The Butterfly Plague (19 page)

“Now I need to.”

“Oh.”

“And must.”

“And this man?”

“Wants me.”

That is my message
.

“So…”

The Nightmare no one understands is more real than this reality
.

“I want him, too, Mother.”

“I understand.”

“No. You don’t understand.”

“Explain it, then.”

“In Germany, I read books. I heard speeches.”

“Yes.”

“I watched people. I saw things. I listened to things. Unspeakable things.”

“And…?”

“And yet, in spite of reading and listening and watching; in spite of overhearing and secretly seeing; in spite of
knowing
…”

“Yes.”

“I still want.”

“Want?”

“Race.”

“Yes. Dear God.”

They sighed, both of them. They lay there, sea-blown. The tango down on the beach described the jutting lines of human desire—the arc of male erections—the fall of female contours: the geometric certitudes of nature, driven and Darwinesque. The fittest.

Race.

“I only want a baby.”

“But the fact is, that cannot be, Ruth.”

“Please! How can you say that cannot be, when it was. In you. You having me. Allowing me life. I should kill you.”

“And your child? Wouldn’t it kill you?”

“I don’t know. Not if he was perfect,” said Ruth, desperately. “I don’t know. I’m asking you to tell me what I really want.”

Naomi closed her eyes and saw the swaying shadow of something unborn.

“You want what you are,” she said, watching the shadow diminish and grow, “in your mind.”

“And what is that?”

“The myth of perfection, my darling. Which is only what we all want. The cause of all human pain…”

“Perfection doesn’t have to be a myth, does it?”

Naomi wondered about that. “Perhaps not,” she said, “but the truth about you is that you are flawed.”

The shadow in her brain twisted.

“You say,” she said, “that you were there when those animals died at Alvarez. You say this man who follows you is real. Then you say he is only a dream. This is one of your flaws, Ruth. Not to cope with truth…”

Ruth wanted to interject, but Naomi said, “You listen to me. Just listen. There is a flaw you will accept. Your blood. So let that be the flaw I speak of. Each human being is Race. Potentially a whole Race. But each human being is flawed. Great intellects are held prisoner in the bodies of impotents. Physical beauty is trapped in the bodies of lesbians and homosexuals. Poets are consumptive. Artists are bound in by insanity. Saints are clubfooted. Scientific genius is accident prone. Why, God Himself was celibate by nature. And we, like royalty, are overbred. But the greatest flaw of all, the very worst, the most destructive and the seat of all our woes and pain, is this dream—this damnable quest for perfection. When I think,” she said, the shadow looming larger in her brain, “when I think of the misery and despair caused by people like you who will not accept—and who will not cope with reality as it is, I find it small wonder that humanity is condemned to suffering?”

“But I do accept reality,” said Ruth. “It’s only different from yours.”

Ignoring this, Naomi concluded, “You come back here, and we all grant you’ve come back justifiably depressed over your divorce and so on, but you still come back here and within two days you’re telling us you found a body on the beach. You even telephone to the Santa Monica Police Force! Get them out here and what do they find? A piece of torn material in your pocket and nothing more. Then you start telling us we’ve all been to a great fire in which a lot of animals died. Granted, there was a fire. But we were not—none of us was—there. Now you tell me you want a child, and while that, in itself, is not insane, it certainly is thoughtless when you have our blood and you’re no longer married. Then you tell me about this racial figure and you say it must be his child. Ruth, Ruth. Put it together. Listen to it with my ears. Watch it with my eyes. What greater reality can there be than my death? And then ask me to accept these dreams of yours…”

Naomi repositioned her neck and shoulders and definitely finished. “There is reality…and nothing else.”

Ruth, lying in the bed beside her mother, reached out to take a cigarette. She lit it.

Fire.

Her mother was dying. That was real. But there is always death.

“Mama?” said Ruth.

“Yes, dear?” Naomi was drowsy now.

“What is hope?”

Naomi thought very briefly and smiled in the dark.

“That’s a very good question,” she said.

But Ruth said, “What is it?”

Again the pause, and then, “Hope,” said Naomi, “is death in the mind.”

Ruth broke at that.

“Then what kept you alive?” she asked. “What kept you alive?”

“You will discover,” said Naomi, “if you are able to die as I am—
thoughtfully
—that you die rationale by rationale. All your reasoned frameworks are eventually torn down by reason itself. Finally, there is nothing left but life. And that’s what dies. Or will…” she had to add, “be what dies in me. Only life and nothing more. The rest is resolved before death happens. Hope is deceptive, Ruth. It blocks reality and therefore it must die first. Hope stands in the path of grace. It’s a wall.”

There was silence.

Naomi said, really almost totally in sleep, “I often wonder, though, what happens to those who die with a bang. I often wonder if there can be, for them…”

Sleep.

Ruth still lay awake.

Her cigarette broke the dark.

She watched it. It was comforting. What was it like? It was like a…

Ruth did not know.

But Naomi would have said, “It is like…a cigarette.”

In the dark.

The Chronicle of
Hell’s Babies

Wednesday, September 28th, 1938:

Culver City

7:00 a.m.

The bushes parted.

A man stepped through. Before him lay a body of water that might have been a pond, that might have been a miniature lake. But it wasn’t either. No sailboats, and not a single carp. The man was puzzled.

He wore a blue serge suit with the very whitest of pin stripes. He wore two-tone shoes, black and white, a rose-colored tie, a yellow shirt, and a white carnation (pinned to the wrong lapel). He carried a green suede writing case that had a black handle. He carried it badly. He was clumsy. This man was small of stature, round-faced, and extremely ugly. His nose was like the worst nightmare of noses—large, pock-marked, and hairy. His eyes were small and black and they darted about in their sockets like the swiveleyes of a chameleon. His lips were apparently nonexistent. He seemed to have swallowed them. He was able to fold them both inside his mouth at once. His teeth slanted inward. His cheeks were oily and dark with beard, although he had shaved and powdered not an hour before. His hands, black-haired, were permanently fisted to hide the deplorable length of his fingers, which were so short as to be childlike. The man’s name was Cohn, and as he dabbed at the sweat under his chin with the back of one fist, he muttered, “Oi.”

He stepped forward into a great deal of light and promptly stubbed his toe. Preparing to scream with pain and rage, he realized that his toe did not hurt him at all. It seemed neither stubbed nor scuffed. He looked around him furtively. Seeing that he was quite alone, he very gently stubbed his toe again. This time, it bounced back at him.

“Rubber rocks!” he said out loud. “As I live to breathe—made of rubber!”

Mr. Cohn found this extremely pleasing and he unfisted long enough to rub his stubby fingers over the lifelike stone.

“I wonder…” he said, gazing inquisitively at the trees, bushes, grass, and reeds nearby. But, no. All these were quite real. Yes, Mr. Cohn decided, apart from the fact that each and every one of them was contained in some sort of pot or can, they were quite, quite real.

Suddenly, from far above him, a voice yelled out, “You lost or something?”

“Yes—yes,” said Mr. Cohn. “I suppose that is what I am.”

He raised his head. A gigantic fellow in rolled sleeves stood to his right.

“Mr. Lost, eh?”

“Mr. Cohn,” said Mr. Cohn.

“Well, you’d better get outa here,” said the giant, who, from Mr. Cohn’s point of view, was haloed in an arc of light.

“I don’t know where I’m at,” said Mr. Cohn, rising. “And rubber rocks! I don’t understand. Some sort of joke?”

He dusted himself with his fist. The giant watched him.

“You’d better not’ve touched anything, mister,” said the giant. “Cause it’s all in place, ya know. An’ we got a union here can put ya underground if ya mess around with our rocks.”

“No, no,” said Mr. Cohn quite meekly. “I didn’t mess a thing.”

The ruffian walked one step nearer, which is to say, he cornered Mr. Cohn between his beloved rock, a potted palm, and himself.

“What are you, anyway?” he asked. “Where are you from, wise guy?”

Mr. Cohn trembled noticeably all the way through his reply.

“Well—I—I—I was over to New York City. Yesterday before yesterday. Flew to Chicago. To Colorado. To Los Angeles. In a plane, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Got here…”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m—I am—I am…”

“Well?”

“I am…Miss Jacobs…”

“Sure.”

“Looking for Miss Jacobs. The movie star. Yes?”

“What do you want with her, fellah?”

“I want—well, I want.”

“You weird or somethin'?”

“No, no. No. I want Miss Jacobs.”

“You came to see her boobies, eh?” the giant leered.

“Boobies? Boobies? No!” Mr. Cohn protested. Unfortunately, he protested so vehemently that saliva appeared at the corners of his mouth and clouded his words with what appeared to be ravening desire.

“Well, I don’t think you’re allowed in here, mister,” said the giant, and was about to proceed with a forceful eviction when a voice stopped him.

From beyond the bushes came the megaphone announcement that “This set must now be cleared! Everybody off the set, please!”

And the giant disappeared, as though in answer to a wish.

Mr. Cohn immediately seized this circumstance and beat a hasty retreat into the bushes, where he hid—hoping to see Miss Myra Jacobs, and to present her with the diamonds and sapphires and with his written proposal, all contained, together with a cheque for five hundred thousand dollars, in his green suede bag.

8:00 a.m.

The set was now alive with light.

The palm leaves shone. The rubber rocks were scrubbed. The water had been blued. Mr. Cohn was safely in his hiding place.

Myra, in her dressing room, was being worked over by three ladies and two men. She would not appear for hours. It was ever thus.

Adolphus had to wait. At this hour of every morning, this seemed to be what his job as director amounted to. Waiting. He waited while the lights were set. He waited for the chief grip to become sober. He waited for the cameraman to come out of the washroom. He waited for his assistant director to wake up. He waited, as a matter of fact, for someone—anyone—to say “good morning” to him. And this took some time.

“Good morning, Mr. Damarosch.”

“Good morning. Who are you?”

“I’m Walter, Mr. Damarosch. The note carrier.”

“Walter the note carrier? What does that mean?”

“Well, I carry notes back and forth. Here. I have a note for you from Miss Jacobs, one from Mr. Feldbruhn, and one from Mr. Niles.”

“Oh, well,” said Adolphus. “What do they say?”

“Oh! Mr. Damarosch! I never…”

“What do they say, Walter?” said Dolly, inwardly thanking God that at least something was done for him.

Walter screwed up his lengthy face, which jammed all his freckles together like a cloud of lady bugs, and he began to recite—not referring at all to the papers and envelopes in his large red hands.

He first recited Mr. Feldbruhn’s communique (which was about goldfish) and then he went on to recite Mr. Niles’s communique (a warning to Dolly not to speak to anyone from New York City) and then, at the last, he came to Myra’s.

“And what does she want?”

“She wrote, ‘Do I really have to play this scene nude all over?’”

“Ah, yes…” said Dolly. “The old last-minute panic. Typical.”

Walter could not avoid blushing with anticipation. One large red hand crept into a pocket and stayed there.

“Mr. Damarosch?”

“Yes, Walter?”

“Well—ah—well…”

“Ah well what? Please don’t stammer. I can’t stand it. It makes my blood gather.”

“Then what’s your answer.”

“I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’re talking about, Walter.”

“Miss Jacobs, sir. Miss Jacobs. Is she going to?”

“Oh, that…” Dolly gave the boy a look. “Take your hand out of your pocket, Walter. At once. Please remember where we are.”

The hand, reluctant, withdrew.

“Well?”

“The answer is—yes. Of course. It’s in the script.”

“Nude all over…” said Walter dreamily.

“I’m not the least worried about Myra, my boy. Not in the least. It’s Ajax I’m worried about.”

“Mr. Apollo?”

“That’s right.”

Walter gulped. The stray hand fled to its old place, but this time more in shame than in pride.

“Do you mean…?” he said. “Do you mean…?” he said. “Do you really mean…?”

“Yes,” said Dolly. “I mean.”

“And he’s embarrassed, of course,” said Walter, losing his stammer altogether. “And won’t do it. Of course. Will he. No man would!”

Dolly sighed.

“Take your hand out of your pocket, Walter.”

Walter blushed.

“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t, Mr. Damarosch.”

“Why not?” said Dolly.

“Well—” said Walter. “It’s stuck!”

Dolly looked away.

“There,” he said cryptically, “you have Mr. Apollo’s problem in a nutshell, Walter. Or should I say, in a pocket.”

8:15 a.m.

Dolly was still waiting.

Neither Ajax Apollo nor Myra Jacobs had appeared. They were the only two actors in the scene.

The scene itself represented a jungle pool, somewhere in the South Pacific. The hero, Ajax, and the heroine, Myra, were to swim about in the altogether and to “suggest” (the Hays Office) love-making under water. Both would also be seen standing at the water’s edge—their privates hidden by carefully plotted foliage. It was a lovely scene, full of sun and trees and tropics.