by John Rechy
* * *
—Marilyn Monroe said, “Who the hell are you? What do you want?” She was about to close the door.
“Last night,” David formed words. He touched the paper on which he had written the time, the address—assuring reality. “Last night, on the beach, we walked together and you said—You told me—” He withheld the cherished words. The beautiful tender face of the previous night was smiling in a different way now. The lips curved slightly. In disbelief. Or in contempt?
“I’ve never seen you in my life,” she said to David Lange.
* * *
David Lange turned to face Normalyn. “I accepted an assignment I had turned down, in Europe. When I returned months later, I drove again to her house. Another car had just parked nearby. I recognized Robert Kennedy as he walked into her house. That night I wrote the unsigned letter to Mildred. Shortly after, she read me the essential ‘new explosive document’ in her possession, linking Monroe. I agreed that at the proper time I would donate all the authenticity I possessed to her revelations of immorality.”
Out of those moments on the beach, the destruction had begun, Normalyn understood.
“And then I pulled away from it all, knowing what I had done, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it, longing to, yet able now only to watch it in horror.”
The most culpable, the least culpable. That was the significance of the dual jacaranda bouquets. And that was why it was he who was the “collector of truths.” Because his conscience, unlike that of the others, was still alive, still chafing, still questioning. That was the deep sadness she had detected from the very first in his eyes, and in his voice, in its bruised firmness. She did not have to ask him that. She was as certain as if he had confessed it. And yet— . . . He would have sought absolution through deceit! He had attempted to convert her into the “most likely candidate,” whatever other motives were involved—into one who would extract from his accuser the needed truth—and who would release him, like the others, from that person’s constant judgment and reminders, even if not, finally, from his own continuing self-judgment. Again and still, that fluctuating duality in him!
“Is the person you call your accuser Teresa de Pilar?” Normalyn asked.
“I’m not at liberty to disclose that identification,” David answered quickly. “Mildred assumed it to be; Mildred still believes she has a reliable network of private information.”
“You promised me that at the right time you would tell me everything about your own involvement. All that I’m ‘required’ to know.” Normalyn used his words.
“I have.” David gazed out the window, where he had sought his distant, bitter memory, still alive. “About myself, my own involvement. Anything further will come from the person in question.”
Yes, it would be Teresa de Pilar, Normalyn was sure. He did not want yet to surrender access beyond himself.
“If there’s more, Normalyn, ask it!”
Seeking her judgment? But she chose to ask the question that had long baffled her, the others: “What stopped the scandal?” There had been none, no revelations, none. Even Mildred had been warned that nothing could thwart the machinery set into deadly motion, the machinery Dr. Crouch had heard “ticking” ineluctably. Yet, she remembered, the movie star had told him on the telephone, “I know a way.”
David looked at Normalyn. He frowned. “Why, Marilyn Monroe, of course.”
“But how?” She thought she understood—
“By the ultimate step in her own creation of Marilyn Monroe—her suicide,” David said slowly. “Whatever else occurred that night, she must have evaluated all that had happened, not only in those last days but in her life, even what would occur in her future—”
* * *
—pursued by debts . . . sustained by pills . . . age attacking her beauty . . . her career in limbo . . . the crushed love affair . . . the tumult of the secret days . . . and now the impending exposure of those she loved. . . .
And so she locked her bedroom door.
She swallowed deadly pills. She made one more telephone call. She lay in bed. Her body began its drift toward sleep. It reached the very edge of death!
It poised there, deciding.
And in that synapse between living and dying, she chose: She reached for one more pill. Her movements were airy, weightless, she made graceful motions with her hand. She swallowed the pill. Then she curved her body on its side, one hand resting on her breasts, assuming the same pose as that in the darkly shining photograph she loved, beckoning . . . seductively . . . to darkness itself. She welcomed it now, the darkness she had fought throughout her life—welcomed it at last. It wasn’t cold anymore, no longer frightening. It soothed and warmed!
She knew exactly what would happen now:
She would float, was floating on this new, soft blackness into sleep, deep sleep, deeper sleep, deepest . . . and she would flow, was flowing now into death—
And out!
—into the undying glow of . . . Legend!
* * *
Exultant! In gleaming dress. Parted scarlet lips inviting, Marilyn Monroe stood forever alive!
That is how Normalyn saw her in the photograph her eyes sought on David Lange’s wall, the photograph in which, it seemed now, Marilyn Monroe was born.
David spoke in fascination: “With her death, she completed the creation of Marilyn Monroe. She allowed the legend to live. The day her suicide was known, the whole world paid attention. Love and sympathy rushed to embrace the legend, the way they had stopped embracing the woman. In life she had become vulnerable, easily used for the purposes of deadly scandal. By killing herself, leaving her motives forever in ambiguity, she stopped the scandal—and added the grandeur of enduring mystery to her legend. The legend of Marilyn Monroe vanquished the powers poised to destroy the Kennedys through her. Now those forces didn’t dare release the carefully crafted scandal. Risk connection to her death? Be blamed as murderers, exploiters of tragedy? Lose their protective invisibility in the glare of culpability?” David meted out the words as if they must be spoken with care, so enormous was their meaning: “They had counted on everything except the power of a legend.”
But only when she finally believed her daughter was dead did she commit suicide, Normalyn had to believe. Or perhaps she thought the destruction would have sucked in all those she loved, including her daughter—if still alive.
David Lange said, “The legend survives, always loved.”
The way Norma Jeane never was. Normalyn wanted to believe that at the last the abandoned “orphan” had known that she would attain what eluded her in life.
Almost inaudibly David echoed Mildred’s last damning words to him: “Did all that destructive power, geared to crush with scandal and thwarted by her death, did it flail more surely, twice, to murder the Kennedy brothers?”
In a sudden move, David overturned the glass left on his desk by Mildred. The liquor spilled in enraged shapes. Startled, he looked at his open hands as if to make sure he had released all the unwanted passion he had confessed to.
The most culpable, the least culpable. . . . Normalyn had just heard in his words his enduring horror.
David rushed peremptory words: “I’ve told you all this because our accuser will want to know it. You have all the information necessary up to now.”
He was trying to erase the moments of crushing emotion. Normalyn saw again the man she had first seen. No. He had lost his power to control her. She might finally come to pity him.
Quickly David touched the telephone. “I can proceed immediately to arrange for you to see the person who can unlock the mystery of your birth. Are you ready to take that final step, Normalyn?”
She nodded.
David said quickly, “Our accuser claims that a letter written by Monroe to Enid was given to Enid when she attempted to return once more to Monroe’s house after she learned of her suicide. Do you have that letter?”
“Yes.”
Fifty
&nbs
p; Teresa de Pilar studied Normalyn, then closed her eyes as if to separate the youngwoman before her from the image her mind had conjured for so many years. The woman’s eyes—startling, green—focused again on Normalyn. “Normalyn.” She held the name reflectively, then extended her hand, which was, thin, translucent—and steady—toward the youngwoman.
Standing before Teresa de Pilar in this spare elegant house outside of Phoenix, Arizona, Normalyn took the extended hand. “Señora de Pilar—” That was all she could think to say to the woman who could solve the mystery of her origin.
Would she? Doubt ripped across Normalyn’s mind as it had so many times since David Lange had arranged this meeting.
Teresa de Pilar was in her sixties, and the years lay lightly on her. Her features seemed to have been chiseled by a meticulous sculptor. She had brilliant graying hair, like Enid’s—before Enid had stopped caring. Small, thin, she was dressed in flowing black, as if in mourning for the past events she had kept alive to be judged.
In the bright Arizona light, she didn’t look sad, she looked radiant to Normalyn, who wondered whether the black she wore was more commemoration than mourning—not black but lustrous gray, darkly silver as desert light shifted slightly.
The hand holding hers was so firm that Normalyn accepted immediately that this seemingly fragile woman would be able to control with quiet strength. Even her smile conveyed resolution. Yes, it would be to her that Alberta Holland would have entrusted overseeing the care of Marilyn Monroe during the days of the secret birth—to this aristocrat who even as a girl had proved her courage in a bloody revolution. Normalyn had learned from David that Teresa de Pilar had retreated to the edge of Phoenix after the death of her husband, the American doctor, now dead, who had fought beside her in the Spanish hills and who years later was trusted to bring forth Marilyn’s child.
Outside an adorned window that extended the length of a full wall, the Phoenix sky was as blue as a Texas summer day’s. Giant white clouds roamed the horizon. Even within the warm day, a breeze had found this airy house. Normalyn was pleased to notice that just outside was a single palmtree, lush with green fronds.
The woman indicated a chair for Normalyn to sit in. It resembled one in Enid’s house, remembered suddenly from early years—“a falcon chair,” Enid had called it, velvety brown leather on a cradle of chrome, not incongruous in her eclectically furnished house. On cold Gibson nights Enid would sit there—Normalyn located another hoarded memory—while she, a child, placed her head sleepily on her lap and watched in dreamy fascination the shapes of blue flames.
Teresa de Pilar sat on a beige couch. Normalyn thought instantly of Troja—because one of Troja’s favorite dresses was of that hue. Normalyn realized why she was picking out these associations. She was trying to find auguries of harmony in this crucial meeting—and so to banish stabbing suspicion. Had David Lange guided her to yet another figure within his range of control? . . . No, she resisted. This woman was an ally. She was sure of it when she saw that Teresa de Pilar had prepared a pitcher of iced tea, with lime wedges, exactly as Enid loved it—with a sprig of decorative mint.
On a table beside the woman, a reminder of why they were together, stood an exquisite bouquet of jacarandas like the one Miss Bertha had kept under the lithograph of Marilyn Monroe—the sensual silver body floating on darkness . . . into darkness. About the room, the house, was an array of other artificial flowers, all colors, shapes. On shelves, tables, on the floor, were single blossoms, budding vines. Bits of silky material specked a drawing board; tiny pieces of cloth scattered on the floor, like petals. There was about the house a cultivated dissonance that reminded Normalyn of—
Miss Bertha’s wild garden!
She welcomed that connection, which pushed farther away doubts about this woman to whom David Lange had granted her access immediately after seeing Enid’s letter. He had read it—and returned it in unsurprised silence. Then he proceeded by telephone to arrange this meeting for the following day—something kept so long in secret allowed so quickly!
“Your flowers are beautiful, Señora de Pilar,” Normalyn said, to fill the moments of the woman’s scrutiny.
“I’ve often puzzled that others who make artificial flowers imitate only those that last.” The firm voice was touched by a Spanish accent. “Of course, they have their resplendent beauty. I prefer to duplicate only flowers that bloom briefly in nature—to make them permanent in artifice.” She touched a blossom of haunting, exquisite beauty, a pastel rainbow: “A guadalupe—a favorite. And look! These yellow carnets bloom only in the hills of my Spain.” Her mind brushed memories of exile. “When Roberto was alive, we—” She still called her husband by his Spanish name. She smiled at the private memory aroused, and then moved away from the one that followed, of loss. She pointed to more creations: “Those berras bloom in the desert during three days only. They glow fiercely, then die.” She touched another flower, delicately—even in artifice it might be damaged: “A merla, it appears in coldest winter.” A pale yellow star erupted to display another, white, which opened to reveal flamy red petals. Then the woman’s hand glided toward the mists of lavender near her: “Of course, the jacaranda—”
They were about to enter the territory Normalyn had come to explore. Would there be hidden mines even in this peaceful house? Normalyn tested slowly but boldly: “I saw a bouquet like that one, in Long Beach, in the home of Miss Bertha. I’m not sure that was always her name.” She sipped the sweet, limy tea.
The delicate features of Teresa de Pilar clouded. “We’re here to speak openly—only! Of course the woman you met in Long Beach was Alberta Holland!”
Mysteries would be solved! Normalyn welcomed Teresa de Pilar’s seconds of displeasure, banished now by a charming smile. The woman had dismissed any need for cunning! That meant she could ask questions. “But why didn’t Miss Bertha tell me she was Alberta Holland?” She could not keep away a sense of betrayal.
“You came to her too soon,” Teresa de Pilar said. “She had to be careful. There had been attempted deceptions, impostures.” The green eyes waited to capture the slightest telling flinch from Normalyn. When there was none, Teresa de Pilar continued: “Remember, too, that Alberta longed to end her days away from the glare she had lived in—we announced her death in Switzerland so she might return to privacy. Before she committed herself, she had to be sure you were the youngwoman we’ve waited for since Enid disappeared.”
“That’s why she asked me to come back when I was ready.” Normalyn was glad to release Miss Bertha from accusation. “And Mayor Hughes did lead me to her,” she calculated aloud, still not sure how much he knew, but certain his guidance of her to Long Beach had been a part of Enid’s exacting instructions.
“Yes, he guided you to her—that Wendell Hughes! That despot!” Teresa de Pilar snapped.
Normalyn set down her tea abruptly. She would not accept only that assessment of the graceful old man.
“A benign despot,” Teresa de Pilar amended to Normalyn’s disapproval. “He was very kind to you, and to Enid—perhaps even noble.” Her voice was swept by indignation again: “But in the area of social justice—” She shook her head.
Normalyn shifted the focus away from the old man she had come to love, more a father than anyone else she knew! . . . She allowed herself this question: “When you returned to Miss Bertha . . . when she was dead . . . did Jim—?”
“The handsome young sailor,” Teresa de Pilar understood. “He loved Alberta like the mother he’d never known, and she loved him like the son she’d always wanted. Yes, he spoke about you, with much affection.” Teresa de Pilar averted Normalyn’s eyes by attending to the tea, some pastries.
That meant Jim had remembered her with bitterness—but that had been created by her confusions. Normalyn would explain that later to this woman.
“And Miss Bertha—?” Normalyn could hardly form the question.
But Teresa understood: “She loved you from the moment she saw you—even durin
g the moments when she mistrusted. She loved you very much.”
Normalyn felt embraced by Miss Bertha’s love.
“There was still another reason why Alberta didn’t tell you who she was,” Teresa de Pilar explained. “There was much you had to discover on your own, for yourself, by yourself.”
And she had! She had discovered Enid, the woman who had come to full life only after her death. Normalyn felt closer to her now, understanding her—she exulted in the thought—much more than others would ever know mothers or fathers whose identities went unquestioned. Too, she had come to know Marilyn Monroe in intimate moments—and even to feel like her that one long night—and she had come to feel like Enid, too, when she faced Stanley in the desert. She also knew—with complete certainty—that when she had finally confronted Ted, she had learned from both women, from their pain. They had given her strength. “I understand, Señora de Pilar,” Normalyn could say now, and to the memory of Miss Bertha.
“I love your young courtesy, Normalyn—so rare in our days. But now you may call me Teresa. . . . How old are you, Normalyn?”
“Eighteen.” Now the testing would begin. Again, Normalyn resisted suspicions of a sudden ambush. “Enid kept changing my birth date,” she volunteered.
“To camouflage a dangerous birth.”
That of Enid’s child? Or Marilyn’s? Teresa had clarified while sustaining ambiguity. In either event, the birth date of June 1 was made up, commemorating Norma Jeane’s, Normalyn was now sure.
Teresa de Pilar closed her eyes. “The only time Enid really spoke to Alberta—both were so private, proud, afraid of hurt— Enid said that at eighteen she finally felt free, as herself, and that Norma Jeane began the actual creation of Marilyn Monroe at eighteen, when she first modeled for a magazine.”
Normalyn set down her iced tea. Enid had told Mark Poe that, about the age of her freedom. Normalyn felt a slight shiver. She backed away from a possible discovery, about Enid’s suicide. . . . “Did Miss Bertha tell you I was here; is that when you started sending out the flowers, Teresa?” The name sounded right.