I Confess

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  "Yes, Margaret."

  "I'm your little manager. I'll make you the most successful writer in the world."

  I could see her sitting at the bar, nodding and smiling at the Baxters, and how they were admiring her.

  "Joe lied to you, Margaret," I said. "They rejected the script. Joe fired me. Collins is doing the revision."

  Seconds later she had herself in hand again. "But that's wonderful, Roy. Joe offered you two new pictures? What did I tell you! You're going to be famous. But don't let them have you cheap. You know what you're worth. Don't sign anything while you're in the hospital. Let me do the negotiating, the way I always ..."

  "Goodnight, Margaret," I said.

  She was still chattering excitedly as I hung up. She would continue to hold the receiver to her ear as if the connection had not been broken, and talk on and on and then bid me a tender farewell. The Baxters would be full of admiration. What a wife! Her husband a writer, and she the one who smoothed the way for him, faithfully and with selfless love, the one who had led liim to fame, laying aside her own aspirations to be an actress, negotiating for him, helping him to evaluate contracts that brought him together with such movie greats as Joe Clayton . . .

  Ridiculous as it may seem, she had done just that. It was she who had brought Joe and me together. And I was grateful to her at the time. It was at a point in my life when I would have been grateful to anyone who made it possible for me to work for whomever, wherever, because I hadn't written a script in a year and a half and we were hard up. And Margaret had to share the blame for that.

  It all began harmlessly, one might almost say touchingly. I was very happy when she told me she was pregnant, and we decided to get married at once! At the time, a child, a house and a family of my own were just what I wanted. It was a period in my life when I felt strongly that I wanted to be a solid citizen. Her parents came to the wedding. They were nice simple people from the Middle West; they owned a drugstore in Louisville, Ohio. Margaret had told them a lot about me and the wonderful things I was doing in Hollywood, and they regarded me with awe. They were very happy about the marriage. I liked them, especially Margaret's mother.

  Then they went back to Louisville, and I began life as a married man. It was a good time. We had a wonderful doctor and Margaret went to see him regulariy. Mother and child were doing fine. My friends came to see us. They accepted Margaret as one of them, friendly and easily, with the informality that is characteristic of the social atmosphere in my profession, where anyone can become anything if he has talent.

  For a while we lived peacefully. We were compatible. Then Margaret began to concern herself with my career. In order to make what follows more comprehensible, I must explain that in Hollywood, just as anywhere else where pictures are made, there is a pronounced atmosphere of inbreeding. Movie people socialize exclusively with movie people, and the only thing they talk about is motion pictures. They talk about pictures morning, noon and night, on the street, in restaurants, at the club, in bed. They talk about parts, actors, subject matter, intrigue, salaries, future projects. It's a disease. It's a specific form of exhibitionism, of self-exposure, a communication madness such as can be found in no other profession.

  Doctors, engineers, physicists, lawyers—aD have outside interests—music, painting, or they collect stamps. They know how to Usten, and when work is done, they can turn it off. Not so the people of the theatre and motion pictures. They never turn oflf their profession, they have no outside interests, no hobbies, they have to talk mcessantly about what really absorbs them—their profession, day and night, year in, year out. They have to confide, they have to bare their souls, they get on their own and each other's nerves. Sometimes they try to escape from this plague of shop talk. They tear out into the countryside, to the desert, and come back a few days later, starved, burning with only one wish, avid to know what happened while they were away.

  This was Margaret's world. She had been a part of it before we married, but then only as a pretty little girl whom you could pick up and take to a party, who drank

  her brandy discreetly and modestly and was a social asset of sorts to the man who had brought her along. But now she was living in this world, so to say, as an equal. The working aristocracy of films, the only aristocracy that profession recognizes, had accepted her m her capacity as the wife of writer James Elroy Chandler.

  As the wife of a writer, Margaret soon discovered that she no longer was only a pretty little girl whom you could pick up and take to a party, who drank her brandy discreetly and modestly and was a social asset of sorts to the man who had brought her along, but that now she was allowed to talk right along with the others, that they listened to her, turned to look at her, and nodded admiringly when she spoke.

  Let me be fair. She never spoke about herself. She never tried to push herself into the forefront or lay stress on her talents or make herself interesting. If only she had! How harmless that would have been! But she did something much worse: she talked about me. She tried to push me into the limelight, stress my talent, make me sound fascinating. And that was an unpardonable sin.

  Because, if there is one written law in this strange, unrealistic and questionable shadow world of motion pictures, then it is this: you can talk badly about all of mankind, but never may you glorify yourself or any member of your family. That is out. Others must extol your talents, not you, not yours. On the outside, yes, that's a different matter—^your manager and agent take care of you there and nobody in the business takes a word they say seriously. But inside, with your colleagues, you may talk only of your work, never of your successes. Among ourselves, every last one of us is a poor thing, naked, overworked and tired. In such surroundings, anyone who makes a show of himself, who tries to make the point that he or his are exceptional, is out of place. It is to be avoided at all cost. An exhibitionist is not going to tell another exhibitionist that he's better at exposing himself.

  But just this was what Margaret started to do. She

  Spoke badly of our colleagues, and that was all right. But then she went on to extol me, and that was anything but all right. I begged her to stop. She promised she would, but she couldn't keep her promise. Her tongue kept running away with her. "If only they'd let Jimmy. . . ." That was how it always began.

  K only they'd let Jimmy . . . Warners would soon be in the black again. If only they'd let Jimmy . . . Bette Davis' last picture wouldn't have been a flop. If only they'd let Jimmy . . . Gordon McKeith wouldn't have written a role for Robert Montgomery that was so bad that poor Robert—who anyway didn't know what was good for him —^wouldn't have to be begging around for a new contract. Jimmy would have done this better, would have prevented that; Jimmy had said years ago that this and that would happen; Jimmy had a manuscript on file for three years and now Fox wanted to steal the idea. Jimmy was a hundred times better than any other writer, those present included. And it was only the stupidity of his superiors that prevented him from getting the Oscar for best original script every year. Yes, if only they'd let Jimmy . • .

  Again, I must try to be fair and say that Margaret never did any of this in her own personal interest. She had been told and had had to listen bitterly to the fact that she didn't have a spark of acting ability. It wasn't surprising that she chose to transfer her own ambitions to her husband, that she wanted to see him successful, famous and sought after. Could anything have been more touching? Was any greater proof possible of her love? And my God, could there have been anything more disastrous?

  Finally I had got her to the point where she refrained from "the glorification of Jimmy," at least when I was around. But soon everyone was telling me that in my absence she blew her "If only they'd let Jimmy" trumpet louder than ever. By now some of my friends were seriously annoyed. Others winked at me ironically, as much as to say: great idea of yours to make your wife your

  publicity agent while you stand back protesting innocence. They congratulated me with rancor. Sometimes, somehow or other, a produce
r fell for her hymns of praise and they had the desired effect. That my colleagues didn't like it ... why should that bother me?

  Our first quarrels were over this situation; Margaret's first tears flowed because of it. She was only doing it for my good, and I didn't understand, she sobbed. I felt ashamed and apologized. She promised not to do it again but I knew she would. I was right. The final catastrophe came as the result of her breaking that promise.

  It was in the spring of 1941. Margaret was pregnant when we watched the preview of The Death of a Lady, The picture was based on an idea I had had in 1938. I was under contract to Warner Brothers at the time. They liked the idea and told me to write the script. It was a psycho-thriller, starring Dorothy McGuire. When I handed in the script it was declared disappointing. It hadn't come up to their expectations. They were very polite about it and immediately gave me another book to write. They gave my script to Dore Thompson for revision.

  Things like that happen frequently, in fact more often than not. But it was happening to me for the first time, and it upset me. For Margaret it was the end of the world. She couldn't get over it. When I told her about it, she became hysterical. She became hard and bitter. She refused to speak to poor Dore Thompson, as if it were his fault. She said awful things about him whenever she could find a listener. I think part of her trouble was that then, for the first time, she got the feeling that maybe I really was just a middle-of-the road writer and would never make it to the top.

  That preview took place on the evening of February 23. It happened to be a very cold day. The small projection room was poorly heated and filled to capacity. All technicians and the entire artistic staff were present—the producer, the director, and Jack Warner personally.

  Margaret was by now big with child which made her self-conscious. Even maternity dresses couldn't hide the fact. She was irritable and felt insecure. She smiled her madonna smile courageously in every direction. She couldn't help noticing that many times it wasn't answered.

  Then we watched the picture. She nudged me and cleared her throat indignantly when she saw the credits. "Written by Dore Thompson. Based on a short story by James Elroy Chandler."

  "Shh!" I hissed desperately.

  "What the hell!" she hissed back,

  "Margaret, please!"

  After that she was quiet, for ninety minutes, eerily quiet. She sat there, her hands folded over her stomach, her eyes glued on the screen. That she was so quiet worried me all the more because the picture wasn't good. I say this not because they scrapped my script. It really wasn't good, and the reviews and public reaction soon told the same story. Dore Thompson had made an indigestible, long-winded, leaden affair out of a theme that was based primarily on a certain breathlessness, on plot and, above all, on suspense. But right then all this was irrelevant. One of the rules of the business is that at the showing of a new film, the people who worked on it have to be congratulated as if it were a masterpiece. Whoever goes against this rule can never atone for his sin. This was the reason—or at least one of the reasons—why there was a general movement of congratulations and handshaking when the lights went on again.

  Margaret sat there, her lips white. She wouldn't look at me. She remained seated while I got up to participate in the conversations going on around me. She had an excuse for remaining seated; everyone knew of her condition.

  I went over to Dorothy McGuire first. "Wonderful, Dorothy," I said. "Really wonderful. I mean it. I think it's the best thing you've done."

  "How sweet of you, Jimmy. But you're exaggerating."

  *Tm not, Dorothy. Really. Don't you agree, Mr. Warner?"

  Old man Warner nodded, smiled, and patted Dorothy's hand. "Yes, my child. I'm very happy about it."

  "So am I!" It was Dore Thompson. He kissed Dorothy's hand. "In fact I'm crazy about your performance."

  "Dore," I said, "it was my idea, but then Mr. Warner gave you the script, so I hope you'll be happy to know that I think you've done a great job."

  "Thanks, Jimmy, thanks. Coming from you it does mean more." And so on and so forth.

  Drinks were served, and somehow nobody seemed able to leave the projection room. It was always like that, especially in the case of a picture where everybody felt things weren't quite right. One wandered from group to group, exchanging pleasantries. It was a modest luxury. One got to hear plenty of unpleasant things outside, and it's an old story: the entertainer Uves more on applause than on bread.

  Jack Warner walked back and forth, smiling like a father talking to his children. I did my best to keep him away from Margaret. She was seated in the center of a group of minor actresses, who were standing around her, but in the end it wasn't possible. Warner walked over to her. Respectfully room was made for him to pass through, then the little circle closed again, tighter than before, and I was separated from Margaret.

  "Well, Mrs. Chandler," said Warner, kissing Margaret's hand in a droll but sincere little show of gallantry. "And how did you like the picture?"

  The beads of perspiration stood out on my forehead. There was silence, and into this silence Margaret said loud and clear, "I think it stinks!"

  Oh God, I thought, oh my God, not that!

  I closed my eyes. I could hear Dore Thompson laugh genially. (Was he laughing genially?) Then I heard Jack Warner's voice. "But Mrs. Chandler, we all think it's great!"

  I Opened my eyes again. I could see my wife, her cheeks hectically red, her hands on her rounded stomach, sit up and slowly shake her head. "I think it's terrible."

  "But our Dorothy. . . .''

  "It's not Dorothy's fault," said Margaret. "It's that lousy script. If you'd had any sense, Mr. Warner, and had kept my husband's script, you'd have a picture that was worth a fortune." She looked at Dore. "I'm sorry, Mr. Thompson, but that's the way I feel." And to Jack Warner, "You're going to lose money on this one."

  God bless her, she was right. The company lost a lot of money on The Death of a Lady but at that moment nobody knew this and nobody wanted to know it.

  Margaret got up. Obviously alienated, they made room for her coolly. She carried her shapeless stomach ahead of her with dignity and came up to me, her madonna smile on her lips. "Roy, I want to go home."

  8

  But that wasn't the real catastrophe. The real catastrophe took place on the first of March. That was the day Warners sent out the letter informing their employees that their contracts were renewed for another year. It was an eerie, fearful day, this first of March. I was sitting in my office, working, when the messenger came and brought me the sealed yellow envelope. I finished typing my sentence, then I tore it open as I walked to the door. It was my intention to go down to the canteen and have lunch. It was one o'clock.

  I didn't go to the canteen. I got as far as the corridor

  wten I realized what was in the letter. Warners was not renewing my contract,

  I walked slowly down into the 3^rd and passed Studio 3, carrying the letter in my hand. Warners was not renewing my contract, I sat down on a pale blue Louis XTV bed which stood outside the studio door in the spring sunshine and lighted a cigarette. Warners was not renewing my contract. I lifted my legs and lay down on the bed and began to think. Vd been fired. The baby was on its way. I'd saved a little money. It would see us through a few months. Also I had a couple of ideas I could sell. Just the same—^Warners was not renewing my contract. I was now a freelance writer. There were a lot of freelance writers who were better off than those under contract. But then there were a lot who were worse off. There were a lot who were a lot worse off. And the baby was coming. And Warners was not renewing ^^' ""^^tract. Why? Why not?

  I rose and went over to the main building. I wanted to speak to Jack Warner. Or to one of his colleagues. I wanted to know why they weren't renewing my contract Wanted to know exactly, dammit all!

  The entrance to the main building was one gigantic glass door. In a glass cubicle sat a platinum blonde beauty. Fd known her for seven years. Her name was Mabel Dermott and she wa
s married to a traveling salesman. She had two children and you couldn't date her. The trick of the glass door was that it opened only when Mabel pressed a button. That's what she was there for. She was supposed to know everybody and to pass on everyone allowed to enter the main building and those who were not. She knew me. For seven years she'd been pressing that button for me when I had business in the main building. I nodded; so did she. Next thing I knew, I'd bumped into the glass door.

  I shook the handle. The glass door didn't move. Mabel hadn't pressed the button. Now she stuck her head out of

  the little window. "Hello, Mabel," I said. My stomach was all cramped up.

  "Hello, Mr. Chandler," she said politely. "Do you have an appointment?" So she already knew. I was one of those for whom she no longer pressed the button. Fast work!

  "No," I said, "I don't."

  "Do you want me to announce you?"

  "Thanks," I said. "No."

  "Have a nice day, Mr. Chandler."

  "Thanks," I said again. Then I went back to my oflSce to get my typewriter and pipe.

  Margaret was knitting when I got home. We had rented a place on Northwood Drive, a pretty little house with a hall and a wide, steep wooden staircase that led up to the second floor. She heard me close the front door and called out to me.

  "Yes, Margaret," I said. I put down the typewriter and went upstairs to her. She was wearing a white housecoat and was smiling at me. "Look," she said proudly, holding up her knitting.

  "Pretty," I said.

  She suspected something. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing."

  "Yes, there is. Tell me what happened?"

  I walked over to the window and looked out. Two strange dogs were chasing each other across the lawn. "Whose dogs are those?"

  "Where?"

  "In our garden. I don't know them."

  She got up and came over to me awkwardly and drew me away from the window. "Roy, tell me what happened."

  I looked at her. Then I told her.

  She turned around and went back to her chair. She sat down again, looked at her knitting, let it fall. Her hair was straggling in her face, her complexion showed the typical yellow pigmentation of pregnancy and she had on