Dreams Are Not Enough

by Jacqueline Briskin

  50

  To the west, the deep blackness of the sky showed a silvered edge that dimmed the enormous stars. The curve of horizon became visible, and suddenly one could make out a silhouetted march of elephants.

  Watching the swift ascent of dawn, Alyssia stood at the mosquito webbing that substituted for windows in the tents. She had never expected to be enthralled by the panorama of Africa—having had her fill of the outdoors during her first fifteen years, she was no nature lover. Yet on the untouched land of Masai Mara Game Reserve, which is Kenya’s side of the vast Serengeti, she would find herself imagining that she’d been thrust back through uncountable eons to the cruel, miraculous age before humankind reared up on two legs. Nights were mysterious and velvety, days vast, with clean, limitless distances. The sleek, tawny lions were a different breed from their brethren incarcerated in zoos, as were the elephants, the giraffes, the herds of trim zebra, the hundreds of species of antelope, the magnificent profusion of brilliant birds.

  “Miss Alyssia, the shower is ready.” Sara’s lilting soprano was behind her. (Alyssia’s contract specified that she have a personal maid on the company payroll and Sara, hired in Nairobi, was Juanita’s replacement.)

  In the rear of the tent were two beds: only one had been slept in. The eight weeks that Alyssia had been in Africa, Barry had remained at the château, finishing Spy, hassling with the clatterous workmen, and dispatching wordy explanations for his continued absence.

  Alyssia’s thongs flapped across the tent’s raised wooden floor and down the two exterior steps to a canvas-fenced private yard lit by a kerosene lamp. Next to the open-topped, six-foot-high, corrugated iron shower enclosure stood two young black men wearing khaki shorts and sweatshirts imprinted THE BAOBAB TREE.

  “Jambo,” they chorused.

  “Jambo,” she replied, adding, “Asante sana.” Unlike most of the company, Alyssia had picked up a serviceable Swahili vocabulary. Jambo meant hello, asante sana, thank you very much.

  Inside, she shucked her terry robe, slinging it over the corrugated iron. Nights were cold on the highlands, and goosebumps rose on her flesh. The bathboys had heated the water at the kitchen cooking fires before pouring it into an overhead contraption. She pulled a cord to release the hot flow through the inaccurate showerhead, then began soaping herself vigorously. Her breasts were a fraction fuller and their blue tracery of veins more visible. Her stomach curved slightly between her pelvic bones. She reassured herself with the thought: Even Hap hasn’t noticed.

  An overladen tray had been delivered to her tent. The head cook, a long-time fan, personally fixed her breakfast, and nothing she said could persuade him not to include a half dozen of the strongly odored, brighter-yolked Kenyan eggs crisscrossed with bacon rashers. Leaving on the metal cover, she helped herself to fruit, scarcely making a dip in the terraced slices of mango, papaya and pineapple.

  The tent flap was pushed aside. Beth came in carrying a coffee cup. She wore a crisply ironed safari suit and a broad-brimmed khaki hat adorned with a fish-eagle feather. Her delicate nose was red and peeling, her eyelids puffed from sunburn, her bare arms splashed with freckles. Though she never left her tent without a hat and slatherings of #15 sunscreen, the equatorial sun had marked its vengeance on her fair skin.

  “Did the lions keep you up?” she asked.

  “Lions? What lions?” replied Alyssia, who had sunk into a heavy sleep a minute after Hap had slipped from her tent.

  “The lions that Masai Mara’s famous for, the lions who roared until four this morning,” said Beth.

  “Oh, those lions. No, I didn’t hear them. But then, Bethie, I’m a star—and stars get soundproofed tents.”

  Beth chuckled, then pressed a finger to her temple. Already the nerves behind her eyes were vibrating, not yet a headache, but moving toward one.

  Africa was Beth’s nemesis.

  She couldn’t take the intransigent brightness. She loathed the emptiness of the rolling grassland. The free-roaming animals terrified her. And as for the nights—she had never imagined anything so hostile as Masai Mara’s predatory nights. She and Alyssia generally ate dinner at the trestle table outside Hap and Maxim’s tent: long before nine thirty, when the generator went off and light bulbs all over The Baobab Tree encampment faded, Beth was rushing Alyssia to their neighboring tents. Striding a bit ahead, she would grip her large Eveready flashlight like a truncheon. Once zipped inside, she didn’t emerge until morning, not even when her bladder begged her to use the chemical toilet two steps down from the rear tent-flap.

  In the eight weeks she had been in Africa she had never ceased fretting about Clarrie’s health: the cheerful letters from Irving that arrived in the Harvard Productions pouch did nothing to allay her worries.

  Yet, for all Beth’s acute discomfort and maternal brooding, she never considered going home.

  On the surface she had no cause for alarm. While filming, Hap and Alyssia displayed only professionalism. At the supper table, they were friendly and never worked the seating to be next to each other. They hadn’t renewed their affair, of that Beth was positive. She was equally positive that the instant she left Masai Mara Game Reserve, her sister-in-law would leap naked into Hap’s narrow camp cot.

  Beth’s suspicions and Alyssia’s semiamused resentfulness of her sister-in-law’s chaperonage should have dulled the edge of their friendship. Instead, their existing warmth had grown and they were closer than ever. Beth would help Alyssia learn her lines; they shared paperbacks, magazines, worries about Clarrie, dreams of success for Barry’s novel, light gossip and laughter.

  The makeup artist arrived, also carrying coffee. She, Beth and Alyssia chattered, and continued to talk while the hairdresser ratted Alyssia’s hair into a period pompadour.

  The chain-smoking wardrobe mistress came to perform her task.

  “Alyssia, you really oughta let me lace the corset,” she said, cigarette dangling from her lips, nicotine-stained fingers moving deftly to adjust the white organza gown. “Sara doesn’t get the damn thing tight enough.”

  “Why do you think I let her do it?” Alyssia replied, winking.

  “I’ll have to move these hooks. Again.”

  “Africa gives me an appetite.”

  “You’re telling me!” said Beth. “I’ve gained ten pounds at least.” In actuality she had lost three.

  A minibus was waiting for Alyssia, and Beth climbed in with her. There were few roads on Masai Mara, and none in this remote section. The bus traveled across the open land in a cloud of red-yellow dust. A herd of Thomson’s gazelles pronged away, their white butts bouncing. One of the giraffes around a clump of acacia trees glanced at them, then the entire group shifted in their slow grace to browse at more distant vegetation.

  From the top of a slight rise they could look down on the set. As always, Alyssia caught her breath at the superbly cinematic image. The sweep of empty beige savannah, the baobab tree of the title with its barren branches resembling upside-down roots, the solitary, gardenless brick villa backed by the era’s ubiquitous carriage house/stable that belonged in some middle-class London suburb.

  This was the home of Mellie, the role that Alyssia played. Her miserly Cockney father, having struck it rich in the Transvaal, has come to Kenya with a mineral map showing rich veins of gold in the Rift Valley. (Mellie will steal the map for her lover, Jason Mattingly.)

  As the minibus jounced down the slope amid a maze of tire ruts, the turmoil in the dip to the left of the house became visible. Land-Rovers, jeeps, minibuses were parked higgledy-piggledy near trailers. Wranglers and animal trainers bustled around the corrals, an assistant director raised his megaphone to a crowd of elegantly tall moran—Masai warriors—whose hair was reddened with ocher.

  The minibus braked at a trailer above whose door was painted: PRODUCTION.

  Maxim greeted Alyssia and his cousin, then cocked an eyebrow toward a drifting continent of gray-black clouds. “That’s one mean mother,” he said sourly.


  “The short rains, don’t you know,” said the ruddy-faced Kenyan who was their so-called local expert.

  “‘I say, there might be a spot of rain in November and December.’” Maxim mimicked the Kenyan’s rather high-pitched voice. “You call twenty-one days of rain in eight weeks a spot?”

  Hap had emerged. Fatigue lined his face, but his calm manner invited confidence. “So let’s shoot while we can,” he said.

  The very young second assistant director, whose shirt and shorts already showed dark sweatstains, jogged to one of the trailers. In two minutes he emerged.

  “Mr. Camron’s having a massage,” he reported. Cliff Camron had been signed for the role of Jason Mattingly after Jack Nicholson and Robert Redford had turned it down.

  “I’ll bet he is.” Maxim gave an acid laugh. “Get your butt back in there and tell him we’re ready for him.”

  The young assistant director trudged to the trailer. Returning, he said, “Mr. Camron said his back’s been acting up and he can’t stand straight. The masseur is trying to work out the knots.”

  “In case you’ve forgotten,” Maxim said, “we’re shooting a film here. You, as part of the crew, are paid handsomely to do your job, which is getting Mr. Camron out from under the nimble fingers.”

  The young assistant director was as crimson as if he were suffering from heatstroke. “Mr. Cordiner, I can’t drag—”

  “The fuck you can’t!”

  “Maxim.” Hap pushed back his hair, which the sun had streaked yet lighter. “It’s nobody’s fault. If you keep sending for Cliff—you know what happened yesterday.”

  The previous day, Cliff had departed during lunch with Cameo Hannaway, a pretty, frizzy-permanented blonde bit player. All afternoon the two-hundred-plus Hollywood crew and the forty-seven Masai extras were paid to wait while Cliff Camron had a boff and blow job. He had returned to the location just as the sun began its swift descent.

  Alyssia went to her trailer with Beth.

  The clouds increased and darkened as they shared the new Vogue.

  An hour and a half later, Cliff trotted jauntily from his trailer. Fair-haired, barely taller than Alyssia, he bore a resemblance to Alan Ladd, the movie idol of the forties, but projected his own good-natured, highly sensual charm.

  “Hi, guys,” he said. “Sorry about that, but the old lower lumbar’s been acting up. Ready for me?”

  “Ready, Cliff,” Hap said calmly.

  As Cliff started toward the setup, where his brother, who was his stand-in, sat reading a week-old Variety, rain began falling in large drops, denting the carefully smoothed soil. “Jeez, rain. What a tough break,” Cliff said. “Well, maybe it’ll let up after lunch.”

  “Mr. Cordiner.” The script girl held up her big hat to protect herself from the sudden deluge. “This scene comes right after fifty-three, so we can’t have mud. Even if the rain stops, we won’t be able to shoot.”

  “Jeez, what a fucking lousy break,” said Camron, and jogged through the downpour to the waiting Mercedes that was one of his production perks.

  • • •

  It rained intermittently through the afternoon and evening. Beth and Alyssia dined alone in Beth’s tent to the reverberation of huge drops on waterproof canvas roof.

  “This puts us exactly thirty days behind schedule,” Alyssia said.

  Beth, sawing on a rubbery chicken wing, looked glumly at her. “This afternoon I was talking to Maxim. He figures they’re more than six million dollars over budget already.”

  “At least Lang’s keeping hands off.”

  Beth abandoned her battle with the chicken. “Will he when he hears he has to put up another six million?”

  “Everybody knows filming on a remote location like this can skyrocket costs. He must’ve known we’d go over.”

  “Yes,” Beth said. “And he knew Uncle Frank had no money to pay his gambling debts.”

  • • •

  Since this was the supposed onset of her period, they did not make love. Hap took off his safari boots and lay dressed next to her on top of the blanket.

  “Hap,” she asked. “Aren’t you at all worried about Lang?”

  “No.”

  “With anyone else, you’d feel responsible for the delays.”

  “So let him pull the plug,” Hap said. “Why’re we wasting time on him? Let’s talk about us. What’re we going to do about us?”

  “It’s too complicated,” she sighed.

  “About me and Madeleine.” Hap’s voice was a low rumble. “I once heard somebody call us the gold-dust couple. I guess that’s how we look from the outside. We’re constantly on the move. Tennis, sailing, the big charity things, parties, weekends with people she knows or I know. Alone with her, I often can’t find a word to say. Literally, we spend entire evenings without exchanging a sentence. If she wants to talk, she does it on the phone. And, uhh, we haven’t, uhh, had sex for nearly a year.”

  “You don’t have to tell me this, Hap,” she said, kissing his cheek.

  “I’m not blaming Madeleine. We just don’t belong together.” He paused. “One thing I’ve always wanted is to be the same on the outside as on the inside.”

  “You’re the least phony person I know.”

  “Not anymore I’m not. I started the relief center to forget you and now I’m positive that’s the main reason I married Madeleine. On the set I’m faking it, pretending to be the Rock of Ages, total self-assurance, and all the time gnawing and worrying.”

  She traced his jaw—the fair stubble never showed, which made the toughness of the bristles surprising. “At least you know you’re Hap Cordiner. What about me? Am I Alice Hollister, Alicia Lopez or Alyssia del Mar? Or any of the above?”

  “I know who you are. I know every inch of you.”

  No, you don’t, she thought.

  51

  During the night the rain ceased. Before dawn electricians were adjusting huge lamps to dry the earth, which turned the color of oxblood when wet.

  It was eleven before the art director, the cinematographer and Hap were all satisfied that the ground was the right shade.

  Before this they had never shot through the noon hours, when the rays of the equatorial sun are most intense, but today Maxim insisted. They were filming Mellie and Jason tossing horseshoes in front of a group of fascinated Masai, an intensely physical scene with technical problems.

  On the fourth take, Alyssia could feel her head getting lighter and lighter, as if her large, gauze-swathed period hat were filling with helium. And then the sun turned black.

  • • •

  “I should’ve told Maxim to forget it when he insisted we shoot through lunch.”

  “Hap, why won’t you believe me? The rest fixed me just fine,” she said. But she clung to his solid strength.

  He had come into her tent two or three minutes earlier, shucking his clothes, as he had not done the previous night.

  “The truth is,” he said, his voice level, “you shouldn’t be working at all—especially not here.”

  Her skin prickled with apprehension. “The rushes are that bad?” she asked with a little chuckle.

  “Alyssia.” His hand curved over her naked stomach, a large, authoritative presence.

  Gripping his wrist, she attempted to shift the hand. It refused to budge.

  “Hap, why’re you making such a big deal? I’m not the first person to pass out. The midday sun here is murder.”

  The mattress shifted as he raised up and the flashlight he’d set on the bedside table flared. The beam shone starkly on his face, flattening and whitening the features as if he were a player in an early silent film.

  “How pregnant are you?” he asked.

  The hunting lions, the bane of Beth’s nights, roared. The pride was close, and the intensity of the sound was like a drumroll reverberating inside Alyssia’s chest.

  “In my fourth month,” she whispered unhappily.

  A low, sibilant breath escaped Hap. “So it’s Barry’s?�
��

  “Yes—Barry’s.”

  Clicking off the light, he shifted on the cot so he no longer touched her.

  “Why did you do the film?” His voice in the darkness was courteous and measured.

  “I told you in your office that first day. I wanted to be with you.”

  “What were your plans for the future?”

  “I wasn’t thinking, Hap, I was feeling.”

  “Not one thought about completion?”

  “I wear the corset; we were meant to be finished a couple of weeks from now. You and Maxim both have the reputation of getting in on schedule.”

  “Did you,” he asked, “consider abortion?”

  “Please stop.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Talking like that.”

  “Rationally, you mean?”

  “I know you’re hurting, Hap.”

  “Shouldn’t I ask a few questions that’ve occurred to me through the weeks?”

  “I did think about it,” she said. “It took me less than ten minutes to realize I couldn’t.”

  “Because the baby’s Barry’s?”

  “Because I’m me. Oh, what’s the point of logic? I just couldn’t do it.”

  “How does Barry feel?”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  “What?”

  “I haven’t told him.”

  “Why the secrecy?”

  By now she was so frightened by Hap’s politely questioning tone that she burst out, “Would you rather hear that I’ve told him and he’s dancing jigs?”

  “Even you aren’t a good enough actress to carry it off.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Barry’s not much in evidence.”

  “All right—you’ve made your point. I’ve been tried and convicted of the crime of the century. I hid something from you—”

  “Something?” For the first time Hap’s voice shook.

  “If you want to know, I thought of telling you after I saw the doctor, but I put it off because I wanted to be with you and I knew that this would happen. You’re predictable—entirely predictable.”