Crowned Heads

by Thomas Tryon

  “‘Conspiracy? Of what are you speaking?’ She took further umbrage as she drew the shirt closer around her shoulders.

  “‘Simply this, Countess Sobryanski. I’ve known for some time that all is not as is represented here. So allow me to suggest that Fedora has not gone away at all. I suggest that she is not in a hospital at Menton, or anywhere in your son’s loving care. I suggest that she is still in this house, and that your man Kritos, he and Mrs. Balfour and yourself, keep her here against her will.’

  “‘For what reason, this?’

  “‘I suggest that it is a conspiracy to rob her. You say I have eavesdropped; I admit it, and I have overheard certain discussions concerning money matters. Her papers alone must be worth a good deal, yet I am being paid with them piecemeal.’

  “She became more indignant, but I saw that it was only a defense. ‘You must be mad. Where do you get such ideas?’ Trembling, she tried to hold on to her cane, but it slipped from her fingers and fell on the stonework. I got up and handed it to her. She clutched it, her shoulders shaking. ‘Ne touchez pas!’ I moved to lean against the balustrade, looking down at her; she would not return my gaze.

  “‘Or I could suggest something else—a perhaps less believable plot, but still possible. Perhaps, as you say, she has gone away. Perhaps not to Menton, but to Switzerland.’

  “‘We are not at home just now in Switzerland.’

  “‘Obviously, since you are here. But I suggest that perhaps she has gone to Basel, to the clinic. For more treatments.’

  “‘Vous pensez de Vando?’

  “‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I was thinking of Vando.’

  “‘He is dead.’ She rattled her cane again, always a bad sign. ‘He has been dead for many years.’

  “‘I have heard so, but there has never been proof, has there?’

  “‘He is dead, I promise you. And she is not there—I promise you that as well!’

  “She’d become very upset; I softened my tone. ‘Let me suggest something else, then. Let me suggest that what you and Mrs. Balfour claim is true: Fedora has gone to Menton and is being looked after by your son. Let me suggest that your man Kritos is what you say he is, a faithful retainer.’

  “‘What? How’s that? Speak up, stop mumbling.’

  “I wasn’t mumbling, but speaking quite distinctly. I think she knew what was coming, but was trying to fend off the moment with her truculence.

  “I said, ‘There are one or two interesting things about your friend Fedora, madame. You wouldn’t know it, but this was not the first time she and I have met.’

  “‘C’est vrai?’ She shrugged; the encounter I referred to seemed to afford her no interest. ‘Et puis quoi?’

  “‘And what then? Well,’ I returned, ‘there is the matter of that shirt you are wearing. I gave it to Fedora almost thirty years ago.’

  “‘C’est vrai?’ she repeated, no more than glancing down at it. ‘It is little more than a rag now.’

  “‘True, but it has sentimental connotations for me. You can imagine my surprise, seeing that she has held on to it for all these years.’

  “‘Perhaps she treasures it.’

  “‘My very thought She never thanked me for it, though.’

  “‘Did you give it to her so you could be thanked? You are not only a liar and an eavesdropper; you have a petty mind.’

  “‘I’m merely trying to explain to you. The shirt was sent to me by my mother, I had little money then, she wanted to be sure I would keep warm.’

  “‘You have a loving mother, I am sure.’ Je suis certaine: she snapped out the words. ‘Why do you go on about the matter? Is it so important?’

  “‘Only in terms of the deceits we were speaking of. In any case, my mother sent it to me, I in turn sent it to Fedora. There are certain people in the world one would always give the shirt off one’s back for. I hoped she would be pleased by it.’

  “She grew more impatient. ‘Why, then, she was pleased, or she wouldn’t have kept it. You really have a small nature.’ She took me in again, shielding her eyes against a ray of bright sun that filtered through a torn place in the canopy.

  “‘I suppose,’ I pursued, ignoring her remark, ‘that having gone to Menton and left the shirt behind, she would hardly miss it—since it does not belong to her, anyway.’

  “‘Does not? What do you mean? Surely you gave it to her,’ she replied caustically.

  “‘No, Countess Sobryanski, I did not.’

  “‘Are you an Indian giver, to make presents and then take them back?’

  “‘Not at all. Where I gave it, there I meant it to be kept, even if on a hook in a back hallway. I would no more take it back than I would take, for example, these apricots.’ I picked up the basket and held it before her, turning it so the tip of the note was in front of her eyes. She looked at me questioningly, then drew it out. She unfolded it, looked at it, and said irritably, ‘You know I cannot see it. What does it say?’

  “I took it from her and read it aloud. ‘“Rien d’ailleurs ne rassure autant qu’un masque.”’

  “‘Well, then, well, then, what does it mean?’

  “‘It’s from Colette. And I believe you know what it means.’ She was trembling more violently, and her fingers pinched the red points of the shirt collar and drew it closer around her chin. She ducked her face so it was hidden from me. ‘It means that I gave that shirt to Fedora—just as I gave her these apricots. I gave both to you. Because you are Fedora.’

  “She struck my outstretched hand away, the fruit spilling in all directions, as she cried out, ‘Vous avez tort! Vous avez tort!’ Her voice cracked with emotion as she turned to me again, tilting her face into the ray of light. ‘Vous avez tort,’ she repeated, her voice gone to a dead whisper. ‘J’étais Fedora.’

  “‘You are wrong. I was Fedora.’”

  “Not possible.”

  Marion Walker sat immobile, staring open-mouthed at Barry, her fingers holding her cigarette, burning but unsmoked, the ash grown long. She moved; the ash fell to the carpet. She reached to brush it away, tossing her hair aside as she raised her head. “Not possible,” she repeated.

  Barry returned her look with a smile and a slight shrug. “In this life, Marion, dear, all things are possible.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Of course not. Didn’t I say you wouldn’t? But didn’t I also say that my facts were unassailable? They are, I promise you. She was Fedora.”

  “I see…. I see,” Marion said, trying very hard to see. “Then the other one was—”

  “An impostor.”

  “Which one died in Menton yesterday?”

  “The impostor.”

  “Which one played the Virgin in Santa Cristi?”

  “The impostor. Her first part.”

  “And Nefertiti?”

  “Again, the impostor. She was remarkably good, good as Fedora ever was.”

  “Which did you meet at the Louvre?”

  “The real one.”

  “Ahh—then I do see.” She settled smugly back against the pillows and smiled at Barry.

  “You’re looking very Mona Lisa yourself,” he told her. “What do you see?”

  “I know who the impostor was.”

  “Do you indeed?”

  “Of course.” She gestured to the painting. “That’s not Fedora.”

  “Aren’t you clever. You’ve got it right off. It’s not Fedora.”

  She accepted the compliment and with a confiding air asked, “Who is it, then?”

  “Stanna Wilchek. Like Fedora, an actress. She was in Mother Courage and Her Children at the Theatre de Lys about ten years ago. Incredible resemblance, isn’t it? Did you ever see her in the movies?”

  “No …”

  “You wouldn’t have—she never made one. Although she was kept under contract for seven years. It’s a rather sad story. Back in the thirties, some AyanBee executives saw the resemblance. They signed her without a test and put her under wraps so
no other studio could have a rival Fedora. Fedora felt guilty because Stanna’s career never got off the ground, and she helped her out financially for a time—until Stanna married, in fact.”

  “Whom did she marry?”

  “Cyril Leaf.”

  “The designer? Ahh, then that’s why she’s wearing the Ophelie costume. But—” Marion was suddenly baffled again. “How could she look young enough to impersonate Fedora? She’d be about the same age, wouldn’t she?”

  “I never said she impersonated Fedora. You did.”

  “Oh.” Her look was one of miserable frustration. “Then I don’t see.”

  “Of course you don’t. Nobody did; that’s the beauty of it. I offer you that portrait as an illustration of how easily people can be deceived by what they think are facts, or by appearances. Appearances are deceiving, as they say. She looks like Fedora; ergo, she is Fedora. I led you to believe it, let you believe it. As I was led to believe the real Fedora was the countess Sobryanski: she looked like what I’d seen of her, behaved like what I’d heard of her, therefore she was the countess. But then she wasn’t at all; not the countess—Fedora.”

  “Well, I’m waiting.”

  “The impostor? You’ve been a patient listener, so I’ll tell you. Ophelie.”

  Still she didn’t comprehend it. “You mean the movie?”

  “I mean the daughter.”

  “But Fedora never had a daughter….”

  “She didn’t?” He was looking at her, long, steadily, with smiling traces of that knowledge she’d earlier been certain he possessed. Still …

  “How could she have? How could she have gotten away with it? You don’t keep secrets like that in our business.”

  “It was … arranged.”

  “Who was the father?”

  He rose abruptly and she grabbed at him. “Hey, don’t leave me there—”

  “I was just going to get us another drink.” He carried the glasses to the bar and filled them partway. He brought them back and set them on the coffee table, watching her with his half-smile.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “Sobryanski,” he said finally.

  “The count?”

  “Count Jan Ivan Chernieff Sobryanski, none other.”

  “Ohhh, Barry …” Her tone clearly implied that she refused to accept his statement.

  “I said you wouldn’t believe it, and you don’t.”

  “Yes, you did, and no, I don’t. When were they married?”

  “Never.”

  “Oh.” She stopped her glass halfway to her mouth. “You mean … ?”

  “I mean. She had his child, but she never married him. Refused to, as a matter of fact.”

  “I didn’t think unwed mothers were fashionable in her day. And the child looked that much like her?”

  “There evidently were certain dissimilarities, but nothing noticeable. It happens. Wait a minute.” He brought a Manila envelope from the table behind the sofa and began laying photographs out before her. On each, all but the face had been masked by taped-on paper cutouts, and all looked like Fedora. “Which is which?” Barry asked. Marion studied them and then pointed. “That’s Fedora in Tsarina.”

  “Wrong. It’s Ophelie in Mother Russia.” He lifted the cutout to reveal “Fedora” in her Catherine the Great costume.

  “Then that’s Fedora,” Marion stated, pointing again.

  “Wrong.” It was Ophelie in Madeleine Pomona. “Why don’t I save you the trouble?” he suggested. “They’re all Ophelie.”

  Marion pressed her hands to her forehead and closed her eyes, trying to take it in. “You mean ever since Santa Cristi, none of those performances was Fedora?”

  “Ever since, none.”

  “I assume you’ve checked the facts.”

  “Would you like to see them? Photostats of the birth certificate, the works? I have all the authenticated documents. I have also sworn statements from Mrs. Evelyn Balfour, if you need that kind of proof.”

  “Barry, I believe, I believe. But I don’t understand. The daughter wasn’t being kept prisoner, then?”

  “As Balfour said, she was perfectly free to come and go as she chose. Kritos was actually a mild sort, and his main task, when Ophelie was there, was to see that she didn’t hurt herself. I simply misread his actions. She was always threatening suicide, and making trouble for her mother and Balfour. They didn’t want her being seen in the village when she was on drugs, and the day she went to the beach Kritos merely went down to bring her home safely. She became obstreperous as usual, and he had trouble getting her into the house, so he carried her. When she became hysterical, Fedora slapped her, not an unnatural thing to do, but one I misinterpreted. She had made up the whole plot thing; as Balfour said, it was her heightened sense of the dramatic. She was always causing scenes.

  “At last the count was called, and he flew to Athens and came for her. He and his wife did look after her well; when she got out of the hospital she was moved back to Switzerland to a sanitarium. Finally they brought her back to Menton—she liked to be close to Monte Carlo for the gambling—but of course she couldn’t; too ill. She evidently died at the Menton house.”

  “You were that close to Fedora, and you never recognized her? That face?”

  “But it wasn’t that face, you see. That face was gone, destroyed. The whole structure had collapsed, there wasn’t a trace of resemblance to the original. That was the greatest tragedy, I think.”

  “How did you finally know the other one wasn’t Fedora?”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I gave you every clue—you simply overlooked them. Like everybody else.”

  “Explain.”

  “Explain … yes, explain.” He sat abruptly and picked up his drink. The room was silent for some moments, then he drew her back once more to Crete, to the old woman sitting on the villa terrace, but the old woman was no longer the countess Sobryanski, she was the once-great star Fedora.

  She had turned her face away, and he could not tell if she was angry at him or angry at herself. For she would not speak again. She rang her bell until Kritos hurried out and wheeled her away. Mrs. Balfour had been standing in the doorway, witness to the scene.

  “What does it mean?” Barry asked her.

  “She has told you. She is Fedora.”

  The next day he did not read. Kritos appeared at the cottage with Balfour’s note asking him please to wait. Two days later word arrived that he was to come again. He returned to the villa. All seemed as before; the schedule was kept punctiliously, she sat as usual in her place at the balustrade, he took up the book and read. She had not looked at him. Later he decided that it was her woman’s curiosity that broke the silence between them. In the middle of a passage she raised her hand. He stopped. She said:

  “M’sieu’?”

  “Oui, madame? Qu’est-ce-qu’il y a?”

  She shook her head. “No, speak English. Your French is quite bad, and there is no need to continue such deceits now. I was afraid you might recognize my accent in English. How did you know? We fooled the world; how was it we did not fool you?”

  “But you did, madame, absolutely fooled me. Until almost the last, just before—may I say Ophelie?—went away.”

  “And then?”

  “William Marsh once told me that you never ate shellfish of any kind, yet at lunch I saw her eat a plate of shrimp salad. Then I saw her cutting her meat, and she switched her knife and fork the way right-handed people do. But, if I recalled correctly, I was told that you are left-handed. This was confirmed when I saw you, first eating your soup, then when you pitted the apricots I brought you.”

  “Very astute. You are correct. My eating habits were not hers, she always preferred the American style of using cutlery. It was a small thing; we thought no one would notice that.” She fell silent for a moment, then: “Do you think it was clever, this impersonation?”

  “Very.”

&nbs
p; “I thought so, too, but now it seems it was not. You see how matters go, the moment one blinks the eye.”

  “How do they go?”

  “Badly, badly. They become something else, something you did not intend them to become. Still, it was never a shabby deception. She made a very good Fedora.”

  “Whatever she was, there is only one Fedora, madame.”

  She shook her cane. “Because I am her mother it is perhaps immodest of me to say so, but she is—was—remarkable. We fooled them all for a long time. It would be nice to die having fooled them forever.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  She made a scoffing sound, waved her hand at him. “You are here. You will write about it; I cannot stop you. But I should say the truth. It is why I sent for you—I want you to write it. It is time; there has been so much untruth. I will tell you how it was, if you will promise to write it the way it was. Can I trust you to do that?”

  “You can, madame.”

  She nodded with evident satisfaction. “I have discussed it with Balfour; she says you are to be trusted.” She thought again, then asked, “What was it, the Colette? The line about the mask?”

  He quoted: “‘Rien d’ailleurs ne rassure autant qu’un masque.’”

  She nodded again. “Yes; very reassuring. Ophelie-Fedora was my mask; she kept me hidden. I did well to stay that way. I have looked older and uglier longer than I ever looked young and beautiful.”

  “You had a great career.”

  “Ahh, car-r-r-reer. What is a career? I never wanted to be that, a movie star. I wanted only to be an actress. As a movie star one gets the best table in the restaurant, that is all. A name on the marquee. The first time I saw my name in lights, they spelled my name wrong. ‘Fedroa. Fedroa in Zizi.’ What a silly picture. How silly they all were. There are better ways to amuse oneself than by being a movie star, I tell you that.”

  “Such as?”

  “Looking after someone. Having babies. Washing clothes.” She laughed, not the old laugh, but the palest recollection of it, and it really wasn’t the movie star, it was the washerwoman. Barry waited to hear the source of her amusement. “Marlene. I once talked to a steward on a plane and he told me he used to take Dietrich’s grandchild’s dirty diapers from Paris to New York and she would wash and iron them and send them back, all the way across the ocean. I think that was nice.” She composed herself, then began, going back to her first meeting with Jan Sobryanski, the accidental encounter that had initiated their long relationship. He had been ill and was in New York; he had been bedded at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital for three months, undergoing tests. She confessed she had never cared for Europeans as lovers, but he had struck a responsive chord in her and they saw much of each other during the Atlantic voyage. Before docking at Le Havre he had already proposed marriage. She put him off. He was charming, but too young, and she did not want to be married, to him or anyone. A summer was fine, but not a lifetime. She had only her work. They enjoyed their idyll in Europe, and she returned to Hollywood, to discover she was pregnant. She was scheduled to make Madame Bovary, which she would just have time to finish before she began to show, but the picture was continually postponed, and it became too late. The film was abandoned, and she went away to have the baby.