by John Rechy
Miss Bertha’s look behind the glasses had steadied on Normalyn. She separated the name: “Norma . . . lyn. What a beautiful name.” Her pudgy hand, with one enormous green-stoned ring—certainly not an emerald—reached out to touch the youngwoman. Instead, she took a tiny step back. A frown prepared to cloud her forehead. A note of admonishment entered her voice: “Now, if you’re one of those goddamned—!”
Jim understood: “I guarantee ya, she ain’t a candidate for the Dead Movie Stars. She just came in from Texas—on the bus!”
If Normalyn had been less tired, she might have elbowed him for that.
Miss Bertha still considered, her arms crossed as if she were not entirely convinced. She sighed. “Can’t blame a soul for being suspicious about that damn cult-club now that they’re getting all that media attention promising to reveal scandal.” Her dyed curls shook. “Nasty young people saying they’re restoring glamour to Hollywood—not that it couldn’t stand some.” She said indignantly to Normalyn, “Dearheart, can you believe one of them burst in on me through that very window, kept shouting questions at me about the tragic death of Verna La Maye!”
“Verna La Maye was strangled with her own silk stocking!” Jim filled in for Normalyn about one of Miss Bertha’s favorite stars. Then he apologized to the old woman, “I ain’t gloatin’, just tellin’.”
“I know you aren’t—ain’t,” Miss Bertha absolved him. She cleared a sofa for them. Jim sat close to Normalyn. Normalyn edged away.
Miss Bertha ambled over to a small table on which a carefully arranged silver tea service waited. She located herself before it on a soft chair, facing Normalyn and Jim; her tiny feet barely touched the rug. Three ordinary cats with streaks and spots waltzed about the woman’s feet. Miss Bertha served Normalyn’s tea, and her own, with grand propriety as cool ocean air lazed in through open windows.
Jim explained to Normalyn: “Those creepy Dead Movie Stars started a rumor that Miss Bertha is Alberta Holland— because she knows so much about her, and about all the movie stars.”
“Just read it in all those books. Anyone can,” Miss Bertha dismissed easily. She sipped, delighting in her tea. “Now I’ll get something for you, sailor. She glided chubbily through the room, muttering softly in constant dialogue with herself, adjusting a vase here, blowing at dust where there was none. “Tidy up, tidy up!” she instructed herself. Here and there she repositioned a photograph for greater advantage. Her hand glided over gorgeous faces frozen in silvery black on the piano. “Hedy Lamarr, rare as a black orchid . . . Veronica Lake . . . Errol Flynn,” she sighed the names. “Verna La Maye, Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, Norma Desmond, Tyrone Power.” She addressed them as if they had gathered to hear her advice: “You mistook brief adulation for love, you thought you were invulnerable—so easily destroyed.” She shook her head in dismay: “So long ago, another world.”
She moved on as if she had only thought the words she had spoken. In the dining room, she paused. When Normalyn was looking at her, her attention drawn by the woman’s stilled footfalls, Miss Bertha turned on a light under a large dramatic photograph on the wall. It illumined a silver form surrounded by black enclosed in a silver-chrome frame.
Normalyn had seen that picture before! No, it just reminded her of . . . a darkened shoreline, the blonde woman, a black horizon. The woman had lain on a darkness like that, before Enid reappeared. . . . Within this ordinary house, a strangeness stirred again for Normalyn. She felt Jim’s eyes on her. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Cause I like lookin’ at pretty women,” Jim began to prop his invitation.
At those words—which still surprised her—Normalyn felt the familiar clash of reactions, which now included pleasure.
Miss Bertha returned with a frothing beer in a graceful champagne glass for Jim. She arranged her body, searching tiny comforts, on her chair. Tinkling teacups and spoons filled the silence.
Now why the hell wasn’t Miss Bertha rattling out one of her movie-star stories? Jim needed time to make his own story hold, about no more buses to Los Angeles. This silence and Miss Bertha’s stares would make Normalyn nervous; she was already fidgeting with her glasses, opening and closing her purse as if looking for something. “Normalyn came to Long Beach looking for Alberta Holland.” Jim attempted to budge the peculiar moments.
“For Alberta Holland?” Miss Bertha propped the sculpted red mass of hair more firmly. “Why, whatever for, dearheart?” She poured more tea into the dainty china cups. “That woman wouldn’t have been found dead in Long Beach, for all her vaunted socialist beliefs!” She chuckled. “But then she is dead—died in Switzerland many years ago.”
“Jim told me you knew her.” Normalyn said that only to hear her deny it.
Miss Bertha said easily, “Everyone in old Hollywood knew about Holland. She was famous. Some said infamous. Yes, I admired Alberta Holland, long ago.” Her voice was muted, as if she were about to confer with herself about that time. Instead, she said spiritedly to Normalyn, “Why sometimes, dearheart, I even pretend that I give advice to the great stars, just like she did, counseled the stars. But I save them from disaster, always.”
Normalyn looked at her with new interest.
“Can’t blame me if I make up a story or two now and again, dearheart,” she answered Normalyn’s look. “When you’re old, there’s not much left, except remembering—and imagining.” She looked at the window, dark now. “Life is so short and a day is so long. Why, when you’re old, every morning’s like being born tired.”
“You ain’t old,” Jim insisted.
“Did I say that aloud?” Miss Bertha questioned. “Oh, Lord, I meant to think it.”
And still more silence! Normalyn would rush out in a minute, odd as she was and Miss Bertha acting stranger than ever. Jim encouraged: “Why don’t you ask Miss Bertha for advice, Normalyn?” He immediately regretted his desperate plunge; Normalyn would think he was poking fun at her being lost in Long Beach, a risky subject. “Miss Bertha knows about a lot of things,” he tried to amend, and it was true that Miss Bertha’s rambling could make sudden sense.
“I don’t need advice.” Normalyn did not intend to be rude to this likable woman, just cool to Jim’s suggestion.
Miss Bertha sniffed her delicate tea. “But she does look a little sad, a little scared,” she commented to herself.
“You said that aloud,” Jim said nervously.
“I did not!” Miss Bertha denied. A curl loosed itself over her forehead. She shifted a pin from the back to clutch the vagrant strand. “Jean Harlow had a hell of a time keeping her waves in place,” she defended her hairdo. She addressed Normalyn: “Everyone needs advice, now and then, dearheart.” For moments she discussed that in soft murmurs with herself. “Everyone from Socrates to Einstein!” she agreed emphatically with her own conclusion. “Why, I could have stood some good advice myself.” A frown emphasized a troubled thought, a distant conflict. She cleared it away: “Going to have to go pee in a moment.” She seemed startled. “Did I say that or just think it?”
“Thought it,” Jim asserted.
“I suppose I’m getting batty.” Miss Bertha laughed. Then her laughter stopped. Her words were precise: “I’m an old woman stumbling to death as gracefully as I am still able.”
“You ain’t old, I told you!” Jim insisted. Yet he was startled at how old she, looked when she said that, sitting there, her memories all in pieces. Always alone except when he came by—not as often as he should—as if she were hiding from life. She hardly even took walks along the beach any more on warm days. “We all gotta die sometime,” Jim muttered, to link with her solemn mood.
That yanked Miss Bertha out of her mood. “At your age, you never die.”
“James Dean did, you told me,” Jim said.
“But Alan Ladd lived on to grow an inch or two,” she caught him. “And he found Veronica Lake, tiniest creature God ever made, hair longer than she was.” The enlarged eyes stared at Normalyn and Jim. Her voi
ce was bruised with sudden emotion: “Oh, isn’t life a sadness?” Her round cheeks glazed with colored tears.
“Miss Bertha!” Normalyn reached out with concern.
“She’s gonna cry again,” Jim resigned himself. He had met her on the beach on a cloudy day. She was sitting in one of the last pockets of warmth, sobbing aloud. He asked her if he could help, and they became friends, a friendship sealed when she told him about Alan Ladd. Now he was used to her sudden bouts of crying.
In a deluge of tears, Miss Bertha lamented between incoherent sobs: “. . . the homeless sleeping on streets, children stooped in the fields, black people chained to concrete, the young prepared for war . . . poverty, hunger . . . injustice!” She mopped her face with a decorated handkerchief. “Was the world ever kinder or did the shit just gang up?” She retouched the makeup on her face. “There.” The sobbing ended. She readjusted her body, with great attention. She pushed up with her elbows. “Now you two excuse me for a while. I love that chamomile tea, but it makes me pee up a storm.” Two cats hopped into the relinquished warmth of her chair.
Jim let his hand slip over Normalyn’s shoulder. To test the sudden warm sensation, she allowed it before she eased away. Returning, Miss Bertha tousled Jim’s wayward hair. Jim hugged her.
Normalyn turned away from their affection, close mother and son. Her eyes glided to the lighted photograph in the dining room. The silver smear was an extravagant body! Luminous flesh reclining on a dark background.
“That’s Marilyn Monroe, dearheart; but of course you knew that.” Miss Bertha was sitting down again. Fussy hands tested the careful pile of hair. “It’s an original lithograph, numbered, real precious, my pride and joy.” She added aloud, to herself, “And, sometimes, my deepest sorrow.”
Normalyn turned away from the framed lithograph, avoiding stirred memories.
Miss Bertha lighted a fresh scented cigarillo. Sweet smoke wafted through the room. “I allow myself exactly three puffs,” she explained, and snuffed it out. Then her eyes returned to the commanding portrait. “That’s how she saw herself,” Miss Bertha said, “enclosed by blackness, the darkness, the madness she said hopped from her grandmother to her mother. She thought it had already grabbed her and that it might claim the daughter she wanted most in the world. That’s why Marilyn Monroe turned to me when she was pregnant—for advice, one misty afternoon.”
2
Then she was Alberta Holland! “She came to you for advice?” Normalyn sipped her spice tea, not reacting, in control.
“I imagine she did,” Miss Bertha said. “Lord, didn’t I tell you that, dearheart—that I imagined the stars came to me for advice?”
“She did tell you that for a fact, Normalyn.” Jim verified that Miss Bertha had spoken that aloud.
Just an old woman making up stories. Normalyn was glad she hadn’t allowed herself to react in surprise at the woman’s words.
“You know a lot about Marilyn Monroe, Miss Bertha.” Jim invited a good story—and strategic time for his plans later.
“And it’s a glorious story, a sad story,” Miss Bertha responded. “Oh, there was a reason for all that sorrow. She had the craziest mother God ever made—Gladys. And her grandmother?—she tried to strangle Marilyn when she was just a child; the police carried the woman away screaming. Gladys was in and out of institutions, had bouts of sanity, led the women working under her at the RKO labs to safety when fire broke out. Dearheart”—she directed her story at Normalyn—“she would escape out of institutions to take Norma Jeane out of the orphanage for joyful and sad afternoons.” Miss Bertha shook her head in wonder at such sorrow dotted with happiness. “Strangest woman God ever allowed; she telephoned Marilyn from an institution, begging her to get her out—and when she did, she called the asylum to take her back.” Miss Bertha extended compassion: “Poor sad creature herself, abandoned pregnant by a man who fled to San Francisco on a motorcycle and never came back—”
That was Enid’s life! Normalyn’s cup of tea fell to the soft carpet, only spilling, not breaking. Instantly frantic, she dabbed with her hands at the floor. Jim sopped with his towel.
“Now, you two just sit down and leave the stain be. It’ll just give the rug a bolder tone.” Miss Bertha affirmed.
Normalyn was glad she had spilled the tea, perhaps on purpose. For moments that became the immediate source of her panic. It had stopped the assaulting recitation—but not this new question: Who had borrowed from whom? . . . Sitting on the sofa again, Normalyn let her eyes wander toward an open window. Across the withering light framed there, a branch of the tree she had noticed earlier dipped down, a few faint blossoms on the slender limb.
“It’s a jacaranda tree.” Miss Bertha traced Normalyn’s gaze. “It blooms only briefly, the blossoms die in spring. Someone, long ago—a special woman who knew how fragile life can be—made perfect artificial flowers of them, lavender bouquets, to preserve what dies so soon in life. I have one I cherish, next to the lithograph of Marilyn.”
Normalyn saw only the vaguest outline within subdued light, but her memory provided details from Enid’s own cherished cluster of the same delicate flowers.
“Have you seen them in the daylight, dearheart?”
Normalyn shook her head. But she had.
“When their blossoms fall to the ground,” Miss Bertha breathed, “it’s just like lavender snow.”
Sitting there so peacefully, this benign woman had recited details that Enid had told—through anger, laughter, pain—as her own. Now the woman was borrowing from words Enid had left her. “Where did you hear it called that?”
“Marilyn Monroe called it lavender snow.” Miss Bertha looked about as if to locate the origin of her recollection in the many books about the room.
“She’s a real fan,” Jim said proudly.
“A real fan,” Miss Bertha emphasized. Now her voice rose in passionate accusation as suddenly as her mellow sorrow had wafted through the room: “Not like those vulturous Dead Movie Stars—the same breed who called themselves fans and couldn’t wait for Valentino to die so they could mourn before the cameras, the same who shouted at Norma Desmond’s trial that she should have stayed dead, the same who went to see only if Judy could still perform—and she always did!—the same who sent Marlene into hiding so they couldn’t gloat at her living ghost!” Her voice had gathered more anger: “And think what his fans still do to him!” She pointed to the picture of the smiling Jesus. “Still throwing stones at him and calling them prayers! . . . You’re right, dearheart, it is autographed,” she ended her enraged asseveration.
“It’s an actor,” Jim laughed. Surreptitiously he consulted his watch. Soon—
“I know it’s an actor!” Normalyn felt foolish.
“I told the actor who played him that he was much handsomer than Jesus, and that gave him a big smile, and it got me an autographed Jesus.” Then Miss Bertha assured herself aloud, “He must have smiled at least once.”
“Are the others autographed? May I look?” Before Miss Bertha could answer, Normalyn walked to the photographs on the piano. She read inscriptions. “To Bee. Thank you. Love. Ingrid.” “For so much! Rita. XXX.” “Never without you. Tyrone.” Under the picture of the smiling Jesus: “You and me, babe. Spread the word! J.C.” “To you! Harlow!”
“I signed them all,” Miss Bertha said.
“Did you mean to say that aloud, Miss Bertha?” Jim asked. She had never told him that.
Miss Bertha considered it. “Yes,” she concluded tentatively.
Evening was clutched by shadows now. Miss Bertha roamed about, lighting soft lamps. The lithograph in the dining room swam in its separate darkness. Miss Bertha located herself comfortably in her soft chair again.
“How do you pretend to be Alberta Holland, when you imagine you gave advice to the movie stars?” Normalyn reached for more sugar for her freshened tea—calmly.
“I have to confess I cheat sometimes. I give advice that changes what really happened, when that was tragic
or sad.”
She had done that with him once, Jim remembered. In her version, Verna La Maye recovered to strangle her assailant.
“Guidance carries great responsibility, dearheart, not carelessly given,” Miss Bertha said seriously. She shook her head. “They say that at the last Alberta Holland gave disastrous advice.” She leaned conspiratorially toward Normalyn. “Would you like me to show you how I pretend I counseled the stars?” She was immediately enthusiastic. “I start by choosing a star. You want to choose?”
Normalyn shook her head, suddenly apprehensive.
“Then I’ll choose. Let’s see . . . I’ll choose . . . Her eyes scanned the room. “Her!” Miss Bertha pointed to the lithograph in the adjoining room.
“Marilyn Monroe.” Normalyn surprised herself when she spoke the name aloud. She could not remember ever before having pronounced it. It had belonged only to Enid until her death.
“We have to see her clearly first,” Miss Bertha said. “She was . . .” She closed her eyes, as if the image that had entered her mind required special words, prepared with care: “Marilyn Monroe!” She held the name for seconds. “She carried magic as if it were something only in her hands, given only to her. She couldn’t let go of it, and that might have turned into a curse. People always remember her in sequins—because she could glow even in shadows. Other stars needed special lights. Not Marilyn. She had her own radiance. No one had it like her before, no one will ever have it again.” She opened her eyes. “That is how she looked. What she had inside was lots of hurt, from the years of her terrible childhood, drifting unwanted from home to home. Dearheart, she carried all that in her soul like an unhealed stab. Why, she couldn’t take the painful knife out because she would bleed to death. That’s what her beauty was always trying to soothe.”
