. Pushcart vendors shuffled past, street sweepers with their boar-bristle brooms. My brother József came to see me off, carrying the tin trunk that held my favored possessions. He took in the Italian through narrowed eyes, shook his hand with some reluctance, and said, Take care of her. We know people in Italy.

We didn't, of course. Buffarino emitted one of his gabbling laughs. Relax, relax, I treat your sister like the Queen of Sheba.

The car engine backfired and we lurched forward. József stood in the middle of the street with one arm in the air, not waving, still as a paving stone. I called out to him, Kiss mama, kiss papa… but we were all shouting something, all sobbing and giggling, and the engine drowned out everything but the fanfare inside my head.

* *

It was late on a Sunday night when we pulled into our first Italian city of some size. All the buildings stood shuttered. Prostitutes posed on the curbs. The sky was tinged fuchsia and warm rain seeped from it. Having been motion-sick from the time we left Budapest, I slid to the pitted sidewalk and swayed on my feet.

This is it? Ilona said, sounding as deflated as the Fiat’s tires.

We must be on the outskirts.

The guy’s a pimp, muttered Karola, he’s brought us to the red light district.

As if on cue a woman in stilettos and a lace petticoat glanced in the Italian’s direction and spat.

That must be one of his harlots.

Buffarino, oblivious of our mounting panic, began to offload luggage. You like risotto? How about a nice veal cutlet? I got an appetite like a herd of charging bullocks.

Ilona’s chin rose in the direction of a seedy hotel. That must be the brothel.

Let him go first, whispered Teréz. If you see red satin, make a run for it.

"You girls got your figures to worry about, but not me. We’ll start with antipasto - you like anchovies? I like anchovies. Washed down with a little vino bianco …"

I’m going to be sick.

If he tries anything, go for his male parts.

You like tripe soup? Nothing like it. Secret’s in the oil. And Gorgonzola, I’ve known Hungarians to swoon over the Gorgonzola…

Excuse me, Mr. Buffarino. Karola tapped him on a shoulder.

Pippo, he corrected her. Call me Pippo.

"I’ve seen photographs of Milan, Mr. Buffarino. We’ve all seen photographs. They don’t look like - like this."

Smart girl, the Italian said with condescension. You’re right, Milan is bigger. Milan’s got the Duomo, etcetera. We’re not in Milan.

Not in Milan?

This is Novara, my goddesses.

But I’ve never heard of Novara.

Never heard of Novara? The Italian let out a gasp. Some of the greatest ballerinas of all time got their start in Novara: Taglione, Duncan, Pavlova… and then on to Milan! The critics are already lining up. Never fails.

We looked at one another, doubting.

Why the long faces? I’ll put you in a nice pension, get you a hot meal. Tomorrow you’ll wake up and say, ‘That Pippo, what a prince!’ You’ll thank me. Now, could you just give me a little hand? What do I look like, Charles Atlas?

Not knowing what else to do, we gathered up the luggage and tramped after him into the dank lobby of the Ostello Buona Notte. The night clerk roused from a nap and eyed us with a brand of lechery that stung at first but would soon become familiar.

Your latest? he said to Buffarino.

Mind your business, rejoined our protector, jabbing at the hotel register with a leaky Ancora. And wake up the cook. I got an appetite like the Huns storming Constantinople.

Wasn’t there a famine in Constantinople?

Smart guy. Just get me the cook.

In daylight Novara looked less threatening, a town not without charm, but our spirits had deflated and could not be buoyed by promises. Buffarino drove us to what he called the opera house, a boxy edifice with posters glued to every inch of wall. Inside, a motley assortment of entertainers - singers, actors, a trained poodle - moped in the wings, waiting for a chance to rehearse. An orchestra tuned up. The stage bore the scuffmarks of every foot that had ever crossed it.

Excuse me, Mr. Buffarino, Karola started in again, "but this isn’t an opera house. We all know what an opera house is, we grew up in one. This" - she made a sweeping gesture not unlike a rond de bras - this is no venue for a ballet.

Not an opera house? But only last month I attended an opera under this very roof. The Italian broke into a pout. If it’s not an opera house, what is it?

A music hall, I said flatly. You promised us La Scala and brought us to a music hall.

I brought you out of Babylon to the Promised Land! You’ve been so long in a backwater that you don’t recognize culture when you see it. Your sensibilities aren’t attuned. Drop your airs, my goddesses. They’ll do you no good here.

We saw no more of our deliverer that day. The conductor, a jaunty figure with hair like Valentino’s, winked in our direction, and I had the impression that he was amused by our plight, had been a witness to it countless times before. Indeed, no one seemed inclined to offer the least sympathy. A wardrobe mistress, whose name we didn’t catch, led us through a massive storeroom, gradually disappearing behind an armload of gaudy costumes.

I won’t be seen in these bits and bobs, said Ilona, swiping away tears with a lace-edged hankie. We’re classically-trained ballerinas, not can-can dancers.

"Were, you mean. Karola’s voice went glassy. She took a hand-rolled cigarette from her satchel and lit-up. We’ve got no ticket home. We don’t even know where we are. That this place - call it what you will - lacks category, who but Buffarino would think to debate? But even if it’s nothing but a fleabag, when that curtain goes up I’m going to dance."

You’ll disgrace yourself, disgrace the art, and for what? Ilona was weeping openly by then, her tartar eyes dark as drowning pools. We’ll never see the inside of La Scala. We’ll be less than whores.

You talk like my mother. This is 1928.

Some things don’t change.

Karola dragged on her cigarette and turned to follow the costume mistress. What the heck else can we do? If you’re so virtuous, tell me what to do. We spoke no more about it.

* *

Have I mentioned Pasquale? The orchestra leader. Maestro Frustaci, a native of Naples, was working at that theater in Novara when the four of us arrived. Not a braggart exactly but unabashedly Neapolitan, the maestro held sway from the first note of the overture until the final ovation, at which time he’d promptly vanish from the theater, always with a woman on his arm. He favored dancers. That much was common knowledge. He treated me no differently from any other: a polite nod to my face, a discreet glance at my posterior.

Watch out for that one, counseled Karola, who from her first performance in Italy was besieged by suitors. "A