American Dreams (64 page)

'Truth or Nothing'

401

beauty once she blossomed out of girlhood. She flung herself into her father's arms. Her hair smelled sweetly of soap.

He hugged her and whirled her around with her bare feet six inches off the floor. Betsy still admired her father, obeyed him without question.

Shad, thirteen, had reached the stage at which all parents were miraculously transformed to imbeciles, condemned to that status until the offspring stumbled back to sanity somewhere around age twenty.

Betsy eyed the flowers wrapped in tissue paper. 'Are those for me, Papa?'

Page 425

'Don't tease, you know they're for your mother. Where's everyone?'

'Lottie and Teddy are in bed. Shad's grinding away at Latin. I heard him cursing something awful.'

'No tattling, miss. Good night.' Hugging her again, he saw his pale and lovely, wife appear on the stair landing. He followed Betsy up to her. As the little girl went on, he swept his arms around Julie for an ardent kiss, sorely needed. Betsy giggled and disappeared.

He presented the asters. 'Piccadilly special, ma'am. Straight out of the fog.'

'They've lovely. My sweet Dutch.' She caressed his cheek. Then she felt his lapel. 'You're all damp.'

'I walked home.'

'From Fleet Street? You must be exhausted. Have you eaten? Cook's gone, but she left steak and kidney pie.'

'Let's have some.' He jerked at his necktie and stuffed it in his pocket.

They went down to the ground-floor kitchen. Julie served the supper, which he washed down with another mug of Guinness. He wished Crown's would distribute in England, but Uncle Joe said the U.S. made him all the money he needed.

Stabbing his fork in the flaky crust, he said, 'I'm sorry to tell you it worked out pretty much as we feared. I had to resign. It was that or cave in. Sammy's going with me. Does it upset you?'

'Yes, darling, simply for all the pressure it puts on you. As for the rest, don't worry. We'll manage.'

'I'll shoot as much film as I can. Get it seen as widely as I can. If not here, then in America.'

'I admire your determination. I always have.'

He grinned. 'Kraut stubbornness. Besides, I've gotten used to taking risks. I admit this is a big one. I really had no choice, Julie. The government is hiding the truth about the war. His lordship confiscated the Belgian film.'

402

Battlefields

'I do wish I'd seen it first.'

Page 426

I le laid his fork down. Under the hanging electric fixture that shed a cone of brightness on the table, he smiled.

'You will see it. The first day I got back from Belgium, I rang up Michael and he gave me an inkling of what might happen. So without telling anyone, before I turned the film in to the company laboratory, I visited another lab by myself. Lord Yorke thinks he's locked up one positive print and the only negative. It's a duplicate negative. I have the original, safe in my study. I can make and show all the prints I want.'

72 Fritzi and Her Three Men

Shortly after Fritzi's return to Los Angeles, Mrs. Hong knocked on her door. 'There's a gentleman asking for you.'

Could it be Loy, back from Arizona? She'd been missing him terribly.

She tore downstairs to the front parlor.

'HobartP

'Marry, it is I,' he said with a sweeping bow. 'Holes in my shoes, railway soot in my hair, hope in my heart.'

After they embraced, she inspected him. His appearance dismayed her.

His cheap green suit bagged at the knees. Shaggy gray hair straggled over his collar. Illness had pared at least twenty pounds off his portly frame and left him with a pallor. Both latches of his scarred valise were gone; he'd tied the grip with twine.

'Despite what I said in my note, I really didn't expect to see you in California.'

'Reversal of fortune, dear heart. 1 have come humbly, to seek employment in pictures.'

'Good Lord. Let me get a shawl, and we'll go for a walk while I digest this.'

They strolled to the Venice fishing pier. It was Sunday and crowded.

The Ferris wheel calliope pumped out 'Moonlight Bay.' She found that Hobart was perfectly serious, indeed, desperate.

. She asked about his heart attack.

'The only word for it is epiphany. Convalescing amid drooling rustics Fritzi and Her Three Men

403

Page 427

and charity cases in that flyblown metropolis, Terre Haute -- which, quite understandably, the author Theodore Dreiser, a native, fled from while still in possession of his sanity - lying there, might I say, I examined my life situation with a new clarity. It is ridiculous to imagine that the king of England will ever confer knighthood on an old poofter such as myself.

What is left as a goal? To live in comfort. Which requires money. In London my personal reputation follows me like a mongrel dog. Vehicles suited to my talent are scarce in New York. The road is an unmitigated disaster, and producing is nothing but gambling against staggering odds.

Why not, then, take a flyer in something popular? 'Twas your very sweet note with the posies that put me on to it. You know I've always found the flickers amusing - what is there to lose? May I buy you a bag of peanuts?

I've twenty cents left.'

They sat on a bench on the pier, cracking the shells. She loved the vain old actor, who could be so silly and pretentious, yet innocent and vulnerable as a child. Munching a peanut, she thought aloud:

'Photoplays of Shakespeare have done well for some producers. Mr.

Pelzer might be persuaded to try one, he's high on culture. I'll speak to him first thing tomorrow.'

'Ever the angel of mercy.'

Inevitably the conversation turned to the war. Hobart said, 'My dear, I know your German background, so kindly don't take it amiss when I express my opinion. I am an Englishman, with an inbred distaste for the German people. I believe they love war. They are certainly controlled by the military clique, men who trample anything in their path, no matter how fragile or defenseless. They must be stopped. Had I my youth, and the price of a steamship ticket, I'd sail home and enlist. Alas, I have neither.

I shall find some other way to help my country. Young fellows like that Gharlie Chaplin, though, had better hie over and do their duty.'

Fritzi pleaded eloquently. B.B. signed Hobart to play the title role in a two reel version of Macbeth. Kelly didn't like hiring an English actor but curbed his hostility when he computed the picture's relatively modest cost (all costumes to be rented at a discount, Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane to be kept off screen). Hobart was no longer a top-rank tragedian, but he still had a certain cachet. B.B. insisted his name would add luster to Liberty's roster of players. When Hobart brought up the curse of the play, B.B.

scoffed:

n

Page 428

404

Battlefields

'Who believes that old stuff? You said yourself, it's superstition in the theater. This is movies! New, modern. Anybody comes around trying to hoodoo your picture, Hobie, B.B. Pelzer personally will fix his wagon.'

Eager to work, Hobart acquiesced without further protest.

The director in charge of the picture was new at Liberty. He was a stubby Viennese named Polo Werfels. Past careers to which he would admit included motorcycle racer, fireworks salesman, and circus knife thrower. He wore a black eye patch, called everyone 'dollink,' and smoked more cigars than cousin Paul. He flogged his actors and crew mercilessly, always with the same charge: 'Shake your ass, dollink, you're costing us money.'

Kelly loved him.

Eddie took Fritzi into his office and presented a typed scenario for Paper Hanger Nell, to start filming the following Monday. Eddie beamed like a proud papa while Fritzi glanced over the two pages.

She tossed the scenario back to him. 'So this time I'll step in buckets of paste and wrap myself in sticky paper like a mummy. Swell.'

'Hey, Fritz, what is this? You're not yourself.'

'Oh, Eddie, I don't know. Everything's going wrong.'

The day took another sudden and unexpected turn when B.B.'s typewriter, Miss Levy, tapped on Eddie's door. 'There's a gent out front asking for you, Fritzi. Real slick fella,' Miss Levy added with an envious roll of her eyes.

Fritzi's brief rush of excitement didn't last; slick was not a word people would apply to Loy. Feeling grumpy and put upon, she trudged to the front porch. At the doorway she saw a shiny red Reo parked in front but no visitor. Not until she stepped outside did she see him, peering toward the back of the lot from the end of the porch.

'Harry? Is that you?'

'Yes, indeed. How are you, Fritzi?'

'What brings you to Los Angeles?' As if she had no inkling.

'Sightseeing. I've been to San Francisco and the along the wild coast of Big Sur. Now I'd like to see your town, and how these pictures are made.

I have one more day before I must go back.'

Page 429

Fritzi wasn't sure slick was the right word to describe Harry's appearance either. Smart would be better -- smart and rich. His three-piece suit of subtly striped gray wool was cut in the latest English style, buttoning Fritzi and Her Three Men

405

high in front. His trousers had sharp center creases. His patent leather shoes shone, and a splashy yellow hanky bloomed in his breast pocket like an exotic flower. His hat was a trilby, appropriately rakish.

'It's grand to see you,' she said with forced enthusiasm; no man but one could hold her interest just now. 'I'll be glad to give you a tour around--'

She stopped, stunned. Harry had been standing in a way that presented his left side but hid his right. As he turned toward her, she saw a wide band of black crape.

'Oh, no. Your wife?' she said instantly. Gravely, Harry nodded.

'It was inevitable, but no easier for that. Flavia passed in her sleep five weeks ago. I'm just now settling her affairs.'

'I'm so sorry to hear about it, Harry.'

"Thank you. I couldn't bury Flavia in a Catholic grave, as she would have wished. We were married in a civil ceremony, and because I'm a Jew, she was automatically excommunicated. In the eyes of her church she lived scandalously, in mortal sin. Any God who imposes that kind of stigma on a woman as fine as Flavia is not a God for sane and compassionate people.'

He sighed. 'Forgive me, I do get angry. Flavia's faith meant a great deal to her, but she was denied its comforts. We did find a priest who felt that was wrong. Father Pius was something of a renegade -- willing to hear Flavia's confession secretly.'

After a pause he went on, in many ways the last few weeks have been trying. My doctor suggested a change of scene, so I'm doing what I said I would - seeing the Pacific for the first time.' He tilted his head toward her, the emotion in his eyes unmistakable.

'Also seeing you again.'

'Harry -- um, let's go this way for our tour'

'Grand. Will you have supper? Perhaps show me the sights tomorrow?'

'Of course.' She would feel too guilty if she said no.

Page 430

She introduced him to people on the lot, many of whom greeted him enthusiastically, if not worshipfully; they knew his songs. Harry laughed and charmed them. But standing off to one side, Fritzi saw clearly that his eyes were marked by fatigue, and his step was less lively than she remembered.

He

seemed to brighten at supper. They chatted about Paul's book and his growing family, Harry's newfound success writing scores for Broadway, the war. When he drove her home in the little rented Reo, he escorted her to the front door. There he remained a perfect gentlemen, making no 406

Battlefields

move to touch her, though she sensed that he wanted that. She'd vowed not to mention Loy; it would only hurt him.

'Tomorrow morning, then?'

'Yes, I've asked for the day off.'

'I can't tell you what a tonic you are, Fritzi. I feel better than I have for months.'

On tiptoe, she kissed him quickly on the cheek. 'I'm glad. Rest well.'

It was a whirlwind day: they rode the 10c Trackless Trolley to the heights in Laurel Canyon for a sunlit panorama of the distant downtown and the expanding residential suburbs, the gardens and citrus groves running all the way to the shining ocean.

At the Los Angeles central market they wandered among the stalls and produce wagons, bought juicy oranges, cut them open and laughed when the juice squirted them. They sipped sodas in an ice cream parlor and visited the great hall of the Chamber of Commerce building, whose most famous agricultural exhibit was a tusked elephant nine feet high, made entirely of California walnuts.

At the end of the day they repaired to another fine restaurant. There Fritzi asked a question that had occurred to her earlier:

'Do you wear that armband all the time?'

'Father Pius said it was appropriate. I'm determined to mourn Flavia properly.'

'For how long?'

Harry's blue eyes locked with hers. 'One year. Afterward I'll be a completely free man.'

Page 431

Tell him about Loy!

She knew she should, to save him false hope and, later, disappointment.

Somehow it seemed cruel in light of his loss.

light rain was whispering down when he returned her to Venice. 'I do give you my condolences,' she said as they sheltered on the porch. Lily's lively swearing drifted from the dormer window above them; no doubt she was in the throes of composition again. 'You've become a dear friend, Harry.'

'Is that all?'

'For the present, yes. Yes, I'm afraid it is.'

The light falling through the screen door from the hall showed the disappointment lurking behind his smile. He was a wonderful man in many ways; he just wasn't Loy. She felt intensely guilty about sending him away with a rebuff.

That was why she went up on tiptoe, pressed his face between her Fritzi and Her Three Men

407

hands, and kissed the corner of his mouth. He started to throw his arm around her -- his right arm, with the mourning band. He didn't do it.

'Take care of yourself, Harry, please.'