The evening’s spectacle, Mary’s carnival of Red-baiting, has stuck in my mind as among the most surreal moments of my life. It took a certain audacity to turn her own birthday into a Nuremberg Rally for the Republican Party. I assume you remember the grotesqueness of it, but I cannot trust you to appreciate what role it played in confirming to me that only one choice remained, and that was flight.
As a drumroll reached its crescendo, the lights dimmed and a spotlight picked out Mary in the center of the terrace. I noticed that she was gazing directly at John, who was standing to my right. The costume she had put herself in, a blue gown adorned with golden stars, her shoulders draped with an ivory silk shawl, suggested an attempt to present herself as a secular Madonna. It would have looked ludicrous anywhere else in the world, at any other time, but this was Mary’s own little blockbuster production and the guests in the garden were ready to buy what she was selling. Her voice crackled through the speakers as she told us that America was God’s guarantee of peace in the world, not just in our own time but for all time. Until the return of Christ, America would be God’s standard bearer and swordsman. The tone was saccharine, humorless, lacking all irony, and it reeked of Nick Charles.
This is a nation of light, she continued as searchlights swept across the garden, picking out the roofs of neighboring houses and pushing night beyond Holmby Hills and Beverly Hills and the Hollywood Hills, out to the valleys, to the cities of the plain where audiences of stricken Americans quaked in expectation of their judgment day, huddling in blackened movie houses to watch every patriotic spectacle we fed them, praying against atomic holocaust and blaming their state of terror entirely on the tidal wave of socialism and unbelief sweeping from the east, as if their own country had nothing to do with it, as if we had not dropped the first atomic bombs ourselves. That is what I saw, and when my eyes had adjusted to the brilliance, registering the group of men and women in white processing behind Mary, the silver chariot drawn by a man dressed as a griffin with a giant fiberglass eagle’s head on his shoulders rolling in to receive her, I recognized in the crowd a hunger to watch such fantasy and not just suspend disbelief but actively to believe that what they were witnessing must be true. Such shifting from mere openness to set aside rational thought for the space of ninety minutes’ entertainment to a more permanent and simple-minded openness to embracing fantasy as the substance of everyday life was what made Hollywood so lucrative, and the America that followed it such a dangerous, childish place.
This was Mary’s enthronement, her apotheosis, and her cleansing of herself before the community that might decide to turn against her if she did not sacrifice the people who had once been her friends. One of the men in white placed a crown of laurels on her head and another thrust a blazing torch into her left hand, while a third wrapped her in a green robe and placed a tablet in her right hand, transforming that secular Madonna into Lady Liberty, uniting Church and State in one diabolical costume change. If it had all ended there it would have been bad enough, but then the music shifted to a medley of patriotic folksongs cuing the entrance of the three blonde girls in red, white, and blue dresses, spiraling as Mary stepped into the chariot, all of them whirling round the terrace, dancing with conviction however badly choreographed they were. If this was meant to be a vision of American beauty, as seemed the intention, it suggested despite itself a place of chaos that should have been easily swept aside by the four other dancers, women in black wigs and red babushkas wielding scythes, who entered with a crash of cymbals. What will happen? I wondered. Will the poor American girls succumb to the Soviet handmaidens? No, of course not, because like every movie made in that era the plot was rigged to punish the villains: Mary intervened, holding her torch and tablet aloft and chasing the black-wigged dancers off the terrace and into the dark.
I wonder if Mary ever considered that the historical pageant ending her spectacle was in bad taste, that having actors dressed as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln speaking about revolutions just and revolutions vile and the need for the just to vanquish what is evil lest darkness conquer the earth, and choreographing Washington to go charging off stage with his sword raised, or Lincoln speaking about the ways that mature revolutions seek to liberate those left behind, to bring light to the dark and so uplift mankind might be hubristic. Did it ever strike her that employing four black extras from the studio to play slaves whose chains would be broken by Lincoln’s own hand might be a desecration? Or that having the men sit at Lincoln’s feet staring adoringly over at Mary, their white savior, as a piccolo played a spiritual melody might be flagrantly racist? I doubt it. My stomach churned as Mary smiled at those four men, the music becoming rural and folksy to accompany the approach of an elderly actor dressed as a farmer holding a Bible above his head. How moved so many people looked, how tearful and credulous when Mary took the Bible and held it out, calling on us to Behold! The book of our nation, our faith, and our progress! The book that shows us the way!
When I turned to you and Helen I hoped to see some hint in your expressions that you found it as disturbing as I did, but you were rapt, Myles, and seeing your face, the tears welling in your own eyes as the band began playing the opening bars of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’, watching you join to sing along with everyone else, I thought: I do not know him at all, not at all. I have only tricked myself into believing that I know this man whom I allow to enter my body, whose own body he allows me to enter, but such entrances and caring do not mean that we actually have any idea who the other person is. That you could be moved rather than disgusted by what was unfolding before us suggested I would never really understand you, that your boyhood in Montana – if that’s even where you were from, if I can actually trust that the stories you told me about your origins were true – was so remote from my own America that even if I thought I understood you I would never be able to predict what moved you or frightened you or gave you consolation. Perhaps, over a lifetime, I might have come to understand. Perhaps it would not have taken even that long. A decade? How many years until I knew what your weaknesses were, what would make you cry or compromise your own ethical stance, assuming you even had one?
By that time I was long past ready to leave, but Krug and Porter stepped to the microphone to do their tiresome double act, that standard of Hollywood variety and award shows, straight out of vaudeville, patronizing us all, Dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, it gives us great pleasure to be here tonight to celebrate the birthday of one of our family’s brightest stars, Porter starts, the straight man (ironically) to Krug’s joker, it’s so bright I need shades, and the polite smattering of laughter for the first of his gags, not loud enough to drown out Porter as he tells us that Mary has spent her entire career at our great studio, reminding us that she came to Los Angeles looking for stardom like everyone else, arriving at the studio gates as one more extra with a dream, but unlike so many others the studio recognized her native talent and cleared the path for her ascent to the stratosphere, to become one of America’s most beloved leading ladies, and though he would like to tell us how much Mary is worth to the studio Krug nails the timing and interrupts, but we don’t want her to ask for a raise, and the crowd laughs more genuinely but again not so loudly that they interrupt the flow as Porter doubles down on the patriotism, telling us all how much Mary means to America, how she herself, if you can believe it – this coming from a man who loves Miles Davis and Robert Motherwell and Physique Pictorial – is a symbol of liberty and freedom, a representative of what is best about our nation, an unelected senator of common sense, fighter against tyranny, totalitarianism and oppression in all its forms, a patriot on the side of the angels, and there is Krug’s third cue, allowing him the biggest laugh of the night, but what a devil when it comes to contract negotiation!, and the whole place erupts because everyone knows that Krug is the one speaking the truth, revealing just how canny and conniving and strategic Mary is. She plays her part as well, blushing and laughing and shooing them with her hands as
if it’s all too embarrassing, the jokes so ridiculous they couldn’t be further from the truth, Porter’s sentimental stuff so true that she could only be humble in the face of such praise, and this continues as the two men harangue us into singing ‘Happy Birthday’, and as she listens, watching the hired maître d’ wheel out a three-tiered cake decorated with sparklers, Mary clutches her hands to her chest as if genuinely surprised, but I could see how she was glowing, how it was coming off precisely as she planned. It was time for the final act of her performance.
I turned to Helen and she whispered to me, You have to hand it her, she always cries on cue.
Were you still in thrall, Myles? Were you among those who believed in the fantasy? Was it too difficult to watch a fellow actor putting on such a brazen performance of falsity and not believe it? Would not believing it have revealed something to you about yourself that you could not have stomached? Would it have been too destructive to your own illusion of yourself ?
Mary paused a moment to be sure we were listening. She stared at John, her gaze always returning to him after it had flitted across the crowd. All this had been for him. I could see it at last.
A great many of you know I grew up on a farm, she began. Like the farmer in our little pageant tonight, I have always turned to the word of God as guide for the way I live, and as a prophesy of what is yet to come for all people. My grandparents were immigrants who sought freedom in this great nation, and thanks to their courage I have grown up in the land of the free. I feel it my duty to defend this country that has given me everything: my success, my family and friends, and most of all my fans. What would any of us be in this business without our fans, those ordinary Americans who look to us as examples and guides, who learn how best to live from the stories we tell, who understand from the struggles we depict what one should do, and what one must never do, the pleasures of doing good, and the perils and punishments that come from doing what God does not intend. It is our responsibility as practitioners of this young art to live unblemished lives, to work in the service of liberty, to make ourselves embodiments of the goodness enshrined in the founding of the greatest country in the world. We cannot falter in our fight against tyranny, whether it be the tyranny of Nazis or the far greater tyranny of those Communist agents bent on infiltrating and undermining our nation from within, like the parasite that will feed on its host, those monsters who wish to destroy this country, and our great history. We must search out and eliminate the subversives among us, either by converting those wayward souls to the holiness of liberty, or seeing to it that they pay for their evil beliefs, pay for what they have done and hope to do by putting them in prison or, in the case of foreign agents, deporting them as swiftly as possible. America cannot rest on its laurels, we cannot falter in our vigilance, either at home or abroad. We are the envy of the world just as we must be the keeper of the world, and knowing that position and responsibility we must guard against attempts to dilute our strength or distract us from our mission. I thank you all for coming tonight, and invite you to celebrate but also to reflect on what each of you good people might do to make this nation safe for liberty, for all those ordinary Americans out there, in places like Oklahoma and Ohio and Wyoming, people who can only dream of the lives we are privileged to live in this little colony of light, and know that each of us has a duty to our fans to be examples and guides, to take our place in the political life of this nation. Think for a moment, she said, softening her voice, just think…
I looked around at the faces of the people I knew and did not know, some of them, like you, appearing transformed, a few like me sneering, others visibly alarmed. When Mary lit the silence with laughter it caught in the microphone and exploded as a whine of feedback that made me jump. I guess I forgot this is a party, she said. Let’s not be solemn now. Have a piece of cake and fill your glasses. Please enjoy yourselves, and thank you for coming, my friends. It means so much to this simple country girl.
Thunderous applause, cheers from the men, polite smiles from the women, an orchestrated chorus of ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’, and then I watched as John pushed through the crowd, charging up to the terrace and into Mary’s arms. He took her face in his hands, kissed her, and the crowd cheered. For the handful of press photographers who had been admitted, John and Mary posed, smiling. You said that we should congratulate her, and I said I’d rather not, and Helen said it would be bad form not to, and I said I’ve never cared much about form, and she said that’s the privilege of never having had to think about money, and I said is that a criticism, and she said no, Desmond, I’m just being honest. Not all of us grew up so liberated.
I lost you and Helen in the crush and by the time I reached John and Mary I was alone and the three of us stood apart from everyone else. What Mary said next I believe she would have said if every microphone in the country had been recording her words. I’d like you to leave, Desmond. My husband invited you but this is my party and you’re not welcome. Then she turned, walked across the terrace and down into the garden, her face cracked in two by the breadth of her smile.
When I turned to John he looked away from me. She wants me to come with her tomorrow, Desmond. I think it might be the only good choice I have.
I told him I didn’t think he was feeling himself, that he was tired from the shooting, he’d been drinking all day, the bromide and bourbon this morning and champagne this evening and the stress of all that had happened was deranging him. I know I failed to choose my words well because he turned to stare at me with a look I had never seen from him before. It told me we were finished. Maybe I am deranged, he said, but maybe I should just do what she says. Life will be easier that way.
What you’re proposing would mean I could no longer be your friend, John.
Unlike you, I’m a family man. I have to consider that, too.
Is that how it is?
That’s how it is, Desmond. The abruptness in his voice surprised me.
Then don’t expect to hear from me again. I have to find Helen and Myles and then I’ll leave. I won’t make any trouble. Don’t worry.
Desmond…
No, that’s okay. Good luck finishing our picture. I hope they let you.
This time I did not wait for John to reply. He had bent and twisted so many times over the course of the day, so many times over the years we had worked together, that I no longer had the patience to see if he would change direction again. Flexible and feeble as his beliefs so often proved, I had nonetheless hoped that he would be sensible and good-hearted enough to see through the distortion and ugliness of Mary’s Red-baiting, a campaign that was, at its charred heart, about greediness and thuggery and fear of a world in which everyone was as free as Mary imagined Americans already were but in truth could never be unless they were rich and happened also to believe precisely what she and her cadre of fascists espoused. People like Mary, the poor-made-good who had struggled and strived to hunt with the native-born wealthy in their own habitat, could never see their own position. You had to be born rich to understand how the advantages accrued through generations of wealth were engrained in ways that the impoverished, the middle classes, and even the newly rich could not wholly imagine. It was not just about what you could buy but all the things you never had to think about buying, the world of possessions and property you never needed to acquire in the first place, the doors that opened without force, the ways access could be assumed rather than requested, the ease with which outsiders could be policed, expelled, or expended. This was something you yourself could not see, Myles, and your own naïveté always pained me.
I could not find you so I took another glass of champagne from a passing silver tray and slumped at the foot of a tree. Other guests were glancing in my direction and I wondered if I had been speaking my thoughts aloud. It would not have been surprising since I spent so much of my waking life with an interior monologue, passing comment on the people around me, people who would have been horrified to learn what I really thought – not ju
st about them, but also my desires and prejudices, the way that despite myself epithets of race, national origin, and class struck automatically in my mind like notes on the roll of a player piano plinking a score composed by my parents and grandparents, by the society that surrounded me, and even though I could instruct it to create more interesting and varied music, melodies of nuance and heart, the roll would always eventually return to its beginning, to the first chords that, even within their lovely if simple melodies, contained notes of fear and self-justification inherited from the people who brought me into the world.
Overhead I searched for that night’s waning crescent moon but it was inconstant as John Marsh, swayed by the first passing star, lit and extinguished and lit again, according to its fancy. If memory could fade as easily as the moon one might lead a happier life but certainly not a truer one. Golden in a white tuxedo, Apollo walked across the lawn, the passing image of Noah Roy, always wandering out of reach. I bit my cheek and tasted blood. It is now a struggle to capture what remains of my memories of Noah, to hear the score of our love for each other, though love is an inadequate word, romance as well, partnership too businesslike. Passion might come closest, since passion contains both beauty and horror, pleasure and suffering. Passion can be either noun or verb: my passion for him, the passion of his martyrdom, the passion between us, the man who was my passion; and then, in action, I was passioned by him, this too can be said, or we passioned our voices together. I stood looking at my reflection in his polished tombstone beneath the cedar tree, wherein I passioned to see myself escap’d from so sore ills. That was Keats before I took it as my own.
Night for Day Page 41