November 20th, 1941, 21:30
Lili Rouge studied herself in the mirror. Her blue eyeshadow had smudged, forming an ugly lump halfway into her right temple. She dunked a cotton ball in some acetone, delicately brushed away the offending smudge, and smiled. Her teeth shined in the electric light of her dressing room, made brighter by the crimson and glitter of her soft lips. She had a small team of people to help with her costumes and her hair, but Rouge preferred to do makeup herself: it was a ritual from hungrier days, when she'd had to bare far more than her shoulders to make a living.
Tonight was her last night in Alexandria. Per their contract with the Royal Air Force, she and Bunnie were supposed to be doing their show in Tobruk, about four hundred miles west and in Libya, not Egypt; but the tide of war had turned against the Brits. Now Rommel's panzers formed a ring of steel and fire around that ancient port city. Come morning, they would board a clunky passenger plane to Delhi, stay a couple days, then fly to Singapore and stay there for a week. By the end of that week, her and Bunnie's contract with the RAF would end, and their contract with the US Navy would begin. They'd fly to the Philippine capital of Manila, stay for two weeks, and then hop eastward between every Navy and Marine base between Guam and Santa Barbara, California. Then they would be stateside once more, where they would never have to worry about the Luftwaffe interrupting a show again.
She touched up a thin spot on her lips. No Luftwaffe, no panzers, no worries about where to hide her signed first edition copy of Brave New World, and no war. No chapped lips, either. She'd never been to the Philippines before, but her and Bunnie's agent had told her they were mostly jungly, swampy islands, filled with mosquitoes, crocodiles, and all manner of snakes; in other words, not too different from the blackwater bayou she came from. She honestly looked forward to it.
A knock at the door turned her head. "Lights up. You're on in ten minutes," said a gruff, young voice.
"That is much appreciated, Ahmed." Speech schooling had almost flattened the Cajun accent out of her voice, though th sounds still sounded more like d to her. After a quick inspection of her face, hair, and clothing, she pulled on her arm-length white gloves and swept out of the dressing room. As she walked, her tastefully low-cut dress flowed over her body in waves of red glitter. Ahmed, a neat, brown weasel with a pencil mustache, handed her the black case containing the violin she would use for tonight's show.
The red velvet curtains of the stage were down, and the stage itself was bare, but for a standing microphone and a pair of wooden stools, each about two feet high. She sat down, retrieved her violin from the case, and performed a quick test to make sure the tuning she'd done earlier that day hadn't been undone. Satisfied, she allowed herself to look around and wonder what was taking Bunnie so long this time.
Ahmed waved to her, mouthed Bunnie? over the noise generated by the cabaret patrons on the other side of the curtain, who sounded well and truly drunk by now.
Rouge shook her head, mouthed No clue.
Ahmed disappeared behind the background curtains, then reappeared almost instantly, nodding. Fifteen seconds. He ducked back into the curtains.
Over the speakers, a voice that reminded her of Fred Astaire announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, please give your standing ovation to tonight's final performance from Bunnie Rabot and Countess Rouge!"
No sign of her co-star. The show must go on, Rouge thought. Automatically, the young bat assumed her role. She crossed her long legs, took up her violin, and rested her jaw on it as she sat up straight. As the curtain came up, as the spotlights turned to meet her, as the two hundred strong audience clapped excitedly, Rouge closed her eyes to give the impression of a snooty countess sitting alone in her parlor. She began to play "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", but at such a soulful, languid pace that it sounded like a piece of classical music. The conductor in the orchestra box directed the small in-house jazz band to follow her pace. She smiled softly as she ran through the lyrics in her mind.
Oh the merry-go-round broke down
And made the darndest sound
Each time we missed, we'd steal a kiss
As the merry-go-round went 'round!
Played like this, the traditionally jaunty tune sounded almost like a nostalgic anthem for the poor, broken merry-go-round.
Oh, what fun, what a wonderful time!
Finding love for only a dime...
She made her eyes open slowly, sultrily, as she glanced at the empty chair opposite herself. Maybe she wants to improv tonight? Rouge thought, when Bunnie still hadn't appeared. It wasn't common, but occasionally Bunnie did delay coming on stage in order to set up a prank, a last-minute background gag, or a few jokes at Rouge's expense. What was keeping her?
A squadron of Spitfires, single-engine planes with red noses, drab tan bodies, and four 20-millimeter cannons each, roared overhead as they took off. Rouge kept playing, even though the combined sound of their engines drowned out the music. The airport was about a mile north, converted into an RAF airbase last year, when it seemed to her that the whole world had gone to shit.
Oh the merry-go-round broke down
But you won't see me frown
The lights went low and we said it all
As the merry-go-round went 'round!
The roar of the planes faded, allowing the jazz to be heard once more. In the offstage shadows opposite her, Rouge saw Bunnie leaning on one of the curtain supports. Rouge relaxed, until she saw the highball glass in Bunnie's hand and the Italian officer-a svelte, bright green hedgehog-beside her, with an arm around her waist.
Not again, she thought, exasperated. Though Bunnie was older than her by about four years, Rouge never understood the naiveté with which Bunnie chose her dates. Axis officers were generally nicer than their British entertainers-their captors, really-but Rouge was fairly certain it was an act most of the time. Their courtesy towards civilians like her was too courteous, too formal, too...something. She couldn't quite put her finger on what that something was. Seeing them chat up her friend so easily gave Rouge the feeling she would've had if a waiter brought her a tray of tiny, live frogs, then asked her to swallow each one whole.
Something must have shown on her face, because Bunnie then said something to the officer, who nodded curtly and departed with the highball glass. Bunnie looked a modern version of what she was: a Deep South belle, whose family's future was assured by a steady stream of cotton money. Her dress was a bit shorter in length than Rouge's- though more conservatively cut, with slightly frilly shoulders- and its lavender color contrasted well with her thin, brown-orange fur and lively green eyes.
The song ended with applause, allowing Bunnie to saunter her way onstage to the microphone. Her East Texas twang boomed over the loudspeakers: "Guess that fixed the merry-go-round, didn't it?" Some chuckles. She looked back at Rouge, who'd put down her violin to join her. "Or is that your way of confessin' that ya broke it?" Louder chuckles, and more numerous: drunk Europeans apparently found her accent hilarious, so Bunnie leaned into it while onstage.
Rouge usually disguised her dwindling Cajun accent with a clipped Transatlantic tone during performances. She did so now. "If there are any priests to confess to, I would," she said dryly.
"Ya see any priests out here?"
Rouge scanned the room for a moment, shielding her eyes with a flattened hand. She spotted a fat black bull at the bar toward the back of the audience, who wore the ornate visor cap of an Italian marshal. His stiff posture and shifting eyes told her that he was deeply uncomfortable with his surroundings. She pointed at him, grinning, and everyone at the bar beside him roared with laughter.
The bull's face turned a deep shade of red. The German general beside him-a fit, yet old blue hedgehog, who Rouge had often seen at the club-said something to the bull, and the bull quickly got up from his seat. This provoked even more hoots and laughter from the bar, as did the bull's drunken attempts to high-mindedly march out of the room. He turned back to shout something at the hedgehog, whereupon he collided with a waiter carrying a platter loaded with cocktails. The resulting crash sent everyone in the room into hysterical laughter.
As the bull and waiter were helped to their feet, Rouge was the first to recover herself. "We'd like to thank all of you for coming out tonight," Rouge said, "It's been a pleasure, but the rumors are true: this is indeed our curtain call for this beautiful city."
The younger men of the audience booed and awwwed in disappointment. Rouge heard someone from the middle row of tables shout "I love you Bunnie!"
Another voice from just beyond the orchestra box, thick with whiskey and a Glaswegian brogue, yelled "Countess! Countess!"
"What is it, Captain?"
The accoster, a well-muscled badger, coughed before speaking. "Get out yer tits!"
Rouge rolled her eyes and answered him: "Five pounds, my good man." To her surprise, a ratty leather wallet sprang from the badger's meaty hand, described a high arc in the air, and landed at her feet.
Bunnie had finally recovered herself enough to pick up the wallet and chuck it back into the audience. "This ain't that kinda club," was all she said before picking up her hastily memorized lines. "How many of y'all tune in to Radio Belgrade from time to time?" All of the Axis men raised their hands, as did most of the British. "Good! I had a listen the other day, and I finally figured out why everywhere we go around here, we hear a lot of y'all hummin', singin', and shoutin' the same song."
Rouge knew what was coming: "Lili Marlene." So did the audience: the Germans in particular suddenly paid Bunnie rapt attention, hanging on every word that came out of her mouth.
"I don't understand a lick of Jerry-talk, but I like to hum it too. It's a catchy song, even addictin'. But when one of you told us what it meant, it just didn't sound the same anymore." Bunnie looked to Rouge.
"So we wrote our own version," Rouge said, "How many of you would like to hear it?" A chorus of approval. "Excellent! Maestro, if you please."
Just as the trumpeteer and the saxophonist put their lips to their instruments, just as Bunnie picked up the violin to let Rouge sing, and just as the first notes formed in the throats of the men who knew it by heart, a dull thump made every table and glass shake. Then another, and another, and another.
Thump, thump-thump, THUMP.
A siren, nicknamed "Moaning Minnie" by the British, wailed to life. Grumbling sourly, the various pilots and officers quickly took cover-under tables, behind walls, the bar-and waited for the siren to cease.
THU-THUTHUMP-UMP-UMP.
Rouge and Bunnie were already running. They both knew that the quickest way to get to the dressing rooms-the safest part of the club- from the stage, was through the backstage fire exit; otherwise they'd have to make three right turns down narrow hallways, that by now would be crowded with panicked stage hands and musicians trying to take shelter. Bunnie shoved Ahmed out of her way as she charged the door. It slammed open, and Bunnie only stopped to hold it for Rouge. A brilliantly starry sky and cool desert air greeted them, scented with fire and cordite.
As they ran, a second round of bombs crashed into the ground a couple miles away. Searchlights pierced the night sky, madly waving in search of the attackers, and above the siren they heard the distant chatter of automatic cannons. Between the beams of the searchlights, streams of red and blue tracer rounds danced among the stars.
Rouge heard another siren as well: where Moaning Minnie's wails gradually pitched up and down like an ambulance or a fire truck, this new siren was a chorus of high, thin monotones, like a swarm of giant mosquitoes. Stukas. Of all the aircraft in the Luftwaffe's arsenal of terror and death, Stukas frightened her the most: even without their unholy wail, Stukas could hit small targets with pinpoint accuracy. Her stomach filled with ice when she realized that the oncoming sirens were growing louder, louder, and louder. No, no, no, NO, it's not supposed to be like this, please!
Bunnie yelled, "Down, down! GET DOWN!"
Rouge felt her co-star's warm body slam into her back and press her to the hard, cold ground. The bat's terrified shrieks mixed with the hellish chorus above. Another chorus joined in: the scream of a dozen hundred-pound bombs, each fitted with a special air-powered whistle, falling to the earth, alongside the racket of the airport's AA machine guns. The mosquito sirens lowered in pitch as their owners pulled out of their dive, and all other noise-Rouge's shrieks, Bunnie's curses, the sirens, the chattering cannons, the AA guns-were drowned out when the bombs finally landed.