Chosen for Power

by Rex Baron

  Barthelmess sat down next to her and basked in the attention, as Helen shuffled through the half dozen cards and nodded and smiled with each one. After what she deemed was an adequate amount of flattery, she laid the photos aside and leaned in toward him for a kiss. But almost as an instinctive reaction, he drew away and did not accept her offering of intimacy.

  “A girl doesn’t usually expect to be rejected,” Helen said softly, “even if it is by a famous picture star... especially since he’s the one that invited her up to his hotel room.”

  Barthelmess covered his nakedness with a small decorative pillow that was next to him on the sofa and choked out an embarrassed reply.

  “It’s just that I’m used to being the one that makes the move... not the woman. Besides, it all seems different now that we’ve actually talked... not the same at all.”

  Helen threw her head back and laughed aloud.

  “You mean that you have to be the predator in your little game of cat and mouse.”

  Richard did not answer, but got up and fixed himself another drink. Helen shook her head in refusal when he held up the bottle for her to decide if she wanted one.

  “Well, there is no reason we can’t just sit and chat,” she said. “I do apologize for ruining your little seduction, but I have a feeling it would have been over far sooner than I would have liked anyway.”

  Barthelmess picked up his robe and put it on, then rejoined Helen where she sat.

  “You know, I was meaning to ask your opinion about something anyway...” Helen informed him.

  Barthelmess turned to her with a curious and questioning expression.

  “I wondered if you thought I might have a chance in the picture business,” Helen continued almost coyly. “I mean, after all, who would know better than a big star like you.”

  Barthelmess stared back at her, appraising her features and scanning her figure before he answered.

  “Don’t think so,” he stated matter-of-factly, as he took a sip from his cocktail. “You’re pretty enough, I guess... but the crowd out there in California is looking for class... like Swanson, or the sensual type that’s foreign and mysterious... well, like my Russian friend Nazimova. She’s a pip. Men go crazy for her.”

  “But, don’t you think I might have something too. Why I’m sure that if you spoke to one of your movie friends about me, they’d give me a chance.”

  Helen tenuously placed her hand on his chest and stared into his eyes with a look that she hoped teemed with sincerity and charm.

  “Nah... it’s all about what the camera sees anyway. But I just don’t see that you have anything special. Like I said, they’re lookin’ for class... not some underwear model that’s been around... no offense.”

  “You’re saying, I look cheap,” Helen interpreted his words in a raised voice. She jumped to her feet.

  “Well, yeah... what can I say? I don’t want to have sex with you anymore, so what do you expect me to say?” he answered, a bit surprised. “Look, you got a nice meal... a couple nice nighties and some real Canadian whiskey. What more were you expecting... a marriage proposal?”

  “I thought maybe you might help me get a start in pictures,” Helen answered with the first modicum of true honesty of the evening.

  Barthelmess came to his feet, shaking his head.

  “Sorry honey, the evening is over. I got an early morning.”

  “Maybe we could go out another time, while you’re in town, and talk about it, just as pals,” Helen replied entreatingly.

  “Okay lady, you have to go now,” he answered.

  Helen stood her ground and tried to persist, but he grabbed her arm, and she pulled away.

  “Look, Lady, I said blow... now get going. I don’t want any trouble, especially with the cops, so, I’m going into the bedroom for one minute and when I come out, you’d better be gone.”

  He stormed off, tightening the sash of his robe against her presence, and left Helen standing alone in the drawing room of his suite. This was not, at all, what Helen had anticipated and hoped for as the outcome of her evening with a movie star. It had somehow gone all wrong. She was not only angry, but felt humiliated as well. He had told her she was cheap, and for that she felt hatred for him. She remained standing there for what seemed an interminable time. She knew he was not bluffing and would make good on his threat of calling the police, thereby only adding to her shame.

  All at once, she noticed the naked photographs of the movie hero lying on the table next to the lamp. She reached out and grabbed the top two, which were the most ridiculous and incriminating of the lot. She did not want to take the entire stack for fear that he might notice right away and wrestle them back from her possession. The top two disgusting images would do, she thought to herself, as she quietly walked through the door out into the luxurious but impersonal corridor.

  Richard Barthelmess could go to Hell, she muttered to herself, as she took the stairway down to the street. She patted the two purloined photographs in her jacket pocket, as she stepped out into the evening air. She did not know just then what she might do with them, but she could always keep them as a kind of insurance... for blackmail or maybe even something worse. She burst out laughing as she felt the breeze cooling her reddened face.

  “What an idiot,” she said aloud to the unpopulated street. “He didn’t even realize that the photographer still has the negatives.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  1921 Los Angeles

  Richard Barthelmess had been Helen’s first run-in with a bonafide Hollywood star, and it had not gone to her advantage. She still had the two photographs somewhere amongst the things she had brought with her from New York. But she was not certain just where she might put a finger on them, or what she could do with them when she found them. Perhaps now that she was in California, an opportunity might arise that would allow her to use them against him... or at least somehow to work them to her advantage. At present, she had no idea where he lived or where he might be. She could not worry about that now. The task at hand was to try and make something out of this routine part as an extra in this operatic nightmare, and hopefully get noticed by someone who mattered.

  She followed the directions of the man with the clipboard and made her way to the wardrobe department, to be fitted into something that, in the vaguest way, might be associated with the time period of this operatic turkey Faust.

  The shooting crew spent the morning waiting for the sun to rise to a position where it would minimize the shadows on the ground for the simulated night shot. They had turned the walls of Doctor Faust's laboratory three times, but the constant sun persisted in creeping in, spoiling the drama of the scene.

  Lucy, weary from the waiting, chatted with Claxton under his gauze tent. She had spoken to him about her childhood and Germany, but had skillfully avoided any reference to either the Prince or her publicized involvement with Paulo.

  Just as the name was crossing Claxton's lips, Lucy spotted her friend running toward them across the dry, grassy field. He was wearing a billowing white shirt with stockings and knee britches. The shirt hung in filthy tatters from his tanned back, and as he drew closer, she could make out traces of blood and mud smeared across his handsome face.

  She jumped to her feet and rushed toward him, her mind racing with thoughts of a beating or an accident. When she reached him, he was smiling.

  “I've been trying to get to you all morning,” he said cheerfully, “but we had to start shooting early because they needed clouds in the sky... there are almost never clouds in California, so I couldn't get away until just now.”

  Lucy held him at arm’s length and surveyed his appearance.

  Without prompting, he explained.

  “You look so worried. I'm sorry, Lucy dear. You see, today I am a matador, and the bull has just got in a lucky punch. I was supposed to have been dragged around the ring, and really must return in a minute to die.”

  “You look like you'v
e been under a train,” she said.

  “I'll tell them you said so. That will make them happy. I must hurry now, but I had to come by and wish you luck on your first day. Goodbye my darling.”

  Paulo raced back across the field like a child returning to a game. Lucy caught Claxton shaking his head out of the corner of her eye.

  “These young matinee idols,” he made a clucking sound in his throat. “Why, even the Bible warns you not to have anything to do with idols, but then I hear you're not exactly what one would call religious.”

  •••

  “I see Satan's daughter walking before me,” an old man's voice cried out.

  Helen Liluth, who was walking across the dusty field, trying to find the set to which she had been assigned, stopped in her tracks. The old man pointed a bony finger and trembled with indignation as he stared out at the woman passing by.

  “That's fine,” the director called out. “Break while we reload the camera.”

  The old man, who was working on the set next to where Faust was being shot, lit a cigarette and plopped down, laughing, next to one of the maids of Salem who were on trial for witchcraft.

  “Can't believe that anyone would be hanged for witchcraft because they turned out the pockets of their clothes before washing,” the girl said, rubbing her wrists where the heavy manacles dug into her skin. “Who wrote this anyway?”

  Helen continued past the Salem filming to a large group of extras gathering near the set for Faust. Wardrobe had outfitted her in a loose Grecian tunic, gathered at the waist. She had been asked to wear a flesh-coloured body suit under it so that at a distance, the camera would see hundreds of half naked Souls, writhing in the torment of a cardboard and plaster Hell.

  “Okay extras, listen up,” a man shouted through a megaphone to the crowd. “This is how we do it. There are guide ropes on either side, funneling all of you into the cavern area. These ropes are there to keep you in a tight group. There are only two hundred of you, but we have to film it from three angles to look like a thousand. So, pay attention and watch the scout up there on the top of the tower. He'll hold up his flag and point in the direction you should all be looking for each camera run. Look sharp... bare feet only. I don't want to see any shoes in the shot, or anyone chewing gum... clear?”

  Helen removed her shoes and stacked them in a pile with hundreds of others.

  A massive cavernous rock, molded from paper and wire over a framework of wood had been borrowed from a Biblical epic, to serve as the dark regions of the underworld. It had been equipped with an elevator that would bring Lucy, as Helen of Troy, and two handmaidens to the surface, from what one was to imagine as the bottomless pit of Hell.

  Helen slipped away from the other three-dollar-a-day actors and hid herself behind the rigging at the base of the elevator. She watched as the two handmaidens and Lucy rode the elevated platform up inside the skeleton of wood, to emerge at the top before a mounted camera, ready for a close up.

  When the cameras had been loaded and the shoeless extras packed between the guide ropes, Lucy mounted the elevator platform inside the bowels of the borrowed mountain, and positioned herself between the two pretty handmaidens.

  Helen fixed her eyes on the pretty dark-haired girl at Lucy's side, and quickly touched the engraved insignia at the center of her silver ring with the tip of her tongue.

  She whispered softly, barely breathing. “Dieu passant par le milieu d'eux, s'en allait.” (God passing through them, left.)

  Lucy held fast to a cloth strap, bolted to the floor of the platform, as it slowly ascended the forty-five feet to the camera rolling at the top.

  Technicians crouched in hollowed-out pockets under the crust of the artificial mountain, where pots of billowing smoke had been set to add to the mystery and glamour of the effect.

  Suddenly, the dark-haired girl at Lucy's side threw up her hands and cried out as if startled. She staggered, inching toward the edge of the platform, uncertain of her balance, like a drunken sailor on a slippery deck. She let out a scream, and reaching out, as if to grab hold of Lucy, seemed to fling herself over the edge.

  The machinery of the elevator squealed to a stop and Lucy gingerly stepped toward the edge to see the girl lying crumpled on the ground below.

  The accident called for a delay in shooting, but it was far from canceled. There was too much at stake to waste the precious hours of sunlight because of the misfortune of a mere bit player. Once the director had satisfied himself that the young woman had not been killed, and watched her carried away from his set, he got on with the task of culling the ranks of extras for a replacement tolerably pretty enough to withstand the scrutiny of a close-up.

  Within a half hour he returned to the tent where Lucy, Ellen and Claxton waited. At his side was an olive-skinned beauty, already in full makeup. He introduced her as a mere formality.

  Lucy's palms grew cold when she heard the name Helen, the same name that Miss Auriel’s game on the train had conjured up in her future. She extended her hand to take that of the girl not much younger than herself. But as she did, the life seemed to drain out of her. She became frightened. A panic of falling into a vast open space overtook her. The earth under her feet felt as if it were crumbling away, flinging her into a chaos of swirling hatred.

  “Such an unfortunate way to get a break,” Helen said, smiling sympathetically as she shook Lucy's hand.

  “Since she broke her leg, I suppose the other girl might say much the same thing. Hello, I'm Philip Claxton,” the wry little man said, lighting a cigarette.

  “I know,” Helen answered. “I've seen many of your films.”

  “And, I guess, you're going to tell me you're one of my biggest fans?”

  Helen narrowed her eyes but did not allow the smile to leave them.

  “I admire anyone who can do well in this business.”

  Lucy could not shake free of the dread she felt when she looked at this girl. You are being a fool, she told herself, allowing a parlour game to plant a silly notion in your head.

  “So Miss Liluth, “ Claxton said. “I welcome you to our little band of the ungodly, for this picture at least.” He held out his hand in a greeting. Helen took it and smiled.

  His pointed face drew up into a kind of closed-mouth grin.

  “By the way,” he said, “I couldn't help but notice your ring. A pretty bauble, I haven't seen one like it in years.”

  Miss Auriel could not help but notice Helen's eyes as they narrowed into coldness. She stole a glance at the silver ring on the dark woman's hand and strained to remember something she had read in one of her books.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  1922 Los Angeles

  The news of the accident was upsetting to Celia, but at least it served as a welcome topic for an entry into her journal. Until now she had written of a day's excursion, riding the cable car up the incline of Laurel Canyon to stand at the top, only to look down on a disappointing dry place that stretched almost uninhabited for miles. She had written of the beauty of the sky and tried to make the trip up the hill sound as athletic and adventurous as she could, but it was impossible to compliment this landscape.

  David had been right when he said that this place was wild and open, a place where people flocked to get rich, from the forty-niners of the gold rush to the movie people of today. There was no desire for grace or sophistication. They did not understand it and had no use for it. She wished that she could see the freedom and space with which David had become so infatuated in this lifeless place, but she struggled. However, she would not disagree. She had no intention of making him angry. She was unwilling to lose the ground she had gained in his affections on the train west.

  Instead, she took to appreciating the tiresome walks in the hills or the tram ride up the canyon. She would return to the house with a studied look of invigoration about her, hoping it would fool him into believing she too found this dreary place exciting and new. She would savor the fresh
ness of the air, whenever he was around in the evening, and beg to be taken on a twilight turn in the gardens of the house for the exercise. She wanted to be agreeable with this place. She wanted it to work its magic on her, giving her a second chance, that possibility of rejuvenation that it seemed to offer to even the lowliest.

  She sat under the shade of an awning at the villa and tried to describe the makeshift cardboard mountain, from which the wretched young girl had taken her fall. She had not seen it first-hand, but firmly endorsed the poetic license of adopting Lucy's account as her own.

  “The girl had been taken to hospital, but was soon replaced, heartlessly, without any display of respect for the gravity of her misfortune. The director had replaced her that very afternoon with a lovely young woman, with dark piercing eyes.”

  She read what she had just written and crossed out the word gravity. It seemed laughably absurd to use the word in connection with a fall. She did not want to be thought ironic or worse yet, facetious in her account of the accident. She described how courageous Lucy, her dearest friend, had been in carrying on, although she was shaken to the quick with concern for the poor stranger.

  Celia put down her pen and watched a hummingbird hover near a shaded vine of rust-coloured flowers. She was secretly glad that the poor girl had fallen. It was surely the sort of first-hand account that the magazines would love to print. It would put her in the forefront, making her an integral part of the celebrated journey to this godforsaken place, and even David would have to admit that she was clever in her observation and more than valuable in her own way.

  •••

  “It shouldn’t be so hot at a January party,” Celia complained, touching a handkerchief to the back of her neck and wiping away the stickiness. “How can anyone think of passing the holidays in such a climate.”

  “The idea is to pass the winter in a warm place,” David said, taking her arm. “That's what rich people are supposed to do these days. There are two choices, Florida or here. So let us have a dance and enjoy what the rest of the country only dreams about while shivering next to their coal burners.”