Behind us, there was a rumble of thunder…a flash. Then another. I used each micromoment of illumination to study the woman’s face. I’d been doing it since first noticing an aberration created by the brief and dazzling light—nothing else explained it. It was the illusion that Chestra’s appearance changed slightly with each incandescent blast. She’d made a remark about storms—“I get energy from them!”—that sounded offhand at the time but now seemed weirdly applicable.
“Doc? You’re a big strong guy, and I won’t pretend I don’t like being carried like some sultan’s jewel, but I think it’s time to put me down.” She laughed, and placed her palm warm against my face, tracing its shape. I’d lost my bandage in the rain, and her stroke was tender. “I promise I won’t go galloping back to the beach. Cross my heart.”
She did, touching a finger to her breast as I watched. Her white blouse was soaked, translucent in storm light, her body visible beneath. I waited for another lightning burst…then one more, my eyes now staring into hers.
The illusion wasn’t imaginary, yet it was still an illusion. Had to be an illusion. With each bloom of electricity, the woman appeared fuller, younger. I could see the way she’d looked in her fifties…now her forties. She was as beautiful as any woman in her family. Chestra was as beautiful as any woman I’d ever held.
Because of storm light? There could be no other reason. The human eye is sensitive; retina cones can numb. Stare at a star for more than a minute and it will vanish—an illusion.
Still…
No—it did make sense. Our perception of reality is visually based. Change the light and our reality is changed. We are a photosensitive species. There are certain processes in chemistry in which light alters not only the appearance of a substance but also its molecular configuration. In a laboratory, mammalian cells mutate if grown in a room with fluorescent lighting. Light absorbed through the eye affects our pineal gland’s production of serotonin. Red light penetrates more deeply into our tissues than blue light. Our DNA is coded to repair some—but not all—cellular damage caused by ultraviolet light. It’s an omission that defines the aging process more accurately than the clumsy prop we invented to measure age: time.
Illusion or reality, the storm was indifferent.
I ducked through the gazebo’s doorway, let Chestra’s feet swing to the floor, then stepped back and watched as she flipped water from her hair and hands. “My God, I haven’t had that much excitement since…since”—her voice was energized—“since…well, I think it would be indelicate for me to confess.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Doesn’t it? I so wish it were true.”
“Don’t give up hope. I like indelicate women. Confessions, too.”
She was there again, alive behind those eyes: a younger woman inside, staring out, saying, Show me. Prove it.
I answered aloud. “Okay, I will.” I stepped closer, unsure of my own intent. I touched my fingers to Chestra’s face as gently as she’d touched mine. She held my gaze a moment longer before looking at the ground—a retreat. Or submission?
“I’m a mess, Doc. My hair, and my clothes are soaked.”
“So I see.” The blouse was pasted against her skin, and I cupped my hand around her warm ribs. “This material, when it’s wet—I like the color better.”
The color of her skin, I meant.
She did not look up as she said, “We should get back to the house, and find towels. We’ll catch our death.”
I placed an index finger beneath her chin and lifted. Her face was dark, then abruptly illuminated as lightning crackled in the treetops. For an instant, her eyes incandesced blue as a welder’s torch…then vanished into shadow as the gazebo vibrated beneath us, our ears ringing.
“My God, that was close! What a peach of a storm, though, Doc, huh?” She turned away, instantly changed, her voice friendly, conversational—herself again.
The air was a mix of ozone and smoke. I’d felt a tingling through my wet shoes. Storm light had, once again, transformed perception, and all the potential it implied.
In a similar conversational tone, I replied, “That was too close,” as I, too, attempted to return to normal. “Do you know how many people a year are killed by lightning in Florida? Chessie, it’s not safe to be on the beach when a storm is so close…”
I continued talking, listening to myself as if removed from the room. Something unexpected had happened between us. What? Why? Tomlinson’s ridiculous theory about sexuality and seesawing barometric pressure came into my head, and was dismissed just as quickly.
I’d held a woman in my arms. My body had reacted. My eyes and modern brain had cooperated by creating a preferred reality. As an explanation, it was…rational.
There are certain rare people, however, who are born with a pheromone signature so potent that, even in a crowded room, every member of the opposite sex is aware when they enter, or exit. Maybe it came down to that. Sensuality is more subtle than sexuality; beauty is more complicated than bone structure, elastic skin, and an assemblage of hydrated cells. With certain women, I realized, age did not matter. Mildred Chestra Engle was one.
“…Chess, when you feel that blast of cold air? You should head for cover fast. Weather’s volatile around salt water. When unequal pressure systems collide, it’s more like an explosion than a storm.”
Jesus, was I as stuffy and bland as I sounded?
Chestra’s smile said Yes, but it was okay. She was the good hostess once again, ever polite. She had her arms folded modestly across her chest, hiding herself, but freed a hand long enough to motion me toward the door. “I know about dangerous storms. I made you a proposition, remember? A business proposition concerning a boat that was lost in a storm a long time ago. Come on, I’ll show you.”
It was an excuse not to be alone in our sodden clothes. We both knew but played along. The gazebo was already filling with the scent of her. The September air was body-heated.
She led, I followed. I thought we were going to the house. Instead, she led me to the family cemetery where I’d first heard her voice. Chestra knelt by a marble crypt that I recognized as the grave of Nellie Kay Dorn. She used the flashlight to illuminate the headstone next to it.
“This is my godmother,” she said and placed her hand upon the stone, an affectionate, familiar gesture. I got the impression Chestra came here often.
She held the flashlight steady. In the harsh light, I read what the stonecutter had engraved:
MARLISSA ARKHAM DORN
BORN FEBRUARY 7, 1923, VARGUS, AUSTRIA
DIED OCTOBER 19, 1944,
SANIBEL ISLAND, FLORIDA
WHOM THE SEA GIVES UP, GOD EMBRACES
October 19—she’d died in the hurricane Arlis had told us about.
Chessie stood. “It’s an old line, but I mean it: Let’s get out of these wet things and into a dry martini. What a night! I’ll show you Marlissa’s picture.”
I checked my watch: 11:20.
I told her, “Just one.”
23
There were two photos on the piano, black-and-white glossies, and I looked from one to the other as Chestra played softly. She’d changed into a lime satin robe and heeled slippers. I stood barefoot on a towel; another wrapped around my neck.
Coincidentally, she was playing the melody I’d heard while eavesdropping from the beach—a song I recognized but had yet to ask its name.
One photo was of the boat that had sunk on the night of 19 October 1944. It was a beauty—a thirty-eight-foot Matthews, according to information on the back. From the data that was noted, I would’ve known a man had written it even if I hadn’t seen the precise masculine hand.
Built 1939, Port Clinton, Ohio. Oak keel, double oak frame, Philippine mahogany planking. Master cabin and crew quarters bunks six. Twin gas engines, Chrysler straight-8s. Top speed, 25 knots, range 400 miles.
Yes, a beauty. A vessel that had been much loved, judging from the number of times it was a backdrop for family
photos. But this was the first full shot of it I’d seen—taken from the beach, probably, because the aspect was from the vessel’s port side, forward of the bow.
The photo showed the boat under way, a white wake breaking beneath bow stringers, yacht pennants flying from the wooden radio mast and bow pulpit, all indicators of speed. It was a classic design from that era: low, roomy wheelhouse, three portholes forward, a stern deck that was open. Lashed to the stern was a wooden dinghy; an American flag on the transom above it, catching the wind.
The boat’s hull and wheelhouse roof were painted black or midnight blue. The decking and cabin frame were amber-stained mahogany; the wheelhouse roof was painted white.
The vessel’s name was Dark Light. It’s rare when a boat is christened with a name that fits. Most suffer cutesy double entendres, or names that are saccharine sweet attempts at poetry. I’ve never named a boat for the simple reason that I lack the imagination. Dark Light was perfect for this vessel. It celebrated her hull color, and also her quickness—twenty-five knots was lightning fast in those times. Even now, it’s fast for a boat her size. The name was subtle and esoteric, like her understated design.
It had been a tragedy to lose a craft so articulately made to a storm. But Dark Light hadn’t fallen to just any storm. Arlis had seeded the date in my memory: 19 October 1944. A hurricane had flooded Sanibel on that date. It was a storm that had killed several hundred people. Among the dead were Cuban fishermen who were buried on the same beach where the body of another victim was found: Marlissa Dorn.
I’d just visited the woman’s grave. Now I picked up her photo and looked at it closely for the first time.
I expected to be disappointed by this “extraordinary beauty,” as she was described by Chestra.
I wasn’t.
The photograph was a black-and-white glossy, eight-by-ten, framed and glassed. It was a Hollywood-style glamour shot that I associate with film stars from the 1930s and ’40s. Full length, professional lighting.
Marlissa Dorn wore a black gown that accentuated how she would look if a man were lucky enough to see her naked: long legs, sensual symmetry of hips, breasts full and firm enough to resume their natural curvature once free of the garment’s constraints.
The gown was black but glittered with sequins. She stood with hip canted to one side, her opposite hand held at eye level, a cigarette between her fingers. The woman was leaning against a black grand piano as if taking a break from performing.
I glanced at Chestra and studied her face for a moment as she sat at the piano and continued to play. I returned my attention to the photo.
Marlissa’s cigarette was freshly lit. The smoke formed a lucent arc with the same curvilinear contour as her hips and breasts. She was staring through cigarette smoke at the camera, her hair combed full and glossy to her shoulder, head tilted in a way that emphasized the intensity of her gaze and the dimensions of her perfect face.
Her eyes were shadowed, I noticed. It added an exotic, smoldering effect.
The photo had been lighted and composed by a superb craftsman. The photographer also had an extraordinary subject to work with.
There were photographs in this house of several women who resembled Marlissa Dorn—the delicacy of chin, the swollen weight of lips, her body, her eyes. But the genetic pool had found a separate and elevated balance in this woman.
“Isn’t she the most exquisite thing you’ve ever seen?” Chestra spoke without looking up from the keys.
A few faces came into my mind—film stars from the same era. Rita Hayworth. Lauren Bacall. Veronica Lake. Women who were signature beauties of their generation. I prefer women whose beauty requires time to assemble. The appeal is more private. But there was no denying that Marlissa Dorn was among the rarest of the rare.
“Yes. She’s very pretty.” Once again, my eyes moved from the photograph to Chestra. There were startling family similarities. I noted the shape of Marlissa’s chin, the wide full lips, the eye spacing…
“Please don’t flatter me by saying I look like Marlissa. Tommy did the same thing. I’m all too aware that she was in an entirely different league.”
I paused a moment to inspect her intonation. There was subtext of some kind. Drama. Or was it jealousy? I find beautiful women intimidating. Most men do—the cliché of the prettiest girl in school who can’t get a date is experientially based. Women are intimidated as well. Beauty is supposed to be only skin-deep but it’s not. Beauty is power. Its facial components can be described mathematically, but emotionally it is nature’s prime currency. We attempt to trivialize beauty’s power because it makes us uneasy, even as we covet it.
I shrugged. The woman was commenting on a family legend, so I let it go. “Your godmother was gorgeous, no question. This looks like a PR shot. I’m surprised movie producers didn’t mob her.”
The woman stopped playing, but the piano’s sustain pedal let the melody echo. “Oh, but they did. Not mob her—that came later. By the time Marlissa was fifteen, she’d been offered several modeling and film contracts. At sixteen, she starred in her first film. Her talent was considered quite remarkable.”
I asked, “Hollywood let her keep her real name?” It was the most tactful way of saying I’d never heard of Marlissa or her films.
Chestra resumed playing, but more softly. “Hollywood wasn’t the only place in the world where films were being made. My godmother was wooed by Europe’s greatest directors of the period—Max Ophuls, René Clair…even Alfred Hitchcock before he came to the States.
“Her first film was a critical success. Her second film would still be considered a classic today if the war hadn’t come along”—Chestra was playing the melody’s moody refrain, her fingers lingering on the notes—“or so I’ve been told. The only existing prints were destroyed during the fire-bombing of Berlin.”
It was after Marlissa’s second film, Chestra told me, that Hollywood producers took notice.
“They offered her a huge contract for those times. Money, furs, first-class accommodations if she would come to Hollywood. I still have copies of those contracts, if you’re ever interested. I inherited them along with her journals and a few other things. I was her only heir.”
I said, “You told me that she made the transatlantic crossing in 1938 aboard the Normandie. She came because of Hollywood.”
“Yes, and also the fact that she had family here. But two things happened while she was aboard the Normandie that changed my godmother’s life forever. One of them ruined her career as an actress, the other caused her death.”
If Marlissa and Frederick Roth hadn’t fallen in love, Chestra said, neither of them would have been aboard Dark Light the night that the thirty-eight-foot Matthews went down.
The woman’s film career had already ended by that time.
“Marlissa’s dreams of being a film star were destroyed years earlier. That makes her death less sad somehow, don’t you think? To go on living after your dream has died? I don’t see the point.”
It was while she was aboard the Normandie that a newsreel featuring the chancellor of Germany was released. It had been shot months earlier and showed him sitting next to an actress he’d already acknowledged as his favorite—a Russian named Olga Chekhova. He was a film addict, and in 1936 he’d honored her as Germany’s Schauspielrern, or “Actress of the State.”
“There are a couple of books that mention Chekhova,” Chestra said. “She was a habitual liar, they say…and also a spy. In one of the books, there’s a photo that was taken of their little group the night the newsreel was made. I’ll show it to you someday, if you like.”
Also seated at the table, flanked by Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels, was a young woman of extraordinary gifts. Her table mates had just enjoyed the premiere of her newest film—her last before leaving the Reich, as only she knew.
Chestra told me, “With the newsreel cameras rolling, Adolf Hitler leaned and put his hand on Marlissa’s shoulder. Then he looked into the lens and announce
d to a million moviegoers that she was his Aryan ideal and the most beautiful woman on earth.”
He was wearing a prissy white dinner jacket, she added.
“The expression on his face was disgusting, and the way his fingers moved on her shoulder—like a spider’s legs.”
It was a death sentence in Hollywood, Chestra said. The most evil man on earth had put his mark on Marlissa. It was a curse.
“As my godmother disembarked in New York, she couldn’t understand why there were so many paparazzi. Dozens of them—that’s when she was mobbed. They nearly crushed her. She was hospitalized.”
Marlissa Dorn never allowed another photograph of herself to be taken.
I said, “That song you’re playing. What is it? I’ve heard it before but the title won’t come to me.”
Chestra’s reaction was unexpected—dubious but interested. She said, “You know this melody?”, and played the last few notes of the refrain.
“Sure. It’s one of those classics from…”—I looked at Marlissa Dorn’s photo as I placed it on the piano—“…from your godmother’s era.”
“What should have been her era, you mean. She never got her chance.”
I was about to say, “It’s a tragic story,” but she cut me off by transitioning to a different melody, playing louder. “There are some wonderful classics from that period. Written by people who lived. People who knew about love, and about pain. Not that terrible, computer-generated junk they hammer us with in hotels and malls. Those aren’t songs. They’re video games for the ears.”
She said, “‘In the Still of the Night,’” and played a few bars before smiling. “Cole Porter.”
It wasn’t the doo-wop song that I associated with the title. It was dark, distinctive. Nor was it the song that I’d first heard while eavesdropping from the beach.
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