I touched her elbow timidly with my left hand, then I seized her suddenly, pinning her arms to her sides. I was conscious again of a faint whirring, somewhere behind us or in the air over our heads. The pitch of the sound seemed to descend a little, and it became perceptibly weaker, as though some electrical machine were gradually dying down. I kissed the edge of her face, just at the corner of the ear, and then covered her face with kisses.
“Alys,” I heard her whispering. “Just an instant, an instant, an instant,”
Our mouths, groping for each other, met and locked tightly. As in a dream, or as though lowered on silken ropes, we descended into the grass. I lay on her and fumbled along her back for the row of satin buttons on the gown. The discreet murmur in the air was growing very faint now. It was only because it was very quiet that I could hear it at all. Then it died out entirely. I lost consciousness. It was as though I had fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep, or as though the anesthetist’s needle, slipping painlessly into a vein, had infused me with a cool oblivion that filtered through my limbs like an icy nectar, a Nothingness. I knew what it was not to exist.
* * *
When I came to my senses again I was still lying on the grass behind the false storefront. There was no sign of Moira. I must have slept all night, because the sun was back around in the east now. But time worked very strangely in this world and perhaps it wasn’t a real sun at all, only a glowing disk hung up there by special effects. The humming in the air was back to normal now. It was a comforting sound, like that of an air conditioner when you are sleeping in a hot country, or the faint rumble of traffic that reminds you you are safe in your own city where things are going on as normal. It is only when the air conditioner stops, or the sound of traffic is silent, that an ominous feeling comes over you. It seemed to be a nice day. I stood up and filled my lungs with the cool and clear air.
There was nobody in sight. I walked out into the square enclosed by the false storefronts, but it was deserted. Still feeling energetic and cheerful with the fresh air coursing through my lungs, I went on walking through the empty streets. As I wandered in this way around the lot I continually discovered new sets I had never noticed before. Perhaps they were constantly being put up and taken down, or perhaps I merely took different routes in my way across the lot without being aware of it. Turning left at a corner, I found myself on a Fifth Avenue set, lined with the false fronts of skyscrapers extending two stories up into the air and then ending. A little farther on I came to a courtroom complete with jury box, one wall missing so that I could look directly into it, and next to it a Death Chamber with electric chair, the straps neatly folded back and waiting for its next victim.
Beyond this somewhat creepy spectacle I came out onto the main street of the lot. Looking down toward the office and the entrance gate, I saw that the business of the lot had started for the day; the chain-link gate was open and cars were coming in. The guard was at his usual post, and a few people were standing around on the sidewalk in front of the office.
I turned down the street and walked out to the gate. The guard, his chair leaning back against the wall, was reading a newspaper. He looked up at me and then went back to his reading. I stood for a moment examining him. He was a middle-aged man, a little overweight, wearing a uniform but no hat. He didn’t seem to be armed. It seemed to me that I would have no difficulty in outrunning him even if he chose to get up from his chair and attempt to prevent me from going out through the gate.
I walked through the open gate onto the sidewalk beyond. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, I went on tentatively down the sidewalk in the direction of the city. The guard didn’t even look up from his newspaper. I stopped and looked around me, at the boulevard, at the lot behind me, and at the city in the distance. Off to the north the line of mountains was clearly outlined against the sky. A few stucco bungalows were scattered among the vacant lots along Washington, with a larger building here and there. A short distance away I could see the intersection with La Cienega. I had an impulse to break into a run and dash on down the sidewalk on the route I knew well now, toward the distant city and the Alhambra Theater.
Then I remembered: Moira. Moira.
I stood for a moment longer watching the traffic passing on the boulevard. A streetcar went by, then a Ford Model T sedan, brand new and polished like a dancing shoe. The sun was beating down intensely now. Everything was clearly outlined and glaring: the pavement was black, the sky was white, the Ford was black, the face of the driver white as he turned and stared at me.
My eyes were beginning to hurt a little from the strong contrasts of light. I went back in through the gate. The guard, looking up from his newspaper, nodded at me in a friendly way.
I drifted slowly back up the main street of the lot, staying in the shade of the buildings as well as I could. Without really realizing where I was going I found myself on the way to the commissary, perhaps with the vague idea that I might find Moira there. I went in and found the place almost deserted. It wasn’t time yet for the morning coffee break. I got a cup of coffee at the counter and took a place at an empty table. Almost immediately I caught sight of Nesselrode staring at me from only a few feet away. I hadn’t noticed him coming in the door. He sidled into a chair across the table from me, examining me balefully out of his large protruding eyes.
“How are you this morning, Mr. Nesselrode? Will you have a cup of coffee?”
“I don’t use caffeine. A glass of orange juice I will have. My young friend, I have a word to bandy with you.”
It occurred to me for the first time that he never called me by my name. Perhaps he couldn’t remember it, or perhaps he preferred not to pronounce it because for him, at least, it carried a suggestion of the effeminate, which he probably disapproved of as much as he did drugs and eating dead animals. I waited for him to go on.
“You wanted to be in pictures. So I helped you and now you are in pictures. Fine. But now you should take my advices more. Your head is too strong, just like all young people, and you think you know better than anyone else what to do.”
I sipped my coffee and set it down. “Very well,” I said cheerfully, “give me some of your advices.”
“If you listen to me I can make you a star, even,” he went on. “So far, a star you are not.”
“Mr. Nesselrode, am I free to leave the lot?”
He glanced up, suddenly intent. “Leave the lot? Why would you want to leave the lot?”
“No particular reason. It’s just that I feel confined here, that’s all. There’s a chain-link fence around it. It’s like a prison.”
“A prison!” he said, faking an astonishment he obviously did not feel. “There are millions—millions!—that would like to get inside here.”
“It’s a prison if you can’t leave.”
“You left the lot already this morning. You walked out on the boulevard, you looked at a streetcar, and then you came back in.”
“What if I hadn’t?”
“I can’t discuss hypotenuses. You did come back in. Why?”
I didn’t care to go into this, at least for the moment. “You haven’t given me your advices,” I reminded him.
“You need more versatility. You should do different kinds of parts. Especially you should play with other actresses.”
“Very well. Which?”
“Vanessa Nesser, for example.”
“She’s not my type.”
“That’s what I mean, you’re not versatile. A star should be able to play with any type.”
“Besides Vanessa who is there?”
“Well, just at the moment we don’t have a lot of other people around,” he conceded. “There’s Claudia Leroy, she plays child parts, a very cute little girl and full of talent, a genius almost.”
I had never had any particular feeling for little girls. It was one of the few vices I hadn’t tried. But instead of telling him this I merely remarked that Moira herself seemed a child to me in many ways.
�
�No, no. Moira is experienced. She makes a specialty of ingenue parts, true, but she has been in pictures a long time. She is experienced,” he repeated, as if he preferred this term to any reference to her age.
“Mr. Nesselrode, can Moira leave the lot?”
At this he really looked alarmed. “Moira? To go where?”
“Outside.”
He moved sideways in his chair as though he were about to get up and leave. His nose twitched and his shiny, slightly bulging eyes fixed on me. “Young man, let me tell you a thing. If you want to be a star and make big pictures, don’t talk about outside. Talk about making pictures. Everything outside, forget it.”
“A streetcar goes right by the lot. You could get on it and go everywhere.”
“Where? To China? To Paris? Go ahead and try. Here is another advice, young man. If you want to travel around the world, make pictures. Then your pictures will go everywhere in the world. To China, to Paris. You will be known everywhere. You will always be young and handsome. Why does Moira stay so young? Because she sticks to making pictures and doesn’t talk foolishness.”
“That’s what Ziff says. Art is immortal.”
“Who?”
“My friend Ziff. He studied philosophy at UCLA.”
“Ziff! Ziff! An evil man. A gangster, a hoodlum. I would think that even you, a child, could see that.”
“I’m not a child. And Ziff is not exactly a gangster. I’m not sure what he is. He works for some charitable organization, perhaps.”
“A hoodlum,” he repeated. After a moment he added in a murmur, “Ziff is not your friend.”
I was enjoying the conversation, now that I seemed to have him on the defensive. “Maybe you could get him into pictures. He could play gangster parts.”
“We already have plenty of gangsters. Perhaps you would like to work in a gangster picture? I could speak to Reiter.”
“Would Moira be in it?”
He thought he had shaken me off and changed the subject. This time he seemed more angry than alarmed. The scar on his lip stood up suddenly in a knotted line, like a welt on a shoe. “Moira! Always you are harping on Moira. Young man, remember an advice I gave you. On the lot we don’t make …”
“I know, attachments. I just feel I play well opposite Moira.”
“You should be more versatile,” he told me again. That ended the conversation.
When I came out the day’s work was really under way. The main street of the lot was full of trucks, costume-people trundling along racks of clothing, and extras in various bizarre garb. As I went down the street I could see that a large crowd had collected by the artificial ocean with its backdrop of clouds. Extras were standing around in Roman and Egyptian costumes. There were two cameras and a number of reflector screens on dollies. Reiter was striding around slapping his boot with his riding crop and shouting at people. Evidently the Battle of Actium had already taken place; the bow of a sunken Egyptian ship, beaked like a bird, protruded from the water. A fragment of papier-maché Egyptian palace had been erected at one side. It consisted of a pair of columns, a statue of Anubis, a stone wall with hieroglyphics in bas-relief, and an urn with some papyrus stalks stuck in it. Vanessa Nesser was reclining on a kind of chaise longue with lion-head legs, drawing her fingers through her hair with an expression of grief. Mark Antony had already lost the battle to the Romans and had died by falling on his sword. He was standing behind the camera in a cardboard breastplate and helmet, still holding the sword which was made in sections so that it folded up like a telescope as it disappeared into his breast. Sick with love for her dead paramour, Cleopatra lay facing the camera, clutching her fingers in her long hair and combing it out absentmindedly. This hair-combing was done very slowly. All her movements were slow; it was a dramatic scene.
“Death where is thy sting!” shouted Reiter.
“OH DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING?”
“The asp!” shouted Reiter. “Who’s got the asp?”
A slave hurried up with a bowl of wax fruit with a rubber snake in it.
Vanessa took the snake and applied it to her bosom, which was only half concealed by a pair of chased brass cups supported by golden chains. There was a short wait while the snake made up his mind to bite. Her look of grief intensified. Then she made a sudden spasm as though stung by a bee. She flung away the snake and stretched out her arms, writhing.
“Roll it up!” Reiter yelled. “Medium close shot!”
The camera moved closer to watch Vanessa dying. Rhythmic contortions like sea-waves began at her shoulders, moved down her torso, and slid over her shapely and rounded hips.
“Center on her tits!” shouted Reiter.
The camera tilted down until it pointed directly at the pair of brass cups. Vanessa writhed even more violently, her head thrown back to reveal the fine and fragile molding of her throat. Her torso heaved up and down. Then she drew up one knee and crossed it over the other leg, a curiously chaste gesture that in some way intensified the sensuality of her half-bare breasts and the writhing of the rest of her body. It was as though, in her last moment, she wished to prevent Death from violating her. She stiffened, her head still thrown back, and extended an arm which fell to the floor. After that she was motionless.
“Cut! Fine! Fine! Print that!”
Reiter took off his hat and wiped the perspiration from his head. The planes of his skull glowed in the sunshine. “That’s great, Van. One of your best. It’ll box a million. Okay, everybody, that about wraps it up. Extras can go to accounting for their checks. Come around in the morning and we’ll look at the rushes, Van.”
The script-girl closed up her book. Reiter put his hat back on, scratched the back of his neck, and went over to the camera to look at the counter.
“Seventy-five feet,” said the cameraman. “A long take.”
“We’ll cut it a little. It doesn’t take a woman that long-to die.”
Then he turned and noticed me for the first time standing behind the camera.
“Ah, it’s you.”
“Mr. Reiter, did I do all right in My Lord?”
He shrugged. “For a beginner.”
He started off toward the office with the script-girl at his elbow. I tagged along behind him and a little at one side. “Mr. Reiter, I want to make another picture with Moira.”
“Who? Oh yes. Julius said to watch out for you. You’re the kind that tends to form attachments.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s not professional, that’s all. It distracts you and interferes with the job. Take Vanessa, for example. Those tin cups would make anybody’s pecker come to attention. But do you think I am going to get involved with her? No. Why not? Because it wouldn’t be professional. We’re here to make pictures, not to chase muff.”
“I can be professional, Mr. Reiter. It’s just that I think I play well opposite Moira.”
“You’ve still got a few things to learn about falling down.”
“I don’t want to be type-cast in comic parts. That’s not what I want to do. I have serious ambitions to be an actor.”
“Ah, serious ambitions.” He smiled a little. “I’m not sure I understand the word ‘serious.’”
“I would like to play a serious lead opposite Moira. Something dramatic. A love story.”
Here he looked at me again a little more searchingly. He was carrying his riding crop as usual and he began fingering it in an unconscious way; I wondered whether he was going to hit me with it.
“You’re not so bad at comedy. Maybe you should stick to it.”
“That’s the kind of part you gave me. You haven’t tried me at other things.”
We had almost reached the front office. He stopped and contemplated me. He still seemed friendly but distant. I had the impression that he was regarding me not as a human being but as something cut out of celluloid that perhaps might be fitted into a picture, although he still had doubts. Friendly was not really the right word for his attitude. Perhaps he didn�
�t have any friends, the idea struck me. Perhaps the only thing he was interested in was making pictures. Just as he didn’t believe in falling in love with the actresses, perhaps he also didn’t believe in making friends with the actors, or with anybody else. He was a technician and he expected everybody else to be the same. Unfortunately my feelings toward Moira were not technical.
“Well, you are a good-looking boy,” he said finally. “Maybe they would go for it. It’s the box that decides in the end, Alys. If it pays at the box it’s good. If it doesn’t pay at the box it’s garbage.”
“Why don’t you try me.”
“I’ll ask Julius what he thinks.”
It seemed to me there was a faint maliciousness in this. “Don’t ask him. He would only—”
“Recommend against forming attachments,” he finished for me. I wasn’t sure what his attitude was toward Nesselrode. There was a slightly satirical edge to his voice as he said this. It was even possible that there was an element of hostility in his relations with Nesselrode. It was not clear to me what the hierarchy of the lot was, whether he was superior to Nesselrode or whether Nesselrode was superior to him. If Nesselrode was his superior, that would account for his devious humor on the subject.
“There’s nothing wrong with attachments,” he said, “as long as they’re off the lot. Well, come on in the office and we’ll talk about it.”
We went into the fake Spanish hacienda, through the lobby, and down the corridor. On a hall leading off to one side there was an office marked “Mr. Reiter.” It was next to the men’s room, I noticed. Even if he was a genius, as Nesselrode alleged, he didn’t seem to have a very important place for an office.
Inside the small room was an untidy mess of books, shooting scripts, unopened letters, and loose papers. There was a dusty sofa at one side, also piled with papers, and a desk for Reiter with a swivel chair. The script-girl had her own smaller desk with a typewriter. I began to wonder more about the script-girl. Reiter never said anything to her but instructions and questions about the picture they were shooting, but she was always with him and now it seemed she shared his office. Perhaps he concealed his attachment and only expressed it when he was off the lot. I tried to imagine Reiter off the lot, without success. He sat down in the swivel chair, leaving his hat on and still holding the crop, and I sat down before the desk in a folding chair of the kind provided by rental companies for funerals.
Screenplay Page 15
