Marion's Wall

by Jack Finney

  He laughed. “If that’s not true—and it’s not—I don’t want to hear it. Well, I’m running auditions this morning, and if Marion Marsh’s granddaughter wants in, she’s in. Come on along.” He started to turn, remembered me, and said, “You coming, too?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Marion said. “I’m terribly nervous. This is my friend who’s … he’s an actor, too! Giving me moral support. I’m scared to death.”

  “Well, come on, both of you, and we’ll get you outfitted, Marion.” We walked out of the little reception room to the right, Marion turning to smile back at the reception cop, then down a corridor lined with flush doors and white-on-black plastic name plates. We stepped out onto a narrow asphalted street or alley—very narrow—and walked past an old-fashioned, one-story wooden building of clapboarded sides painted gray, white double-sash window frames, and a peaked shingle roof. Behind several of the windows women sat typing under brilliant fluorescent light. Far ahead down the narrow street a row of grimy brick buildings extended, each four or five stories high; there were very few windows in any of them and the few there were seemed scattered randomly, so you couldn’t count stories. Fire escapes cluttered their sides, people lounging on most of them. For at least a city block we walked along past them, building after building, and I was proud of Marion—and a little surprised, I’ll admit—because she remembered me. “There’s someone else I’m supposed to look up,” she said to Dahl. “Ted Bollinghurst; did you ever know him?”

  ”Oh, yeah, sure, we were all at the same studio. He moved on then. To United Artists, I think. But I’d run into him every once in a while all through the Twenties and into the Thirties. Hollywood was a lot smaller then. Then I heard he’d left the picture business and gone into real estate, and after that I didn’t hear of him for years. If you’re not in pictures, you know, you don’t exist. But years later I read about him, and he was rich. Like a lot of people who got into Hollywood real estate at the right time. Jesus, when I think of the land I could have bought. In the summer of 1928 I bought a secondhand Dodge roadster for exactly the price of six acres of useless land that is now downtown Beverly Hills. If I’d bought that instead and hung onto it, I’d be rich today and wouldn’t have to—ah, to hell with it. Bollinghurst and lots of others did, and I didn’t. Last I heard of him, some time in the Fifties, he’d bought Graustark.”

  “Bought what?” I said.

  “Graustark, the old Vilma Banky mansion; you never heard of it?” I shook my head. “It was like Pickfair, the Doug Fairbanks-Mary Pickford place. At one time everyone in the civilized world knew about Pickfair and Graustark. Fabulous places. Built on eight or ten acres, a million rooms. Swimming pools. Tennis courts. Stables. Garages full of Daimlers, Duesenbergs and Hispano-Suizas. Well, Ted bought Graustark. Because it had been Vilma Banky’s, I’m sure; he was a real movie nut. It was run-down, gone to seed, empty for years; a white elephant. Even the real estate wasn’t particularly valuable for Hollywood. But he bought it and restored it, even the grounds. And moved in. For a while you’d hear about parties he gave; the place had its own ballroom. I never went, but I heard. But I haven’t heard of any parties for years now. He was a lot older than the rest of us, and I doubt if he’s alive any more. Or whether Graustark’s still there; probably a parking lot now.”

  I said, “Where was it?”

  He thought for a moment. “Keever Street. Out on Keever Street somewhere.”

  “Eleven-hundred block?”

  “Be about it. Why?”

  “Just wondered.”

  Up ahead a pair of gray-painted steel doors stood ajar, and a thin black-haired woman of forty walked out and turned up the street ahead of us. “Marie,” Dahl called, and the woman turned and stood waiting. “I’ve got one more for you,” he said as we came up, and he nodded toward Marion. “Could you outfit her? Quick? We’ll take care of the paper work later.” The woman measured Marion with her eyes, then nodded. “Sure.” She gestured with her chin at Marion. “Come on.”

  They walked off ahead, and Dahl motioned me toward the open gray-painted doors of the same brick warehouse-like building, and we walked in. I had nothing better to do and was curious. The interior was enormous, the building all floor space, the ceiling lost in darkness. I couldn’t see much. Except for a few scattered light bulbs that illuminated very little, and the red glow of exit signs, most of the building was dark except for a corner far ahead. Off in the gloom I could see vague bulky objects and a great wooden scaffolding of some kind.

  We were walking ahead, toward the one lighted area of the huge warehouse-like space. This was a brick-walled corner starkly lit by a pair of powerful work lights mounted on portable standards. Under their light a dozen people, mostly men, two or three women, stood talking idly, most of them holding plastic coffee cups. One of them spotted us, a youngish partly bald man in blue slacks and jacket, and came walking toward us, carrying a clipboard. “Fred,” said Dahl as he stopped before us, “here’s another prospect. Talk to him,” he said, his interest in me fading fast. “Find out his specialty if any. If you can work him in, do it.” To me he said, “Fred’s head of the exterior unit,” whatever that meant, and he walked on toward the group around the work lights.

  “Name?” Fred said, pencil poised over his clipboard. We were at the very outer edge of the circle of light, but I could see eight or ten names penciled on the mimeographed form in Fred’s clipboard. I was about to reply to tell him there’d been a mistake, when I was horrified; I seemed about to faint. The man before me and the building we stood in had begun to disappear. I’d once fainted in college from economizing by not eating breakfasts; it had begun like this, and now I wondered if I’d hit my head when I fell. But I didn’t fall. Dim as things were becoming—sounds growing fainter too—I heard my faraway voice reply, and its tone was calm, assured, and several notes deeper.

  “Rod. Rod Guglielmi.”

  “Rod for Rodney?”

  “No. Rodolpho.”

  “Any specialty?”

  “Anything you want.” The scene was shrinking fast, the sound fading with it.

  “Well, we need a stunt man, that’s about all.”

  A moment’s hesitation, then my mouth spoke the words: “I can do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Whatever you want. Race-car driving. Wing-walking. Plane-to-train transfers. Parachu—” Nothingness, then; not even blackness, only pure colorless nothingness. Just as you can tell awakening from sleep about how much time has passed, I knew that it was no more than an hour later. But this was like awakening from an unnatural fevered sleep for only a moment or so of superclarity. I was in a closetlike space, a dressing room with a mirrored table, a chair, and wall hooks on which my clothes hung. I was standing, I realized, one foot on the floor, the other on the chair, staring down at myself. My upper body, I saw, wore a white nylon shirt open at the collar and cut very full in the chest and sleeves. My pants were whipcord jodhpurs. I was wearing blunt-toed shoes laced up over the ankles, and the leg on the floor was wrapped in a leather puttee fastened with two brass buckles. The other puttee was in my hands; apparently I was about to fit it around the other leg. Then the faintness, the rushing diminishing of everything I saw into nothingness.

  Again, I knew that more time—an hour and a half, maybe two—had passed. I simply opened my eyes as though from a dreamless sleep and saw—I didn’t know what I was seeing. It was a floor, an enormous endless floor, but not in a room. I was staring down at it through an evenly distributed haze, puzzling over a random pattern of gray-white lines, sometimes straight, sometimes curving, and a succession of fingernail-sized green and red squares in parallel rows. Far, far away, near the edge of the floor, lay a thicker, irregular lead-gray curve, and then I saw a momentary glint of light on its surface and realized that I was seeing an actual river. And that the gray-white lines were roads, the red and green squares were rooftops, and that this enormous floor stretched out before me just past the edge of a fabric-covered surface on whi
ch my laced shoes were standing side by side.

  There was a sound, too, I realized, a hammering roar, and a sensation: I was chilled by a steady pressure of air against my ribs and chest. And now I could hear and feel the loose-cut cloth of my shirt fluttering audibly, tugging at my skin. My eyes moved slightly and I saw a taut varnished surface just over my head and caught a glimpse of angled guy wire.

  I held off the knowledge as long as I could: that I was not dreaming but actually stood crouched on the lower wing of an ancient biplane thousands of feet above Los Angeles. My head turned a little more; I saw my own white-knuckled left fist wrapped around a stanchion, and—to my left and behind me—the leather-helmeted, goggled head of the pilot, and my throat went dry, my intestines shriveled, my eyes widened in shock. For a moment longer I stared out at the misty, infinitely distant horizon miles ahead and miles below me, then the dimming sensation roared up through my senses, and this time I understood that I was truly and genuinely about to fall unconscious.

  Just before it happened I felt once again the sense of someone pushing toward me, pushing against me yet without crowding, until suddenly we were occupying the same space, and Rodolpho Guglielmi was back. Curiosity is the strongest emotion, of course, and I was able to wonder where I had heard or read this vaguely familiar name, then I remembered. This was Rudolph Valentino up here with me on this cloth-covered wing, signed up under his actual name as a stunt man, if that’s what he had to do for a comeback.

  But he wouldn’t take over completely. We stood there, far up in the sky, standing on a piece of varnished cloth … and then I understood that he was as scared as I was!

  He deserted me! Took a look at the horror stretched out before and below us, and left me once again! My arm was going dead, I was squeezing the stanchion so hard. I looked past it: at the long, long old-fashioned hood of the plane; at the rusty exhaust pipe stretched along its side; at the paint peeling off its vents; at the shivering, filmily transparent circle of the propeller. And my knees went fluid, shoulders sagging, about to pitch limply forward into space.

  Let me say to the eternal credit and glory of Rudolph Valentino—that he came back! He came back; we stood together, took a deep, deep breath, then he turned to the pilot and he made himself smile. It was a heroic act. He was a real man. He’d got us up here, and he’d get us back. With infinite relief I let nothingness overwhelm me.

  Only minutes passed I understood this time, as—abruptly, no warning—I once again saw the vast misty plain that was most of the Los Angeles area horizon to horizon, this time from an even greater height.

  But the wing was gone! I heard the steady, hammering, old-fashioned drone of the single engine close by, yet the plane had disappeared! I was looking straight up—Up? Yes, up!—at the tiny lines that were roads and dots that were rooftops. The backs of my knees hurt—why?—and the blood was congested in my face and neck. Then I understood: I was upside down, my head tilted far back to stare straight down through nothingness at the slightly tilted, slowly revolving earth far below. I looked away fast, looked down—up?—saw my wildly fluttering white shirt from mid-chest to wide leather belt, my jodhpurred legs to the knees, and—that’s all. No puttees, no shoes, only the fabric-covered wing of the plane. I heard a strangled sound in my own throat because—oh, God—I was hanging upside down by my knees from the metal loop of the skid at the tip of the wing.

  My head swung away in terror and I saw the helmeted, goggled head watching me. His lips grinned, he lifted a gloved hand to wave at me, and the blackout began, and I was glad, truly preferring to slide into unconsciousness and die than continue for even one more second to see and understand the horror of where I was.

  More time had passed, much more, when I felt thought and consciousness returning again, and this time I felt it return all the way, felt how terribly tired I was in my body and mind both, and I knew that Valentino was fully gone. I couldn’t, would not open my eyes, afraid to look. But I heard, and the drone of the airplane motor was gone. I realized that I was hearing the murmur of scattered voices in casual talk, and I opened my eyes.

  I was indoors, in a room—no, it was a movie theater, though a strange one. The blank white screen up front, the first thing I saw, was miniature, two-thirds size at most. And there were only half a dozen rows of perhaps a dozen seats each. People sat here and there, maybe a dozen of them. Two rows ahead and off to my left, Hugo Dahl sat with two other men, including Fred of the exterior unit. A girl with a clipboard on her lap sat just behind Dahl; she held a metal pencil with a tiny light near its tip, and she flicked it on and off a couple of times. Here and there sat other men and women—actors maybe. I felt a nudge, turned, and Marion—I knew it was Marion from the expression—sat beside me. She’d been back to the hotel, apparently, because she wore a green dress, one Jan had never liked and seldom wore, though it looked good on Marion. I looked down at myself; I’d been back to the hotel, too; I was wearing another suit, shirt, and tie. Marion said, “I think they’re going to start, Rudy. I’m so nervous.”

  I whispered, “It’s not Rudy; it’s Nick.”

  “Well, believe me, I’m glad! He’s impossible! I never realized but with him it’s nothing but I, I, I, I. I couldn’t get a word in all through dinner!”

  “Marion, what’s happening? What time is it, did you take your test? Where are—”

  “Oh, yes; this morning. They developed prints late this afternoon. We’re going to see them now; Hugo invited us.”

  “Well, what are they for? What’s the picture?”

  “I don’t know; no one has said. But I think—”

  Hugo Dahl had turned in his seat to look around the theater. “Everyone here?” he called now and, without waiting for an answer, glanced up at the projection booth. “Okay, Jerry. Let ‘em roll.”

  The houselights went out immediately, and a rectangle of light appeared on the screen, slightly flickering. It turned milk-white, and a scribbled number 4 in reverse flashed by, then some felt-penned letters, also in reverse, a scrap of old film used as a leader. Abruptly and out of focus, a man appeared on the screen, facing the camera and holding something: the focus instantly sharpened into a long-haired young man with a drooping mustache and wearing a fringed leather jacket. He was holding up a slate on which HUNTLEY was roughly printed in white chalk, and below it, TAKE 1, KAY MEISSNER. In his other hand he held the lower jaw of a black-and-white clap board attached to the bottom of the slate, and he immediately slapped it shut and walked off the scene.

  The scene—he’d hidden most of it—was a four-man band in close-up, wearing red-and-white-striped coats and straw hats. Hands poised, the pianist sat looking at the others, then brought his hands down to the keys; the trombonist lifted his instrument and the right hands of the other two, banjoists seated on high stools, began to move so rapidly they blurred. The sudden burst of music was marvelous old-time jazz, the beat fast and pronounced.

  Immediately the camera drew rapidly back to reveal a scrap of footlighted stage with a white-velvet backdrop, a girl walking out from the wings. She wore a knee-length fringed red dress and a headband across her forehead and around her short hair. Smiling professionally out at us, she began to dance. It was fast and in exact time, an approximation of the Charleston, I realized. But there was a learned, mechanical quality about her movements, and I had a sudden hunch that this girl had bluffed, saying she knew the dance when she didn’t, maybe having a quick coaching session the night before the test. The dance lasted maybe twenty seconds; then, winking broadly at a supposed audience whose sound-track applause burst out, she walked quickly off the stage as a final note sounded from the banjos. From the strained quality of her wink I felt that she knew she’d failed.

  There was no response from the real audience. Marion leaned toward me to murmur, “That’s about as close to a Charleston as a polka,” and with no pause after the final note, the young man in the fringed jacket walked on screen, holding up his slate. The bottom two lines had been rubbed out, and now chalked
in new letters under huntley I read TAKE 2, JUNE VAN CLEE.

  The stick clapped, he walked off, revealing the band again, the pianist’s hands once more poised over the keyboard. The camera drew back as his hands came down, and the same tune began again—wild, and with a great disciplined beat; I wished I could hear hours of it. A second girl, taller and thinner than, but dressed like, the first, walked on from the wings.

  She was much better, very skilled. But all she was doing up there on the tiny stage was performing an accurately done chore for money. In spite of her smile, it was joyless and uninspired. So was her departing wink—and so were the girls in takes three, four, and five.

  Again with no break of the film, the slate was held up—TAKE 6, MARION MARSH—the black-and-white sticks were clapped together, and the pianist’s hands dropped to the keys. The driving blare of sound began again, and now Marion walked out onto the tiny stage in a short tomato-red dress, red headband, and—this was different from all the others—a string of beads that hung to her waist. As she walked out, she, too, smiled at the imaginary audience across the footlights, but this was a smile easy with the confidence of what she knew she could do superbly. Her smile said she was pleased with herself and that she was happy, that she liked the audience that was about to have the pleasure of enjoying her. For a moment I remembered the tiny black-and-white figure I’d seen on the screen of my television set—long, long ago, it seemed—in Flaming Flappers. This was that girl—larger than life now, in full brilliant color and blaring sound—but with that same magic presence. I was smiling, responding to her happy arrogance, and I knew with an actual physical thrill moving up my spine how good she was going to be.

  Her body slipped effortlessly from walk into dance without pause or transition, her rhythm free and easy. She wasn’t listening to the music and carefully coordinating her movements with it: her body simply flowed into, joining and becoming part of that wild, happy jazz. Feet and elbows flashed so effortlessly that the beat seemed slower than it had in other takes. And then—just once and simultaneously—the fingers of each hand snapped, abandon shot through her body, and the dance took fire. Her legs flew in a controlled ecstatic frenzy, her chin slowly lifting, her eyes closing in sensual pleasure. She loved what she was doing—you could see that and feel it—every atom of her excited body thrilled by it. It was wild, and then on an abrupt final note it stopped, her eyes opened, and when she smiled and winked out at us, it was so lecherous a man yelped, and we broke into real applause.