The orchestra struck up the overture—a hastily reconstituted version of the Tales of the Vienna Woods, which had, despite itself, a rather oriental character, due to our instruments: water pipes and water xylophones, garbage can tympani, and a string section of barbed wire and bedsprings.
When the effect of these splendors began to dim, Pluto, in sacerdotal robes and a long false gray beard, came centerstage and declaimed, in his most magistral tone: “And Behold!”
And behold, the chorus lines of Herod’s wives and concubines came marching in from stage right and stage left, respectively, one thousand strong. They overflowed the stage and filled the courtyard. Not Solomon in all his glory had it so good.
“And behold, it came to pass in those days that Herod was Tetrarch of Galilee. Even Herod Antipasto—”
Herod Antipasto, with a Falstaffian gut, size 15 shoes, a putty nose, and long, gray moustaches not unlike the Captain’s, entered at the end of the chorus line, hiking up his fancy robes and kicking his hairy legs, blithely out of time with the orchestra’s galop, and pinching occasional asses to the loud delight of his audience.
“Now Herod was a cruel king who liked nothing better than his brother’s wife, Herodias Antipasto—unless it was his brother’s wife’s daughter, Salami Antipasto.” Enter Herodias, swinging her boa. Enter Salami, in a sedan chair borne by eight Nubians. For the time being, Salami kept her beauty dimmed behind the curtains of the sedan chair, only peeking out briefly to wink in my direction. Frangle, sitting beside me, exclaimed: “Did you see that? Did you see how she looked right at me?”
“Now it came to pass in those days, even then, that Herod, Tetrarch of Galilee, had a big party, and he invited everybody. He invited the Romans and their wives…” Enter the Romans and their wives. “The Egyptians and their wives.” Who entered. “The Nubians and their wives.” And many more, each doing the characteristic national striptease. But somehow, no matter how many Herod invited, the courtyard never seemed to get any more crowded.
When everyone had got to the party at last, Pluto assumed a gloomy tone: “But Herod had forgotten to invite one person to his big party, and that person found out that he’d been left out in the cold, and he was very angry, and behold he was called the Baptist, even St Bernard.”
Enter the aforementioned, with much clashing of garbage cans. St Bernard sang the Toreador Song from Carmen, with new lyrics that expressed his pique at not receiving an invitation and also scolds the Tetrarch for marrying his brother’s wife. This accomplished, he joined Motherlove, as Salami, in the love duet from La Bohème.
“And behold, Herod waxed hot with anger, and he ordered his henchmen to put the Baptist down in the dungeon, and behold St Bernard the Baptist slew three hundred soldiers with the jawbone of an ass!”
And sure enough, behold—for twenty minutes St Bernard lay about him, scattering the dead on all sides. The stage swarmed with litter bearers and nurses and fresh replacements. It had scarcely been cleared stage right, before St Bernard had reaped a new harvest stage left—and singing all the while. It was a wonderful fight, and the groundlings loved it, but the odds were against him, and at last he was caught and hauled away. To celebrate Herod’s victory, a thousand new dancing girls trooped in to the strains of the Triumphal March from Aida.
Pluto’s narration went on to describe how Salami and the Baptist were passionately in love with each other, but that Herod was determined to keep them apart because he loved Salami himself. Salami, hoping to save her lover, goes to her mother Herodias, who persuades her daughter (and this is the part that Pluto lifted from the Rita Hayworth movie) to dance the Dance of the Seven Veils for the Tetrarch, who has promised her any favor in return. Salami thinks the favor will be St Bernard’s release, but bad old Herodias asks for his head on a silver salver instead. What a plot! At least, that’s what was supposed to have happened, but at the point when there was to have been the big scene between the Antipastos, man and wife, a ballet of the slave girls was interpolated. Pluto was gesturing frantically for me to come backstage. Excusing myself to Frangle, Quilty, and the Reverend Captain, I left my front-row-center seat and went to see what was amiss.
“Herod has deserted!” Clea announced in dire tone, exhibiting the castoff costume. “He couldn’t wait to run off to Needlepoint Hill with the Egyptians.”
“Are all the pets gone now?” I asked. Unnecessarily, for I could see the steady streams of prisoners still hurrying out the gate under the supervision of Palmino and his four friends—who had volunteered to miss the stage show and man the lookout towers that night. Many of the pets ran right from the wings into the departing throng as soon as their business on stage was completed.
“Only six thousand are out,” Pluto confessed. “We’re ten minutes behind schedule because of the late curtain, but we’re catching up. The problem is Herod. We forgot to assign an understudy, and nobody knows the part.”
“Somebody has to go on—that much is obvious. I don’t care who you pick.”
“We thought…” St Bernard began hesitatingly. “… that you might.”
“You see, my darling, the other pets really have no idea of what we’re about,” Clea explained. “It’s easy enough for the girls to go out there and do a little belly dance, but the actor doing Herod was beside himself with the pain of the vulgarity. And we thought that since you’ve come to know the Dingoes so well…”
“But they’ve come to know me so well too!”
“But with this big tummy and the false moustache and a putty nose and a little rouge and mascara, they won’t. Please, White Fang, don’t be difficult. We can’t make those poor slave girls dance all night.” Clea took advantage of the time to prepare me for the rôle, and by the end of her entreaty I was more fit to go on as Herod than to return to my seat in front, so I gave in. Besides, as Pluto had known very well, I love amateur theatricals.
My first scene, with Herodias, was easy to ad-lib. The bargain was struck by which Salami was to do her bit and St Bernard was to have his head taken off. Then I settled back to watch, having no other business during the dance than to scramble out on all fours and pick up each of the seven veils as Motherlove let them fall, then bay like a wolf in appreciation. In all fairness I must say that her dance merited no less.
The first veil, for instance, revealed Motherlove’s arms—as graceful and ivory a pair as ever clasped a Tetrarch’s neck, hands like two doves, tipped with long almond nails that even the cruel regimen of prison life had not spoiled.
The second veil uncovered Motherlove’s classic nose and sculpted lips, parted, as the veil fell, in a taunting and suggestive smile, more exciting than many another woman’s kiss.
Motherlove spent as much time over the third veil as if she had been undoing the Gordian knot, and when it at last fell, the audience and I broke into a roar of approval. Motherlove’s legs were long, firm and elegantly muscled. When they moved in time to the crash of the cymbals and squeal of strings, one seemed to feel that the science of anatomy held no more mysteries. Such a feeling, however, was premature.