Across the dance floor, a few couples at a table spied Elise and Fritz and waved. They threaded their way through the crowd. There was only one seat, so Fritz took it and Elise perched in his lap. One of the women took a drag on her Trommler and stared out at the dancers. “It’s like rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic,” she remarked in a husky voice.
Elise took the woman’s cigarette, then realized she was a young man with makeup. “I think it’s brave!” Elise shouted over the noise.
“Listen to that scat,” Fritz said, leaning back and snapping his fingers. “He might be German, but he sounds just like Cab Calloway.” He gave Elise a gentle slap on the bottom. “Want to dance?”
She smiled and passed the cigarette back. “Of course!”
Fritz led Elise into the crowd as the orchestra segued into Louis Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing.” The other dancers were also young: boys with vests and Windsor knots, girls in floral dresses and flowing curls freed from braids.
It was crowded, so they started out with sugar pushes, skip ups, and side passes. “The King and Queen of Harlem!” someone shouted, and the crowd began to move aside, circling around Elise and Fritz as they started aerials: Lindy flips, candlesticks, Frankie snatches, frogs, and belly cherries.
“Go! Go! Go!” the other dancers shouted in English as Elise and Fritz kicked, jumped, and spun, her skirt flipping up to reveal her garters as the saxophones sang and trumpets blared.
When it was done, the crowd applauded, and the orchestra began “Take the ‘A’ Train.” Fritz, breathing heavily, led Elise back to the table, where he pulled out a flask. He opened it and offered it to her. She took a gulp.
“Mein Gott, there’s only one thing better than dancing,” Elise said breathlessly, pushing back damp hair and giving Fritz a significant look.
He winked at her. “I’ll go now. Meet me in five minutes.”
In the alley behind the theater, Elise gave a contented sigh and pulled her panties back up and her skirt back down.
“Someday, I’d like to do it with you in a bed, not just a wall job,” Fritz said, leaning against the postered brick wall.
“Oh stop!” Elise protested, flushed and laughing. “Someone will hear us!”
Fritz pulled off the condom he was wearing and began to pee, hitting the soldier in black featured on an SS recruitment poster square in the face. “Swing Heil!” he shouted, as he shook his penis and zipped up his trousers.
“Fritz!”
“What! You weren’t so shy a few minutes ago.”
“Well, that was different.”
“For a girl who wants to be a nun, I’ll say.”
“I haven’t taken any vows yet, remember,” Elise said, straightening the seams on her stockings. “And, until I do, I see nothing wrong with enjoying life.”
The metal doors of the theater were flung open as people ran out. “H.J.!” one girl shouted. Elise gasped. The Jugend—Hitler Youth—often stalked the swing parties and shut them down for being “un-German.” They were violent and unpredictable, like the leaders they followed. More people poured out as Elise and Fritz watched in shock.
They heard shouting over a megaphone from inside. “We are closing this club! Give your names at the door!” A group of H.J., dressed in black, swarmed out into the alley to corral people back inside. Through the open doorway, Elise could see fights had broken out between the H.J. and the swing dancers as the Jugends’ hard rubber batons met flimsy umbrellas.
“Come on!” Elise called, grabbing Fritz’s hand. “We must go!” The two ran as fast and as hard as they could away from the H.J. and the club, finally finding an open church, St. Michael’s.
Once inside, they slammed the doors shut. Then, breathless, they took seats in hard wooden pews, a still and silent world away from the riotous dance club. The church smelled of incense. An organist was practicing Bach’s “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.” A priest, preparing the altar for the next day’s Mass, shot them a baleful look but said nothing.
Then the doors banged open—the H.J. with their red swastika armbands. Elise turned in the pew, waiting, ready. Fritz stood, holding his umbrella. The air felt charged, the way it did before a thunderstorm.
The priest, an older man with silver hair combed over large ears, looked up and assessed the situation. “This is a place of worship,” he intoned to the boys in uniforms, his voice filling the soaring space as it did on Sunday mornings. “This is no place for you.”
“This is no place for you!” one of the older boys rejoined, spitting on the floor with contempt. “The Germans are God’s chosen people and Hitler is our Savior! We don’t need churches and priests and ministers telling us what to do anymore.” He looked back to his comrades and began chanting: “Hang the Jews! Put the priests against the walls!”