Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

136 Air. Monday and Other Tales of Jewish Amsterdam

get himself heard. Not all new films were supplied with a sound track, and when a silent movie was shown, Van Briene had to fill in the dialogue accompanied by the man at the piano. The vendors outside the theatre, with their loud voices, kept interrupting him so he always tried to finish his lines quickly within the breathing space which even a hawker of pears cannot do without. Usually he succeeded in this, but occasionally he did not, and then funny situations arose.

Someone tells, "Yesterday afternoon I was in the Tsip Tsop.Van Briene walks through the theatre and chants, 'The count takes the maiden in his arms. He murmurs 'My love, at last we are alone'."

At the same moment from the outside we hear "Fine untouched pears, sweet virginal pears!"

Further on in the film, Van Briene keeps silent because the scene in the film is so touching.The piano player does not make a sound and the audience is silent too. On the screen, the Count gives the Countess a mushy kiss. At that precise instant, someone outside calls out "How lovely they are, so juicy'!"

The fellow who told that story may have been joking but it certainly is not a joke that one night a woman, a regular customer, came to the theatre and told Hes, the doorman "Tomorrow I have to go to the hospital to have a dangerous operation. I told my David 'You know what I'll do? Tonight I will go to the Tsip Tsop for a while, so at least I will not have missed that show'."