“Who is that?” asked Carla, turning to Lewis.
“Our waiter, darling,” whispered Lewis; “all the performers are waiters, too. Isn’t it exciting?”
Carla said nothing. Lewis looked at Holton. There was little light in the room and he couldn’t make out his expression. Holton was sitting motionless, one hand on the table, one hand touching Carla’s.
Their waiter was so well received that he sang another song.
More dancers appeared. This time they were real women and the men who came out with them were dressed as men. They did a serious near-ballet but, because they didn’t know how to dance very well and because they didn’t particularly care, the dance was funny and Holton laughed. Lewis and Carla didn’t laugh: for different reasons.
Suddenly in the middle of the dance a voice off stage announced loudly, “Jerry!” and a girl dressed in a fake tiger skin ran onto the stage. The audience whistled and stamped and a table of girls near the stage applauded hysterically. The girl’s face was square and smooth and hard, without expression. Her body was strong and slim and startlingly white. One shoulder and most of one breast were bare.
She moved in a stylized jungle fashion among the other dancers who ran from her, simulating fear as they did. Finally she was left alone on the stage. She danced then, showing as much of her hard white body as she could. Her face never changed expression, however. She always looked straight ahead without smiling, her square face rigid.
And, at last, as a climax, she unfastened the tiger skin and with a quick gesture pulled it off and for a moment let the audience see her white hard body. Then the lights went off and she disappeared as the women in the audience shrieked their delight and the men, catching some of the hysteria, applauded loudly.
The lights came on again and the stage was empty. The band played uncompelling music. “What,” asked Lewis, turning to Holton, “did you think of her? Isn’t she a perfect savage?”
“No, I don’t think she is,” said Holton seriously. “I don’t think she was good at all, did you?”