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Winter had fastened icy talons into the belly of Berlin, but it dragged across no sense of misery, but warmth. Christmas was inching closer surprisingly quicker than Emcee would have liked to admit.
But, what was there to enjoy, with how the world was shifting? It all felt so fundamentally wrong.
Biting air gnawed and nipped at his bare, painted skin, bruising his shoulders more than they had already been bruised. Sharply whistling through a shaft in the dodgy window, the one that Max refused to acknowledge, came the wind.
But Emcee paid it no attention.
He was comfortable sat in the wind’s path, on his small stool, perched before his little vanity. It made him feel something for once.
The girls’ festive chatter cheered down the hallway. Their performance was over, he presumed, and now they were off to flood the room with shriller, louder howls.
A groan. Emcee’s mouth contorted into a grimacing snarl like that of a baring animal’s.
It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy it; it was more that he simply didn’t celebrate it — and in all effort to avoid presenting himself as a Scrooge, he’d offer a grin-bearing nod when met with the festive cries of, ‘Merry Christmas!’
And this year, he really couldn’t be bothered to deal with it. He could only recall last year’s holiday: the one where he’d ended up drunk and splayed upon the concrete steps of the Club for all to see, Texas and Frenchie flanking him with the shaky laughter of drunkards.
He remembered the sheer anger upon Max’s twisting face, and how his broad hand had snagged him by his nape, roughly hauling him back inside, out of sight.
The chuff of a laugh left Emcee’s red-smeared lips, but died down as swiftly as it came.
His vanity was a mess: pictures and scribbles and letters pinned into the chipped wood of the frame, the glass mostly fogged up from the smoke that was trailing from the cigarette in-hand, a pinky smudge that looked too suspiciously similar to Rosie’s blush, a couple of little Czech-style glass cat ornaments lining the table-top. But the glinting beads of a necklace caught his eye — his precious necklace, so carefully draped over the mirror — his symbol, his star, hooked through the beads intricately. He admired it for a moment.
‘Eeemmmmmmmyyy!’
A jerk rippled through Emcee’s body as he whipped around on his stool to face the woman disturbing his peace, ‘Scheiße!’
A fluid and lace-clad figure waltzed into the room, honing so much elegance and yet so much wildness. Blonde tufts of hair poked out untamely from beneath a black velvety beret, the glitzy shade of his purple eyeshadow smothering her eyelids. Sally!
‘You ought to be more announcing,’ Emcee drawled out, his body loosening at the sight of her, appearing as though he’d turned to jelly as he laid back upon the vanity’s top, arms spindly raising above his head. ‘How did tonight’s performance fall with the crowd, hm?’
‘Awfully well,’ Sally rounded the empty bottles of gin left upon the floor (Emcee’s doing, far too many to be healthy), and slumped across the communal couch, her slim legs curling to merge within the tight space.
The couch had an unusually large dip from where Emcee liked taking naps between show-breaks, but again, no one could scrape enough marks together to replace it.
Sally’s finger, tipped with glossy green nails, poked out to trace and swirl the ruddy-brown ornate patterns of the couch beneath her. ‘Everyone’s in high spirits this evening.’
The pale man had to force his eyes not to roll. ‘I’ve heard.’
Sally’s gentle eyes glimpsed at him, roving, almost judgementally.
Emcee let a scowl-like look sprawl itself upon his face. ‘What? You’re as loud as banshees out there — God knows what Max will think.’
‘Max!’ Sally cried in spiteful amusement. ‘Since when have you cared about what Max thinks?’
Emcee scoffed, a sharp breath exhaling through his nose, and leaned back until the curve of his spine hurt against the jutting top of his vanity. ‘I don’t.’
Sally arched a brow, her finger still idly fingering the pattern in the fabric. ‘So why bring him up?’
A strained stammer welled up in Emcee’s feeble throat. ‘Well, you know. It’s not about him, really. It’s about— You know.’ He gestured subtly towards the door. ‘Them. The cheer. The laughing — the forced laughing! It’s like everyone’s ignoring how the world is turning right now, and covering it up with wonderous joy.’
‘Oh,’ Sally murmured. ‘So it’s the season.’
‘It’s Christmas,’ Emcee corrected. ‘I don’t like it. Never have.’ His smoothly porcelain hand rubbed over his face, the pads of his fingers moving up to tangle in his sleek, jet-black hair.
‘Everyone pretends it fixes things. That, if you wrap enough glittering tinsel around the mess of a pine tree, it starts to look like joy. But, Sally, it doesn’t. It just makes an even bigger mess to clear up afterwards.’
Sally’s amusement had dwelled into something a little more softer now. Her pretty hand quietly plunged into the pocket of the cardigan that hung over her lacy costume, and she brought out a tiny box. Emcee pretended like he wasn’t watching.
‘I get what you mean. I think,’ the blonde woman pushed herself up from the couch and wandered over to him.
Emcee turned away quietly, facing the vanity again. He didn’t dare look at his reflection that pooled in the mirror.
The box clattered in front of him. He blinked.
‘Open it, take a look,’ Sally beckoned him with a nod, though he couldn’t see it.
Begrudgingly, Emcee’s hands wandered across the precisely tied ribbon, untangling it with quick practice, almost .. eager.
He tipped off the little, silky lid, and peered into the box.
Inside, an intricate thing; intentionally carved with a smooth spine as it stood poised, paws delicately sculpted, it’s transparency cloudy under the dim lights.
‘It’s a glass cat,’ Sally pointed out, as if Emcee was dumb and didn’t know what it resembled. She wiggled a finger to the two other cats that lined the vanity top. ‘I thought you’d like to add to your collection.’
Emcee took the little thing into his palm, letting it nestle within his radiating warmth. ‘Oh. Oh, Sally, it’s beautiful.’
He couldn’t deny the sweetness of the gift — Sally knew him so well.
Emcee finally met her gaze in the fogged mirror, and murmured a soft thank you. He placed the cat carefully among the others, a new sentinel in the lineup cluttered within cosmetics and shot glasses. He hummed.
‘Maybe I should let loose,’ he quietly noted, to no one in particular. But Sally’s smile deepened.
‘Maybe so.’
The churning wind still whistled through the broken window, but it no longer felt biting, especially not as Sally draped her gentle arms around the slopes of his violet-mottled shoulders (bruises from Max or clients, he couldn’t recall). It was just another sound, blending into the cheer of the girls, and the calls of passerbys outside the Club.
Emcee allowed himself a fraction of a smile, small but no longer reluctant. Genuine.
And for some reason, that was enough.