Marilyn's Daughter

by John Rechy

  Inside his office, he sat behind his ordered desk and against the commanding backdrop of photographs, the framed anarchy of the painting.

  Suddenly Normalyn could not speak her accusation!—because what had seemed so clear as suspicion faded into fragmented conjectures as she faced David Lange. Accuse him of helping her in her journey? . . . She decided she would explore the components of her suspicions while she located the exact accusation.

  “You didn’t tell me you spoke to Stanley Smith before I called him, when he denied being my father.”

  David Lange reacted with the slightest indication of bafflement, a brief frown of confusion at the import of her statement. “I did speak to Stanley after I gave you his number—I simply verified it. And I told him you were in Los Angeles. When you mentioned your call to him, you were disturbed. Why disturb you more? Remember, Normalyn, we were trusting each other then, slowly. Certainly you didn’t tell me everything, did you?” His smiled reminded her of mutual, close conspiracy. “Is any of that sinister, Normalyn?”

  No. Instantly, it wasn’t, not when exposed to his easy, disarming logic, the unangered voice. That was what she had to break finally, his instant control. Otherwise she would leave this office—again!—feeling thwarted, her doubts about his motives only briefly pacified before they reemerged. She reminded herself that he did not know of her further contact with Stan in Palm nor of her confrontation with the Crouches. Immediately, she was sure he did—certainly with the Crouches. Through Lady Star? . . . If only she could find evidence that would firm her suspicions, her exact accusation!

  “Stanley’s telephone number isn’t listed and you said it was— when I told you he hadn’t even asked how I got it.”

  Even to her that sounded only desperate now. It was happening, it was happening again! He was only controlling her doubts, not answering them.

  “I thought it was listed. But don’t you think he’d assume I gave it to you—since I did mention you?” His eyes held her.

  “The night after I left your office, you guided me to the Dead Movie Stars, what I would find there—”

  “I may have suggested certain directions of discovery,” he said.

  Speak your accusation, dearheart, surprise him with it! It was Miss Bertha’s voice! She could still hear it! But Normalyn realized now what she had known all along: It was her own voice; she had only been locating it. Yes, she would accuse, but first—. . . Slowly, Normalyn let her eyes scan the photographs on the wall behind David Lange. Swiftly she faced him. “What do you see, David, when you look at her every single day in your office?”

  He reared back, his hands on his desk.

  She waited, silently, challenging him to avoid her question.

  He whispered delicate sounds so softly she could hear each breath. “What do I see? A perfect mask on which was painted weakness, strength, sorrow, joy. The conversion of vulgarity into elegance. The sensuality of a fallen angel, mocked. A creation that came to exist only in photographs, composed reflections. Marilyn Monroe’s greatest art was the creation of herself out of a somewhat ordinarily pretty girl named Norma Jeane. It was great art, great artifice. She convinced the world that Marilyn Monroe was real. . . . Fascinating to see the transformation.”

  He looked at Normalyn, clearly startled, as if only now realizing he had spoken aloud. Silent, he touched the sphere on his desk.

  The rounded crystal, it seemed to Normalyn, reduced the room into one central reflection possessed by him. She would not be a part of what he controlled! In the charged silence following his words, she experienced an instant clarity, and she spoke it aloud in amazement, her accusation found in his own words: “You’ve been attempting to re-create me as her!” She stood up. “But why me?” Glancing at the gorgeous movie star—and the picture of the fleeing woman who might be Enid!—Normalyn felt even more awkward and plain by comparison. Why me? He needed to believe she was Marilyn Monroe’s daughter, that she was that close to her, “the ordinarily pretty girl named Norma Jeane” transformed into Marilyn Monroe.

  Normalyn could shape her accusation now: “You’ve been guiding my life, David, shaping it to your wishes. You challenged me to live—by being like her. Be her! you said. And I think I tried, one eerie night. You told Stanley Smith I said he was my father, knowing he’d deny it—true or not, but exactly the way Marilyn Monroe was rejected by the man she thought was her father. You’ve maneuvered to keep me immersed in her life.” He had never wanted her to find her own life; he had been pulling her away from it. “David,” she said softly, “whether I’m her daughter or not, I’m me, not the reflection of her you’ve tried to make me into. I won’t be part of your obsession!”

  “Withhold your quick absurd conclusions!”

  His voice was so harsh its power forced her to remain by the chair she had occupied.

  “Learn this now, Normalyn! It can’t wait longer!” He frowned at motes of dust captured within one reflected ray of light from the window. “I’ve told you there’s only one person left who knows the full truth of Monroe’s last days—Enid kept her secrets as mysterious as her life! We’ll call that person—what? Our judge? Our accuser?” he asked wryly. “Ours, not yours, Normalyn.” He spoke quickly: “Our accuser has made one condition for the truth all of us want for various reasons. The condition is that when we have ascertained that we have located the girl involved in the mystery, we confess to that girl—and through her to our accuser—our participation in the deceptions that surrounded the last days of Monroe’s life. When I spoke to you first, you conveyed significant information. When I saw you, I knew you were our best candidate—from among all the women who contact me in response to every article I write.”

  The best candidate! All the confidence she had gained to make her accusation was being attacked, replaced by new fear. Again he was wresting all control from her.

  “That’s why you were tested, interrogated, informed! If you remained only our best candidate, you would have essential information about the events and the people involved, enough to convince our accuser. That’s why you heard even harsh details. You were given that information—and you were challenged, guided even, to feel like her. Yes, I did that. You’ve been provided reflections of her to absorb. I did that, too, earlier. That—not your fanciful conjecture of my motives—is why you’re here now!”

  Normalyn tried to adjust to the violent reversal—and to this new harsh man thrusting cold words at her. To give those strange words reality, she spoke aloud: “You’ve been trying to convert me into an imposter who could get information for you.”

  “Choose the word you prefer.” His voice remained peremptory. “Imposter, candidate.” When he spoke again, the harsh tone broke. The concern, the caring that had made her return to him over and over came back into his voice: “Normalyn, Normalyn, that had to be stated bluntly. What I told you was so only at first. Now you’ve convinced us that you are that youngwoman and that you are, very probably, Marilyn Monroe’s daughter.” His voice lowered. “And his, Robert Kennedy’s.”

  Later Normalyn would try to reconstruct her feelings in these jagged moments. Now she was aware only that all that had been said threatened to push her identity finally beyond her grasp, into chaotic darkness, the same darkness the two women had fought, had surrendered to. To clear her suddenly clouded vision, she looked out the window, at the bright cleansing sunlight of the present. Everything had reversed itself again, in his hands. She must grasp it back.

  “From the start I told you, Normalyn, that there is one person who can gather the pieces of the fractured puzzle.” David Lange paused. “That person is you.”

  And the person who could put it back together was the one he called their accuser. But who? Normalyn wondered.

  “For years our accuser has awaited your arrival,” David continued. “And so have we.”

  Then the lavender bouquets were summonses from someone alerted to her arrival? Miss Bertha! But now she was dead. Did the connection extend back to Texas
, to Mayor Hughes? That question recurred, along with this certainty: He had guided her, along with Enid’s letter. Who was the elusive figure in the girls’ game played under the shadow of the angel she had seen earlier?—the undecided angel that had led her here today?

  “And during those years of waiting,” David went on in a tone of fascination, “our accuser has pursued, kept guilt alive with constant reminders. Call it psychological blackmail. Everyone involved has so much to hide. It hasn’t been difficult to keep them terrified. Some have been exculpated. Others died—too soon for the grand summation of all the guilts! It’s really quite Grecian in its overtones!” David seemed to exult in the prospect of judgment.

  “Our accuser pursued some until the end—even that deadly clown Hoover. Peter Lawford, hounded into rambling denials, convinced now he knows nothing—his testimony is worthless. . . . The Kennedys?” David stopped for long moments, and his eyes searched out the window and beyond the horizon. “No. Because Monroe loved them. At least one of them. And, after all—all along—they had been the real objects of the vast, brutal machinery of destruction.”

  There followed a long silence in the shadowless room of steadied twilight.

  Now David Lange’s voice was so soft it hardly broke the quiet interlude. “Ironic”—he seemed to speak to himself—“that only those who constructed that invisible machinery of destructive power are beyond anyone’s reach.”

  Were they aware of her? Normalyn thought of the man at the Ambassador Hotel, the two men in the park, the men she had encountered that long hot night.

  David broke the somber silence. “There are peripheral others.” He laughed. “Oh, not Lady Star—she’s been merely helpful. Poor Molly Ullman, so eager to barter for her own fame.” He spoke with a certain pity. “She’ll survive her scandal— and go on to be someone else, never herself.”

  During the subdued moments, Normalyn had found new confidence. After all, her purpose had not changed—break David’s control, whatever he offered to provide now.

  “What will you and the others gain from all the probing you’ve exposed me to?”

  “Release from the aroused guilts,” David said quickly, “the fear of exposure; or where, as in Mildred’s case, there is no capacity for guilt, only release from . . .” He paused. “. . . whatever it may be. There are other motives—always curiosity, perhaps even a desire for truth. Battered idealism trying to restore itself?” His hurt eyes fixed on her. “Certainly the fulfillment of a desire to solve the mystery that’s haunted us: Did her daughter live? Is she you?”

  “Your accuser will tell me in exchange for the required . . . confessions?”

  “Yes,” David answered. He leaned toward her. “One more step, Normalyn, and you’ll have your answer!”

  Why did she feel saddened? Normalyn wondered.

  Dearheart, ask him about his own— . . .

  No, she no longer needed to borrow another’s voice. She had her own: “It’s all being arranged through you, that’s clear, and I assume you’re in touch with the person you call your ‘accuser.’ But you haven’t identified your participation in the events we’ve been talking about, David—why you should be accused—or exculpated, of course.”

  “You’ll know everything, I promise, Normalyn.” He leaned closer toward her. “But, first, I need to have your full commitment to the last step we’re taking.”

  This is where it had led, she was sure. “How?”

  His eyes prepared to seize her slightest reaction. “Perhaps there’s a letter written at the very last by Monroe to Enid, perhaps something left by Enid— Our accuser may require certain verification from you.”

  Perhaps there’s a letter! Something from Enid! He wasn’t sure!

  Her voice regained its control, certainty: “I’ll let you know— very soon—about my further commitment, David. But before anything else”—she hardly paused —“show me the artificial flowers you received.”

  David Lange opened the door of a small cabinet near his desk. He brought out a bouquet of lavender blossoms. They were exquisitely wrought, each petal perfect, each flower in spring bloom, slender leaves enhancing the lavender purity of the full bouquet.

  Not the slightest imperfection, no hint of decay!

  From the same compartment, David pulled out another bouquet. This one was grayish brown. Dusty, desiccated pods cracked open to reveal more enclosed decay. He placed both bouquets, side by side, on his desk. Turning toward the rectangle of photographs of the beautiful movie star, he repeated the earlier question:

  “What do I see there? . . . Only what has always fascinated me: the reality of artifice.”

  Thirty-Two

  Facing Normalyn, David Lange remained standing behind his desk, on which the two artificial bouquets, one pure, the other rotted, lay in balance.

  That was why he was the person orchestrating the gathering of witnesses, Normalyn thought, because he was either the most moral or the most corrupt, the most ambiguous, even to whomever he called their “accuser.”

  Reiterating her decision to inform him very soon about required commitment, Normalyn walked calmly out of David Lange’s office, along the corridor, down the steps.

  She had been given information—deliberately—by the people he had guided her to!

  When she walked into the street—the sun still bright, evening shadows not yet extending—that revelation, whose impact had been buffered until now by the suddenness of its unraveling, threatened her reconstructed confidence.

  Suddenly disoriented as to which direction to walk in, she stood at an intersection of Sunset Boulevard, amid a crush of colors pierced by chrome reflections from a huge record store displaying enormous blowups of posturing rock stars facing a quaint “old world” sidewalk cafe near a shiny gym next to a 1950s motel with orange and green plastic slabs.

  She grasped for this: Beyond any possible control by David, beyond donated information, she had extracted from those involved much more than what they had intended to give her. She had maneuvered immediate fears and guilts—from Stanley and Ellen, under the white sun; from the Crouches, still trembling in a haunted past. Mildred Meadows remained the most rigid in her own cunning. But, Normalyn reminded herself with pleasure, she had kept Lady Star in check. Even with David Lange she had been able—for only a moment she would explore—to penetrate his steely control. . . . On her own, she had gathered evidence to detect flawed testimony; from Mark Poe and Robert Kunitz—the purity of the bouquet sent to them exculpated them, assured veracity; from Miss Bertha—increasingly gaining definition as Alberta Holland. All of that provided her weapons of her own. With the vague smile she thought she remembered on his lips when leaving him earlier, David Lange had confirmed that.

  And there were others still to search out: Peter Lawford, the actor whose testimony David Lange had dismissed as “worthless.” No, not him—Enid’s clipping also banished him. There was Sandra and—

  Now Normalyn was able to walk more calmly along the pretty strip of Sunset Boulevard, along Technicolored cafes and chic shops with arrogant mannequins stamped from the same mold of beauty as the decorated people walking casually on the glossy street. Luminous cars shot silvery rays back at the sun as long shadows began to shade the city of palmtrees, flowers, blurred identities. . . . A man with black sunglasses slowed to look at her. Her suspicions stirred with disturbing quickness: Was he one of the figures of scrutiny she thought she was detecting, belying the stirrings of the still-restive conglomerate of power that had expropriated Alberta’s plan?

  2

  “Normalyn!”

  Within the chromy reflections on the street, Normalyn became aware that she was standing near the outdoor patio of an attractive restaurant and that a youngman there had called out her name. Other youngmen and women sat at pretty, bright tables. Normalyn searched for a bus stop. Across the street! She began to cross.

  The youngman who had called to her leaped over the wrought-iron railing separating the patio from the stree
t. He hurried toward her before she could rush away.

  “Normalyn—it’s me, Michael—Michael Farrell—from Mr. Poe’s school.”

  Too late to hide her pleasure at seeing him! He was handsomer than she remembered, the dark leanness more so, sensitive and strong.

  “Will you sit with us?” he encouraged. “I’m with a couple of friends from the school. Just for a while, come on.” He tried to check her quick resistance.

  She followed him into a patio overhung with delicately leafed ferns. Michael introduced his two friends—an earnest youngman and an attractive youngwoman. Normalyn was astonished to find herself sitting with them. Michael and his friends took brief turns telling her they were in the city as part of Mark Poe’s course on structure. “We’re going to the museums,” said the girl. “And a play by Brecht,” said the earnest youngman.

  “And the Watts Towers!” Michael added. “Imagine! That man just wanted to make anything as long as it was beautiful, and look what he came up with—those great, beautiful towers shaped out of wire and cement and pieces of glass!” He looked in wonder about the restaurant as if to find its structure.

  Then they all waited for Normalyn to say something.

  To her they seemed suddenly to have been struck dumb—and so was she. She stumbled through her mind for something to say.

  Modulating her tone, she asked the earnest youngman— because he seemed so aloofly sure of everything, “What are you going to be when you—?” She stopped, aghast at what she had been about to say.

  “When I grow up!” The youngman was shocked.

  “I meant when you leave school.”

  “When I finish?”

  “That’s what I mean, dammit!” Normalyn was angry at herself.

  ‘What are you going to be?” Michael tried to render her question ordinary.

  “I’m going to write a novel,” she decided at that moment.

  “What kind of novel?” asked the attractive youngwoman.

  Normalyn answered firmly, “A novel that will be partly like James Joyce’s, partly like Emily Brontë’s.”