A Stranger Like You (22 page)

Another thump came from the trunk. If there was somebody in there they were alive. If there was somebody in there it meant that the man who’d parked the car at the airport was not coming back. Leaving the keys and the ticket had been deliberate. The car had been waiting for a sucker like him.

Making the film is harder than you thought. The desert, the heat. Some members of the crew are afflicted with heatstroke. Your director, Bruno Morelli, is a taskmaster—a great believer in method acting. Every morning at daybreak he insists that the actors run three miles through the desert to warm up. And although you are proud of your work on this film, your exceptional organization, your fastidious attention to detail, the dailies disappoint you—the final scenes in particular. You feel, what—compromised?

In real life, the woman had been stoned to death—a sentence declared not by a court of law, but by her family members to protect their honor—to display their shiny new fundamentalism inspired by extremists who had cropped up through the rubble like vigorous weeds. And so the accused adulteress was captured, buried up to her waist, and pummeled with stones over the course of several hours. In truth, it is not easy to kill a person with stones. It takes time. In real life, as in Tom’s original script, the woman had died. But Harold and his backers in Australia have insisted the ending be changed. “You’re going to have people running out of the theater if you don’t.”

And so it was changed. Now, determined to survive, the character frees herself and runs away into the desert—a highly unlikely scenario. The ritual disallows anyone from going after her—her survival is considered a miracle—but in truth her prospects are limited and, under the circumstances, her doomed fate is inevitable. Bruno contends that it will make people think. As they are leaving the theater, they will understand that freedom is a fickle, arbitrary condition, more vulnerable than people realize.

At this point, after being here, you are not entirely comfortable with the film’s subject matter. You are a stranger in this city and, although you enjoy its luxuries, you cannot abide its traditions or the fact that women are infrequently seen in the street without male escorts and are generally in traditional dress, the black
abaya
, their heads covered with the
hijab
.

Your facilitator reminds you that the women are wearing beautiful clothes underneath. In the nearby malls there are shops representing all the top designers. “It is like Rodeo Drive,” he tells you. And it’s true, you have seen the shops with exquisite clothes, lingerie—he tells you that the women here buy such garments, but they are reserved only for their husbands. This information doesn’t satisfy you. In fact, it’s almost worse—as if the women are in collusion with their own oppression.

But who are you to say they are oppressed?

Still, this is shorts and tank top weather. Those black robes are
hot
. You realize it is their tradition, a sign of devotion to Islam. But the men get to wear white. Of course the men need to be out more, on the streets. The men are working. They are going to prayer. They are actively supporting their families. Whereas the women are inside; they don’t need to wear white. They are inside, where they belong.

You wonder what it would be like, staying inside your house all day, doing chores. Cleaning and cooking—in your Versace underwear. You are not the sort of person who likes chores, or cares particularly about keeping house. Even Harold begged you to get a cleaning person. You never liked the idea of someone poking around your things, some stranger changing your sheets, doing your laundry. It’s not for you. You can’t imagine being forced to wear those long black robes, especially in the heat. What would it be like? The veil, swathed in black cloth, the strangeness of it—as though you don’t really exist. As though only your husband defines you. You don’t get it. It makes you furious. That summer, when you’d lived in Israel, you’d taken the bus across the desert into Egypt. You remember the endless chain-link fence that split the countries in two, the same sand on either side. Nobody had told you to wear long sleeves. It was hot, nearly a hundred degrees. You had on a sleeveless shirt. Everywhere you went Egyptian men touched your arms, as if it was their right. The train station; the marketplace. They forgave you for walking around like a whore because you were American. You didn’t know any better.

Maybe you are a stupid, ignorant American woman with no moral conscience—you have no understanding of Islam. Maybe you can’t argue with thousands of years of tradition. After all, tradition—religious faith and devotion—is important. It is a very good excuse to keep things exactly as they are.

And why should you care? You don’t live here. This is not your country.
Go home, American woman! Slut! We don’t need your opinions. Your views are not useful here.

Two days into the second week of filming, your actors are besieged with a strange stomach virus. You too spend an afternoon bent over the toilet and you can’t help thinking that there is some devious reason behind it, that, perhaps, you have overstayed your welcome and it is time to go home. You begin to question making the film in general—you begin to sense that you have crossed some imaginary line, and that, somehow, there will be serious repercussions. Not only here, but back in America, the land of dizzying delusion. Your fever is high, a doctor is summoned. You don’t like the doctor, his greedy eyes. Tom feeds you tea with mint off a spoon. He holds you in his arms. At one point, with his mouth whispering at your neck, you think you hear him crying. Sick and weak, you lay in bed, listening to the strange world outside, a place where your life has little importance. You think: It is possible to die here.

In your final days in the Emirates you begin to experience a shift, a transition. You have been bewitched by the colors of the desert. A sky that blooms every morning and every evening like a lotus flower with its black and blue and red petals. The heat, perhaps, has altered your internal rhythm. Your dreams are flagrant with images. The people that you meet, the children, the sense of space without boundaries. Sand. Heat. A landscape that takes everything, that demands your devotion and yet gives nothing back.

The next afternoon you are well enough to return to the set. It is the final day in the desert; tomorrow you will all be flying home. After lunch, the weather changes, the sky turns a feverish pink. There is talk of a sandstorm, and your facilitator urges everyone onto the bus. The equipment is carefully packed and returned to the trucks. For several hours, you wait, marooned, while the storm engulfs you with its thick putty-colored cloud. It is a strange, slow-moving manifestation, like a grotesque otherworldly invasion in some 1950s horror flick.

That night the crew celebrates with an elaborate party in a private dining room. It is a country where alcohol is forbidden and yet you are Hollywood People, they encourage your indulgence, knowing that you will not be happy without it. The waiters look on with hungry amusement. Near dawn, Tom comes to your room. He undresses you slowly and, as a joke, wraps the sheet around your head, across your nose. Only your eyes are showing. “My beautiful Arabian princess,” he says. “So mysterious.”

But you pull off the sheet, freeing yourself. You can’t help thinking there is something stagey about his lovemaking, a kind of ceremonious finality. He is unusually rigorous, demanding, and afterward you are drained, spent.

“You are my country,” he whispers, holding you. “You are the language I speak.”

On the way to the airport you look out the window in a dreamy state, the sky streaked with violet and pink like a watery painting. A vivid white light beams through the clouds. You can’t help feeling superstitious. Maybe there is a God. Maybe there is a reason for everything, some grand scheme.

Going through customs, you are on guard, anxious to hurry through. The officers examine the equipment with agonizing patience, and you have good reason to be nervous, because the images that you have captured on film are far more dangerous than any form of contraband, and the noble ideals behind them that demand a safer world, a real and permanent peace, have somehow become the most dubious of all.

Back in L.A. you work harder than necessary. Every hour is consumed with postproduction details, meetings, telephone calls. You find that you have acquired a new patience from your weeks in the desert. As an experiment, you leave your BlackBerry in the car when you go to the gym, taking a whole hour to yourself, without disruption. When you finally get home at night you are surprised that there are no messages from Tom. It is as though he has completely forgotten you. At first you are hurt, you feel dejected. Armand has told you that his wife is in town. People have seen them together, at restaurants and parties,
looking very married
.

Then one night, he comes to your house to break the news. “She wants to stay this time.”

“Lucky you.”

“Hedda,” he says. He tries to touch you.

“Don’t.” You get up and fix a drink. You swallow the vodka like water.

“You know I love you,” he says, trying to gather you up in his arms.

“If you love me so much, you’ll leave her.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it is. Now go, get out.”

It’s a good thing, you tell yourself; you’re too busy for love. You focus on work, the film. A preview is scheduled. You find yourself in a kind of postpartum malaise where there is too much to get done and too little time. You rarely sleep. You spend more and more time with Bruno and Lucy Price, your editor, in the editing room, watching the film take shape.

Harold invites you for seder. You cannot refuse. Although you are considerably on edge and probably shouldn’t be around anyone at all, you put on a suit, heels, and drive to his home in Beverly Hills. He has invited Important People. Harold’s partner, Mitchell, greets you at the door, kisses you on both cheeks. He takes one look at you and asks, “Okay, what’s wrong?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Come into the kitchen. We can throw the matzo balls over the roof, see what happens. I always wanted to redo the garage.”

But then he looks at you and sees your tears. He takes your hand and leads you up the back staircase, down the hall, away from everyone. “I’m sorry, this is so stupid.”

“You’re tired, you’ve been through a lot.” For a moment he lets you cry. “Harold says the film is brilliant. You shouldn’t worry. It’s going to blow people’s minds.”

“I don’t know,” you say. “I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s not about the film.”

“Okay.” He nods knowingly. Even with all your discretion, everybody seems to know about you and Tom. Mitchell takes your hand. “Look, honey, it’s his loss. That wife of his—
please
—that’s not a real marriage. Real married people live together. They slowly drive each other crazy in one house, in the same state, in the same
country
. Yeah, I know; an insanely ridiculous concept. It’s called commitment—the son of a bitch!”

You cry; you let it out, knowing all too well that it will destroy your face, your perfectly constructed sense of calm for which you have earned your reputation. “I’m such an idiot,” you say in the wobbly voice of a teenager. “I don’t know why I allowed myself,” but he cuts you off.

“Hey, I know you’re a big control freak, sweetheart, but we’re talking about love, here. Love is this . . . this amorphous creature. It’s a fucking monster. It eats you alive.”

“I hope nothing illicit is going on,” Harold jokes when you come downstairs together holding hands. “Although you do make a very nice couple.”

Mitchell kisses him and you smile at them, bittersweet. You’ve never had what they have, you realize. Not even close.

“We’re all ready to begin,” Harold says, gently guiding you to the table. He doesn’t seem to notice your glassy eyes, your slightly mottled skin. Gratefully, you approach the table, kissing people as you make your way to your chair at the other end, and the seder begins.

The table is set with a fine white cloth, beautiful dishes. An unusual center-piece with poppies and irises. Harold and Mitchell sit at opposite ends of the long table. You feel a tender admiration for both of them and you try to relax. It is an interesting mix of people. The famous costume designer, Sonia Moss, wearing a magnificent vintage shawl she bought in Prague. Tony Roth, whose string of espionage movies made him one of the richest men in town, and his wife, Lara. And Harold’s old friend, the director Dick Brower, in his late eighties, who has brought along his young lover/attendant, a cheerful Adonis named Gus. Some of the old guard—in a business managed by people who are barely out of diapers, proponents of the coloring-book approach to filmmaking, you included. Here’s a character, color him black; here’s another one, color her yellow. But the older guests at the table grew up in a different time, and their saturated Technicolor aesthetic promised a wiser, more civilized world—the images you clung to as a child that structured your days, nurtured your hopes and dreams.

Everybody gets a turn reading from the Haggadah. When it’s your turn, you read a paragraph about the epic journey across the desert, the heat, the fact that the Israelites had no flour to make bread. You can’t help thinking about your trip to Abu Dhabi. The desert is the same desert. The heat the same heat, the sun the same sun. The best thing about the trip was the food, the warm bread and meat, the sliced cucumbers and ripe tomatoes, the sweet dates.

“From something terrible came something good,” Harold says.

“What, matzo?” Ben Appelman scowls. He is the youngest person at the table, a wunderkind screenwriter fresh out of USC whom Harold has decided to nurture. “What’s so good about matzo? It sits in your stomach like a lead weight and makes you constipated for weeks?”

“Let’s do the prayer over the matzo,” Harold says, holding up a piece, launching into the Hebrew prayer.