Oil (filmed as There Will Be Blood) (58 page)

X

Several interesting events came along, to keep them busy in their exile. First, Aunt Emma fell in love; yes, by golly, when it comes to such things, you just never can tell what will happen to either ladies or gentlemen! It was a respectable elderly hardware merchant from Nebraska, who was occupying his leisure collecting cameos. Maybe Aunt Emma reminded him of one; anyhow, after beauing her around for several months, he suddenly popped the question, and they had a quiet family wedding, and went off on a honeymoon—to Nebraska! It left Dad quite lonesome; but presently he hunted up an adventure for himself, and that was stranger still—you couldn't have guessed it in a million years. SPOOKS!! It happened that Bunny went off one evening to a meeting at which the Socialists and the Communists engaged in violent warfare, as appeared to be their custom in Paris; and when he got back, he found that Dad was not in his room. Next morning the old man told about it— hesitatingly, with not a little embarrassment. Just what did Bunny think about Spiritualism? Bunny said he didn't think at all, he didn't know; and Dad revealed that he had had an amazing experience— a long talk last night with Grandma! Holy smoke! said Bunny; and Dad said yes, he might well be surprised, but there was just no getting away from it. She had told him all about his childhood, described the ranch where they had lived, and asked all about her paintings, what had he done with that one of the Germans drinking out of steins, and did he still have the one of the mansion with the fountain in front and the carriage with the two horses and the lady and gentleman sitting in it? She had called him "Little Jim," and it was all so real, it had made tears come into Dad's eyes. Bunny wanted to know, where had this happened, and Dad told him, there was a lady living in this hotel, Mrs. Olivier—she was a lady from Boston who had been married to a Frenchman, and her husband had died a year or two ago. Dad had got to talking with her, and she had told him about being a Spiritualist, and how she had a famous medium who gave seances in her rooms here in the hotel, and she had invited Dad to attend, and that was the way of it. Most amazing things had happened, there had been horns floating in the air, and voices coming out of them, and lights flickering about; then the ghosts had appeared, and finally this old lady ghost, who had asked for "Little Jim," and started right off to tell these things that had taken Dad's breath away. How could a medium possibly have known such things? Well, here was Dad with something to occupy his time! Of course he went to the next seance, and the next; very soon he was learning all the patter of the Spiritualists, taking it as seriously as a religion. You could see how it was—he had got along without any religion, so long as he was well and busy, but now that he was old and tired and sick, he craved something to lean on. He was shame-faced about it, afraid his son would ridicule him. But after all, did Bunny know any reason why the soul might not survive after death? Bunny didn't, and thereupon Dad invited him to go to a seance. Obviously, this was something more important than Socialism. If it was really true that we lived forever, why then it would be easy to endure any temporary discomfort, it was hardly worth arguing about such things as money. This from J. Arnold Ross! Bunny, who always tried to oblige, went to a seance, and witnessed the strange phenomena. He knew that such things can be done by sleight of hand, and that he had no way of telling the difference; no chance was given in this company, made up of believers in a state of emotional exaltation. So one session was enough, and he went back to the Socialists. But let Dad be a Spiritualist if it made him happy! Not so Bertie, who found out about it, and went into a regular tantrum. What did Bunny mean by letting his father fall into such hands? It was the worst kind of swindling in the world! And that woman, Mrs. Olivier, it was perfectly obvious what her scheme was—she wanted to marry Dad! Here Bertie and Bunny had worked all their lives to help him accumulate a fortune and save it—and a designing adventuress would jump in and grab the money, and Bunny hadn't even sense enough to know what was happening! Never had he seen his sister so mad in her whole life— she called him a fool seven times running—when he said that the Spiritualist widow might have her share, if only she could help the poor old man to find happiness.

XI

Then another strange affair for them to discuss: one you would have found still harder to guess! The American newspapers in Paris published a despatch from Angel City, setting forth that Eli Watkins, self-styled prophet of religion, was believed to be drowned. He had gone swimming at the beach, leaving his clothing in a hotel room, and had never been seen since; a search was being made for the body. That was all the news for a time; and Dad shook his head, and said, golly, what a strange thing—a man whose God had saved so many others, but couldn't save His own prophet! What would become of that big Tabernacle, that had been Eli's personal property? Then the New York papers came; and later on, the papers from Angel City, with the story spread all over the front page day after day. The body of Eli could not be found. The people of the temple employed divers—they had searchlights sweeping the water at night, and thousands of the faithful patrolling the sands, holding revival services there, weeping and praying to God to give them back their beloved leader in his green bathing-suit. This went on for a week, for two weeks; and it was puzzling, because the longest time a body could stay in the sea without floating was nine days, and never before had it happened that a drowned body had failed to be washed ashore. Then, more and more amazing, there began to be rumors in the papers—they were afraid to say anything direct, but they hinted, and quoted others who hinted—Eli was possibly not drowned; Eli had been seen here, he had been seen there—and always in the company of a certain young woman, whom rumor declared to have been the keeper of the sacred robes in the Tabernacle. Of course, the first time Dad saw one of those hints, he remembered what he and Bunny had seen that day at the beach hotel, and he went up into the air. "By God, that fellow's playing a trick! He's gone off on a spree with a woman!" There was a thrill for you! Dad talked about it for hours—it almost drove the spooks out of his mind! It was no joking matter, because in the course of the search for Eli's body two men had lost their lives—one diver had been taken with pneumonia, and a member of the Tabernacle, seeing what he thought was a body, had swam out too far and gone down. And here was Dad with the key to the mystery! Was it his duty to cable the facts to the Reverend Poober? More sensations yet—the people at the Tabernacle began getting letters from kidnappers, who alleged that they had taken Eli in his green bathing-suit, and had him in hiding, and demanded half a million dollars ransom for him! What was that? Nobody in Angel City could be sure. Had the prophet really been kidnapped? Or was it true that he was driving over the state, in company with Miss X, as the newspapers referred to the former keeper of the sacred robes? One of the funniest aspects of the scandal was that various young couples who had gone off on love-expeditions in motor-cars—a favorite diversion of the well-to-do—now found themselves in an embarrassing situation; all over the state newspaper reporters and police officials were looking for Eli and Miss X, and woe to any tall blond man who happened to register at a hotel with a girl and no marriage certificate! The denouement, when it finally came, was so sensational that it got itself cabled, and thus spared Dad a tedious wait. Thirty-five days after Eli's disappearance, some fishermen, rowing in a harbor several hundred miles from Angel City, encountered a man swimming to shore, and picked him up; and behold, it was a tall blond man in a green bathing-suit—in short, it was the prophet! The story he told was that, finding himself being carried out to sea, he had prayed to the Lord, and the Lord had heard his prayer, and had sent three angels to hold him up in the water. The name of one of these angels was Steve, and the second was a lady angel, whose name was Rosie, and the third was a Mexican angel, and his name was Felipe. These angels had taken turns holding onto the shoulder-straps of Eli's green bathing-suit; and when he grew faint, one of them would fly away and bring him food. They had upheld him, even while he slept, quite peacefully in the water. For the entire period of thirty-five days Eli had been thus alternately swimming and sleeping. The devil had come, with wings of flame, and driven the good angels away, and bound Eli's hands behind him so that he had nearly drowned. But he had prayed to the Lord, and the angels had floated him to a rusty old can, and held it while he rubbed his bonds against the sharp edges, and severed the bonds and was able to swim again. So here was the prophet, none the worse for his adventure; and when he had landed on the shore, and got some clothing, here came the reporters hot-foot—for there have not been so many miracles in these skeptical recent days, and this was an indubitable one. Crowds of people swarmed about the prophet, they sang hosannas, and strewed his path with flowers, and when he got back to Angel City, you just couldn't imagine the excitement— fifty thousand people at the railroad station, it beat anything that even the greatest movie stars had achieved. And when he got to the Tabernacle, there were his followers falling on their knees and weeping for joy, because the Lord had answered their prayers and given them back their prophet; six times a day the vast auditorium was packed, and outside a park was filled with people, and Eli's mighty bellow was conveyed by a dozen loud-speakers, and men and women fell down at the sound and shouted "Praise the Lord!" Of course there were skeptics, people with the devil in their hearts who refused to believe Eli's story, and persisted in talking about a blue-colored automobile driven by a good-looking girl, having a heavily veiled man wearing goggles in the seat beside her. They talked about signatures on hotel-registers, and hand-writing experts, and other such obscenities; but all that made no difference to the glory-shouters at the Tabernacle, which was packed all day and all night, as never before in the history of religions. Over and over Eli would tell his story, full of the most convincing details— why, he even told how the angels' wings had swished, and sometimes splashed water into his face; he told the very words the angels had spoken to him. Said the prophet, if God in His Omnipotence could keep Jonah three days in the belly of a whale, and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the burning fiery furnace, why could he not keep Eli Watkins afloat on the sea? It is obvious that no one could answer that. And then came an incident which settled the matter, completing the glory of the Third Revelation. Eli happened to look inside his green bathing-suit, and what should he find but a snow-white feather! He recognized it, of course—a proof of his story, left there by the mercy of the Lord! When this fresh miracle was announced, the hosannas of the faithful shook the roof; and presently the angel's feather was mounted in a glass case, and set up behind the place where Eli preached, and, such was the Lord's mercy, whoever even looked upon this relic, was instantly cured of all his ailments and had his sins forgiven—yes, even the most deadly sin of fornication!

CHAPTER XIX

THE PENALTY

1

The billboards of Paris broke into universal ecstasy: "Schmolsky-Superba Presente l'Etoile Americaine, Viola Tracy, dans La Couche d'Or, Cinema-Melodrame de la Societe en Huit Reels." There were pages in the newspapers, "Premiere Production sur le Continent d'Europe"—Schmolsky was doing the job in style. "L'Etoile" herself was coming, all the way from California; and Bunny motored to Havre to meet her, and oh, how happy they were, a second honeymoon, with the old disharmonies forgotten. He drove her back to Paris—no, almost to Paris, she must board a train outside the city and make her entrance according to schedule announced in the newspapers. There were the shouting thousands, the cameras, and the reporters, including those whose duty it would be to cable the stirring news back to New York and Angel City. The world grows one, and it is the "cinema-melodrame de la Societe" that is doing it—which is to say the world grows American. The premiere here in Paris was the same as a premiere in Hollywood, except that the crowd made more noise, and sought to embrace its idol, actually imperilling the idol's life. There was a double reason for excitement, because the man who had played the leading part was no common movie actor, but a real prince from Roumania, who had been visiting in Southern California, and had yielded to the wiles of Schmolsky and become a star for a night. Now here he was in person, on his way home to Roumania— having traveled on the train and the steamer with Vee, so Bunny learned. A tall, lean young man, not very handsome, but used to attention; courteous, but easily bored, wearing a quizzical smile, and reluctant to be serious—until he heard Bunny express some sympathy with the murderous and blasphemous reds! After that, he preferred the company of Bunny's sister. When the Paris premiere was over, Dad got him a touring car of royal proportions, and they motored to Berlin, Bunny driving, with Vee by his side, and Dad on the back seat with his secretary and a chauffeur for emergencies. It was all just as grand as their tour to New York; perfect roads, beautiful scenery, humble peasantry standing cap in hand and awestricken, servants rushing to wait upon them at every stop. All Europe owes us money, and this is how it pays. And then Berlin—"Erste Auffuehrung in Deutschland, Schmolsky-Superba ankuendigt," etc. And the crowds and the cameras and the reporters—the world was one. This had been enemy country less than six years ago; but did any ex-soldiers in uniform take station at the theatre entrance, and forbid American films to set too high a standard for the native product? They did not; and Bunny smiled, remembering his remark to Schmolsky, "Vae victis!" and the latter's reply, "Huh?" They went on to Vienna. It is a poor city now, and hardly repays the advertising; but there is still magic in the name, and it counts with the newspapers. So here was another premiere, less noisy but more genial. Vee and her lover were a little bored now; she had had the last great "kick" that she could get out of life. When a star has had her continental tour, and has got tired of it, she is an old-timer, blase and world-weary, and life from then on is merely one thing after another. The person with gift of perennial childhood was Dad. He enjoyed each premiere as if he had never seen the others, and he would have liked to go on to Bucharest, where her majesty the queen—herself a genius at advertising—was to attend the first showing, in honor of Prince Marescu. But another attraction kept Dad in Vienna—the spooks had followed him! His friend, Mrs. Olivier, had given him a letter to a wonderful medium, and they went to a seance, and Vee was told all about the patent medicine vendor who had raised her in a wagon—the very phrases this man had used to the crowd. By golly, if it was a trick, it was certainly a clever one! There was only one cloud on this second honeymoon, and Bunny kept it hidden in his own soul. There were "youth" papers in both Berlin and Vienna, and he considered himself bound to call at their offices and invite the rebel editors to lunch, and send home letters for Rachel to publish. In Vienna was a paper in the English language devoted to the defense of political prisoners; it was a Communist paper, but so well camouflaged that Bunny didn't realize the fact, and anyhow, he would have wished to meet the editors. He was still making his pitiful attempt to understand both sides—even here in Central Europe, where the Socialists and the Communists had many times been at open war. In this obscure office in a working class part of the city Bunny came upon a ghastly experience. There was exhibited to him a creature that had once been a young man, but now was little more than a skeleton covered with a skin of greenish-yellow. It had only one eye and one ear, and it could not speak because its tongue had been pulled out or cut off, and most of its front teeth had been extracted, and its cheeks were pitted with holes made by cigarettes burned into it. Likewise all the creature's finger-nails had been torn out, and its hands burned with holes; the men in the office bared its shirt, and showed Bunny how the flesh had been ripped and torn by lashes this way and that, like cross-hatchings in a pen and ink drawing. This was a prisoner escaped from a Roumanian dungeon, and these scars represented the penalty of refusal to betray his comrades to the White Terror. Here in this office were photographs and letters and affidavits—for this kind of thing was being done to thousands of men and women in Roumania. The government was in the hands of a band of ruling class thugs, who were stealing everything in sight, selling the natural resources of the country; one of the biggest of Roumanian oil fields had just been leased to an American syndicate, possibly Comrade Ross had heard of that? And Comrade Ross said that he had. He didn't add that his father was in on the deal! This victim of the White Terror was from Bessarabia, a province taken from Russia under the blessed principle of self-determination. It was inhabited by Russian peasants, and the natural struggles of these people for freedom were met by slaughtering or torturing to death not merely everyone who revolted, but everyone who expressed sympathy with the revolt. Nor was this a sporadic thing, it was the condition prevailing all along the Russian border, a thousand miles from the Baltic to the Black Sea. All these provinces and countries, inhabited by Russian peasants, had been taken from the reds and given to the whites. And so you had this situation—on the Eastern side of the line the peasants had the land and the government, they were free men and women, making a civilization of workers; while on the other side they were serfs at the mercy of landlords, robbed of the fruits of their toil, and beaten or shot if they ventured a murmur. It was impossible to prevent peasants from one side crossing to the other; and the contrast between the two civilizations was so plain that no child could fail to understand it. So the class struggle went on all the time, a hideous civil war, of which no word was allowed to leak to the outside world. Left to themselves, this landlord aristocracy could not survive a year. But they had world capital behind them; they got the munitions with which to do the slaughtering, or the money to make the munitions, from American big business. Yes, it was America which kept alive this White Terror, in order to collect interest on the debts, and to come in and buy up the country—the railroads, the mines, the oil fields, even the great castles and landed estates. Would not Comrade Ross tell the American people what bloody work their money was doing? Bunny went away with the question on his conscience. Would he tell, or wouldn't he? Would he begin by telling his darling of the world? Would he mention that the young Prince Marescu, whom she so greatly admired, was the son of one of the bloodiest of these ruling class thugs? All the time Bunny was driving his darling through winding passes amid the glorious snow-covered mountains of Switzerland, he was not happy as it was his duty to be. He would have long periods of brooding, and she would ask, what was the matter, and he would evade. But then she would pin him down—being shrewd,