"Beautiful, is she?"
"No, not particularly. No."
"Wonderful voice, h'm?"
"N-n-no. I wouldn't say it was what you'd call exactly wonderful."
Sid Hahn stood up in the droshky and waved his short arms in windmill
circles. "Well, what the devil does she do then, that's so good? Carry
bricks!"
"She is good at that. When she balances that pail of mortar on her head
and walks off with it, her arms hanging straight at her sides--"
But Sid Hahn's patience was at an end. "You're a humourist, you are. If
I didn't know you I'd say you were drunk. I'll bet you are, anyway.
You've been eating paprika, raw. You make me sick."
Inelegant, but expressive of his feelings. But Wallie only said, "You
wait. You'll see."
Sid Hahn did see. He saw next day. Wallie woke him out of a sound sleep
so that he might see. It was ten-thirty A.M. so that his peevishness was
unwarranted. They had seen the play the night before and Hahn had
decided that, translated and with interpolations (it was a comic opera),
it would captivate New York. Then and there he completed the
negotiations which Wallie had begun. Hahn was all for taking the first
train out, but Wallie was firm. "You've got to see her, I tell you.
You've got to see her."
Their hotel faced the Corso. The Corso is a wide promenade that runs
along the Buda bank of the Danube. Across the river, on the hill, the
royal palace looks down upon the little common people. In that day the
monde and the demi-monde of Budapest walked on the Corso between twelve
and one. Up and down. Up and down. The women, tall, dark, flashing-eyed,
daringly dressed. The men sallow, meagre, and wearing those trousers
which, cut very wide and flappy at the ankles, make them the dowdiest
men in the world. Hahn's room and Wallie's were on the second floor of
the hotel, and at a corner. One set of windows faced the Corso, the
river, and Pest on the hill. The other set looked down upon a new
building being erected across the way. It was on this building that
Mizzi Markis worked as hod carrier.
The war accustomed us to a million women in overalls doing the work of a
million men. We saw them ploughing, juggling steel bars, making shells,
running engines, stoking furnaces, handling freight. But to these two
American men, at that time, the thing at which these labouring women
were employed was dreadful and incredible.
Said Wallie "By the time we've dressed, and had breakfast, and walked a
little and everything, it'll be almost noon. And noon's the time. After
they've eaten their lunch. But I want you to see her before."
By now his earnestness had impressed Hahn who still feigned an
indifference he did not feel. It was about 11:30 when Wallie propelled
him by the arm to the unfinished building across the way. And there he
met Mizzi.
They were just completing the foundation. The place was a busy hive.
Back and forth with pails. Back and forth with loads of bricks.
"What's the matter with the men?" was Hahn's first question.
Wallie explained. "They do the dainty work. They put one brick on top of
the other, with a dab of mortar between. But none of the back-breaking
stuff for them. The women do that."
And it was so. They were down in the pits mixing the mortar, were the
women. They were carrying great pails of it. They were hauling bricks up
one ladder and down. They wore short, full skirts with a
musical-comedy-chorus effect. Some of them looked seventy and some
seventeen. It was fearful work for a woman. A keen wind was blowing
across the river. Their hands were purple.
"Pick Mizzi," said Wallie. "If you can pick her I'll know I'm right. But
I know it, anyway."
Five minutes passed. The two men stood silent. "The one with the walk
and the face," said Hahn, then. Which wasn't very bright of him, because
they all walked and they all had faces. "Going up the pit-ladder now.
With the pail on her head." Wallie gave a little laugh of triumph. But
then, Hahn wouldn't have been Hahn had he not been able to pick a
personality when he saw it.
Years afterward the reviewers always talked of Mizzi's walk. They called
it her superb carriage. They didn't know that you have to walk very
straight, on the balls of your feet, with your hips firm, your stomach
held in flat, your shoulders back, your chest out, your chin out and a
little down, if you are going to be at all successful in balancing a
pail of mortar on your head. After a while that walk becomes a habit.
"Watch her with that pail," said Wallie.
Mizzi filled the pail almost to the top with the heavy white mixture.
She filled it quickly, expertly. The pail, filled, weighed between
seventeen and twenty kilos. One kilo is equal to about two and one fifth
pounds. The girl threw down her scoop, stooped, grasped the pail by its
two handles, and with one superb, unbroken motion raised the pail high
in her two strong arms and placed it on her head. Then she breathed
deeply, once, set her whole figure, turned stiffly, and was off with it.
Sid Hahn took on a long breath as though he himself had just
accomplished the gymnastic feat.
"Well, so far it's pretty good. But I don't know that the American stage
is clamouring for any hod carriers and mortar mixers, exactly."
A whistle blew. Twelve o'clock. Bricks, mortar, scoops, shovels were
abandoned. The women, in their great clod-hopping shoes, flew
chattering to the tiny hut where their lunch boxes were stored. The men
followed more slowly, a mere handful of them. Not one of them wore
overalls or apron. Out again with their bundles and boxes of food--very
small bundles. Very tiny boxes. They ate ravenously the bread and
sausage and drank their beer in great gulps. Fifteen minutes after the
whistle had blown the last crumb had vanished.
"Now, then," said Wallie, and guided Hahn nearer. He looked toward
Mizzi. Everyone looked toward her. Mizzi stood up, brushing crumbs from
her lap. She had a little four-cornered black shawl, folded cross-wise,
over her head and tied under her chin. Her face was round and her cheeks
red. The shawl, framing this, made her look very young and cherubic.
She did not put her hands on her hips, or do any of those story-book
things. She grinned, broadly, showing strong white teeth made strong and
white through much munching of coarse black bread; not yet showing the
neglect common to her class. She asked a question in a loud, clear
voice.
"What's that?" asked Hahn.
"She's talking a kind of hunky Hungarian, I guess. The people here won't
speak German, did you know that? They hate it."
The crowd shouted back with one voice. They settled themselves
comfortably, sitting or standing. Their faces held the broad smile of
anticipation.
"She asked them what they want her to sing. They told her. It's the same
every day."
Mizzi Markis stood there before them in the mud, and clay, and straw of
the building débris. And she sang for them a Hungarian popular song of
the day which, translated, sounds idiotic and which runs something like
this:
A hundred geese in a row
Going into the coop.
At the head of the procession
A stick over his shoulder--
No, you can't do it. It means less than nothing that way, and certainly
would not warrant the shrieks of mirth that came from the audience
gathered round the girl. Still, when you recall the words of "A Hot
Time":
When you hear dem bells go ding-ling-ling,
All join round and sweetly you must sing
And when the words am through in the chorus all join in
There'll be a _hot time_
In the _old town_
To-night.
My
Ba-
By.
And yet it swept this continent, and Europe, and in Japan they still
think it's our national anthem.
When she had finished, the crowd gave a roar of delight, and clapped
their hands, and stamped their feet, and shouted. She had no unusual
beauty. Her voice was untrained though possessed of strength and
flexibility. It wasn't what she had sung, surely. You heard the song in
a hundred cafés. Every street boy whistled it. It wasn't that expressive
pair of shoulders, exactly. It wasn't a certain soothing tonal quality
that made you forget all the things you'd been trying not to remember.
There is something so futile and unconvincing about an attempted
description of an intangible thing. Some call it personality; some call
it magnetism; some a rhythm sense; and some, genius. It's all these
things, and none of them. Whatever it is, she had it. And whatever it
is, Sid Hahn has never failed to recognize it.