That night was a night never to be forgotten of total restlessness – of Bogie picking at his chest in his sleep – of his feeling he had to get up and then not – of constant movement. I was awake most of the night and could see his hands moving over his chest as he slept, as though things were closing in and he wanted to get out. The only thing that became more apparent to me that night was an odor – I had been noticing it as I kissed him. At first I thought it was medicinal – later I realized it was decay. Actually I didn’t realize it – I asked the nurse what it was and she told me. It was a strong odor – almost like a disinfectant turned sour. In the world of sickness one becomes privy to the failure of the body – to so many small things taken for granted, ignored. I reacted not with revulsion but with a caving in of my stomach.
And I was frightened by the mystery of it all. Why did Bogie have to go through a night like that one? Hadn’t there been enough torture? Did it all have to gather itself together and pounce on him like this?
Sunday morning Dr Brandsma came early. I was dressing to take the children to Sunday School. Before we left, Bogie said, ‘Doc, last night was the worst night of my life – I don’t want to go through that again.’ I took the children, came back upstairs with the morning paper. Bogie was sitting up, very shakily moving the electric razor over his chin. I sat with him, had coffee – he still couldn’t forget the night before. I asked him if he felt better. ‘It’s always better in the daylight.’ Sunday School was short, I had to collect my babies – I said I’d be right back and kissed him as I always did. Newspapers later printed that he said, ‘Goodbye, Kid,’ making it seem overly dramatic and pointed. It was not like that – it was just ‘Goodbye, Kid,’ in a most ordinary way under most extraordinary circumstances. He did say, ‘Hurry back,’ to which I answered, ‘I’ll only be gone long enough to pick them up and come home – ten minutes at the outside.’ I arrived at the church and honked my horn at my offspring, who hugged K.C. goodbye and ran to the car. We buzzed home and on arrival we all went upstairs, they to wash for lunch, me to tell Bogie I was home. He was dozing – the nurse whispered to me that he seemed somewhat comatose. ‘What the hell does that mean?’ ‘We don’t know yet – not for sure. If he is in a semicoma, he may come out of it – if not, he’ll sink into a deep coma.’ I looked at him – he looked as though he were just sleeping and would waken after a while. The house was very still. Mother was there – she was marvelous about everything, kept out of the way, spent most of her time with the children, but sat with me when I needed her. The doctor came back – I let him in, said I’d wait downstairs. A couple of friends called – I told them Bogie was resting, I’d talk to them later. The doctor came down and we walked into the Butternut Room. Bogie definitely seemed to be in a coma. He might come out of it, but the doctor didn’t think so. It was normal after last night. I asked him to explain. After I told him what Bogie’s movements had been through that night – hands picking constantly at his chest – he said, ‘That’s what happens just before one dies. People feel claustrophobic – it seems as though everything is closing in. And everything is. It’s their last fight – the restlessness – the thrashing.’ A fight to be born, I thought – a fight to die.
‘But,’ I said, still grasping at straws, ‘he might still have a chance.’
‘Yes, but I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘He’s fought harder and better than anyone I’ve ever seen. He’s lived longer than we had any right to expect. He should have been gone four months ago. Medically, that is. But his will to live was so strong he fought it off. His will is not enough now.’
‘Oh, God, I can’t believe it.’ I started to shake – no tears, just shaking, hardly able to get my breath. ‘What shall I do about Steve? Would you say something to prepare him?’ Just then I saw Steve and called to him to come in. ‘Come here, darling – sit by Mommy.’ I was in the orange chair – big enough for both of us. ‘Dr Brandsma wants to talk to you for a minute.’ That small boy – that beautiful boy, just eight years old a week before – sat on the edge of the chair, a little hunched over, head tilted back a little, almost as if trying to avoid a blow, and looked at Dr Brandsma.
‘You know, Steve, your daddy has been very, very ill.’ Steve nodded. ‘We’ve been doing everything to try to make him better. He’s tried to get better. But sometimes that’s not enough – his illness is very strong.’ Steve nodded. ‘He’s asleep now. He may go into a deeper sleep. He may go into a sleep so deep that he cannot wake up.’ Steve nodded again. ‘Do you know what I’m trying to say to you?’ Steve nodded again.
I had my arm around him – I was shaking all over. Steve didn’t cry, didn’t say one word, just looked at the doctor and nodded, never changing his expression. ‘Do you know what the doctor is saying, darling? Do you understand?’ Another nod. I hugged him and said I’d be with him in a few minutes. He ran out of the room. Dr Brandsma was destroyed. To have to tell a little boy that his father was dying. I almost broke down – didn’t because I have some kind of gauge in me that keeps me from doing it in front of anyone. And I couldn’t crack up now – how would I get through the day? How would Mother, Steve, Leslie deal with it all if they saw me go? I couldn’t. I just lit another cigarette and kept on shaking. Brandsma said it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. I told him I wanted to take Steve up to our bedroom to see Bogie – to see him sleeping quietly. Did he think it would be all right? He did, but why? I wanted Steve to see Bogie again and not be afraid. To feel that Bogie was taking a nap. I brought Leslie into the bedroom just so she could see that her father was asleep. I felt she was too little to sit quietly. Would it be all right to talk to him? To hold his hand? What might happen? I was so frightened. ‘Yes, you can talk, though he may or may not hear. You will get no response – but it’s all right to do whatever you want to do.’
After he left I went upstairs to see if there had been any change. The nurse said no – she was taking his pulse regularly, checking him. And why would I want him to wake up? He’d suffered enough – he was at peace now. Better for him to stay in that limbo of oblivion.
I looked at Bogie again – went very close. He was sleeping – every bone clearly outlined – not a flutter of an eyelid. It was a sleep of life, different from the one to come later. I told the nurse I was bringing my son in, to please leave us alone.
I found Steve and asked him if he’d like to come into the bedroom with me to sit with Daddy for a while. I explained that Daddy was in a deep sleep – that there was nothing to be afraid of. I was sure it would be of some comfort to see his father sleeping peacefully, almost normally.
Hand in hand, Steve and I walked into the bedroom. There is an aura of another world in a room that holds someone on the brink of death. One moves quietly and carefully, as if in awe of that terrible unknown. I gingerly sat on the bed – more frightened than Steve. What could happen – would Bogie sit up and fall back down dramatically? I don’t know why I was frightened, what my apprehensions were based on, but my imagination took charge. I’d seen too many movies. Steve came close to the bed. I took Bogie’s hand in mine – he seemed to react – to squeeze it in return. I sat Steve on the edge of the bed and we two held Bogie’s hand and sat there looking at him and thinking our thoughts. I didn’t say to myself, ‘He’s dying.’ He was just sleeping a sleep further away than any I had ever known. There was nothing to relate to. I didn’t think, ‘Is this the culmination of a life? Is this how our marriage ends? Is this man, full of life and fun, really going to leave us forever?’ I just felt a total sadness, and as I looked at my small son, whom I loved so much, I thought of the unfairness of it all. Why should he have a burden this great to bear so early in life? Leslie was four – too young to have as many tears – life was simpler for her now. Steve was just old enough for complications to begin. Hers would come later. After about fifteen minutes we left. Steve leaned over and kissed his father’s cheek – I did the same. It seemed a perfectly natural thing to do.
Then more calls.
I told Morgan and whoever else was on the other end of the phone that it looked as though Bogie was in a coma, we weren’t absolutely sure how long it might last.
Brandsma returned in the evening. He told me Bogie could conceivably remain in a coma for days – did I want to keep him alive, just breathing, though he might be a vegetable? I didn’t think Bogie would want that, and Brandsma said he felt it was the last thing Bogie would want. There was nothing to do at this moment anyway – just wait. He could be reached any time during the night. Not to hesitate. Mother knew, May knew, Kathy, the butler, the nurse – there was nothing to say – we all had to wait. There would be no cocktail hour that day. I don’t remember now who came over – one or two friends must have. I called Katie to tell her and Spence not to come that night. Early in the evening I looked for Steve and found that he had gone back into our bedroom to see Bogie. When I asked him why, he said, ‘Because I wanted to.’ I tucked him into bed, heard his prayers – did the same with Leslie, having told her Daddy was sleeping all day. She said, ‘Will he wake up tomorrow?’ ‘I don’t know, darling.’ Christ, I had no answers. How do you prepare your children when you can’t prepare yourself? I went to the nurses. They were not very hopeful, not hopeful at all. They were both staying through the night. They changed the bed – moving Bogie to one side while they placed the clean sheet on the other. They were so efficient. It was out of my hands. They had taken over – pulse – blood pressure. Bogie was just lying there in that sleep, the decay permeating the room and everything in it. I wanted to stay on the bed next to him – I was afraid to, but I wanted to. They said, ‘No, you should get some sleep. We’ll only disturb you as we do things for him.’ So somewhere around midnight I kissed Bogie good night – this time, for the first time, in eleven and a half years of married life, with no response from him – and went into the little nap room. I lay down on the bed, and for the first time in almost a year I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed – months and months of tears. I let it all pour out, saying, ‘Please don’t let him die – please don’t let anything happen to him – please let him live,’ over and over through my sobs until I slept.
Suddenly I was awakened – the nurse gently shaking me. ‘Mrs Bogart, it’s all over. Mr Bogart has died.’ There was that special yellow light coming from the bedroom – that light that goes with death in the early hours of the morning. ‘When?’ ‘About five minutes ago. Dr Brandsma is on his way. You may come with me now.’ I got up – numb, worn out – put on my robe – the robe I had worn in Dark Passage, our first movie together after we were married, the robe I had worn Saturday night when sleeping next to Bogie. The nurse had her arm around me as we walked through the door of the little room into our bedroom. I saw Bogie lying in bed – mouth slightly open – hands on the outside of the sheet – the outline of skull and face clearly drawn. I moved toward him – the nurse’s arm still around me, trying to guide me out of the room. I couldn’t really believe it. I was afraid to touch him – I kissed him on his cheek, it was not yet cold. Someone else was present – that unknown someone who had taken over. The nurse kept saying, ‘Come on, you mustn’t stay.’ Much later I realized that terrible things happen to the body, not to be seen. I let her lead me out, looking back over my shoulder at Bogie lying in our bed – on what had always, until his illness, been my side of the bed – sleeping that other sleep. I must not wake the children. I would go downstairs to wait for the doctor. I was in a trance. The doctor’s car drove up. The house was silent – it was dark outside – I let the doctor in and told him I’d wait for him downstairs. I turned on some lights – I didn’t even know what time it was. I went into the kitchen to make some instant coffee – brought in a cup for me, one for the doctor. He came down and told me all arrangements had been made – he had called Forest Lawn and they were on their way. It was unreal. I’d wait until morning to call Mother, I wanted her to have an undisturbed sleep. I called Morgan and told him – he said he’d get dressed and come over. I had to let the newspapers know, but I didn’t want their people around the house. I called Joe Hyams, who asked if I wanted him to inform the wire services, etc. ‘Yes, please, Joe – if you would.’ I didn’t want to wake Katie or Spence. I called the Nivens and told them. David was working, but would come after work – Hjordis would come in the morning after the children went to school. It was about three o’clock in the morning. There would be so much to do. I didn’t want the children to wake up before they had to – I would tell them individually – oh, God, how would I tell them? The nurse came downstairs, told me how very sorry she was, but how it was better for him – he might have stayed alive and in a coma for a week or more – he had suffered so much, it was a release for him. I wanted to know how she’d known he was dying. She said she and the other nurse had been checking his pulse every twenty minutes – suddenly it got so fast they couldn’t count it – his temperature went up – it happened very quickly. She hadn’t meant to hurry me out of the room, but she’d felt it was better that I didn’t linger, better I didn’t remember that final picture too vividly. But it was a picture you would never forget. I have never forgotten.
The doorbell rang. It would be the men from Forest Lawn. Somewhere, sometime, Morgan and I must have decided Forest Lawn was the place, even with all the jokes about it. What difference did it make, really? Dead is dead. Dr Brandsma said the men would like to see me before they went. I walked to the door. A man in the usual black suit was standing outside, and in a corner of the courtyard was the black hearse, the rear doors open and facing in my direction. And a large white sack in a funny shape was at the opening of the doors. As the man offered his condolences I saw that sack. ‘What is that!’ ‘That is Mr Bogart – I’m very sorry, Mrs Bogart,’ in that practiced sympathetic voice. Bogie in a sack! How horrible! I’d thought he’d be taken out of the house on a stretcher, lying as if he were sleeping-not thrown into a sack as if nothing. But he was nothing. That was not Bogie – the heart and the mind were Bogie. When they went, only flesh and bone remained. And to these men it was a business. They did this every day – many times a day. Still – why couldn’t they have waited? That picture too has stayed with me ever since, and will as long as I live – and in the nightmares I had for months after, that white sack was in evidence. ‘Why,’ I asked the doctor and the nurses, ‘why did they take him like that?’ ‘You shouldn’t have seen it – but that’s the way it always is. Bogie doesn’t know, but you shouldn’t have seen it.’ I’ll say I shouldn’t have!
I was moving in a daze. I talked – I listened – it was only about Bogie. It was numbness that took over, certainly not acceptance. I didn’t analyze anything – all that came later.
As dawn approached I went into the kitchen. May was awake – I went into her room and told her – she cried – we hugged each other. We’d been through so much together – she loved Bogie so much. Those last months she’d asked no questions, just did everything she could do. First class.
The nurses were ready to go. They had done all that they could do in every way, they had been wonderful. They too had thought Bogie a marvelous man and an incredible patient.
I had to tell the children. I went upstairs, opened Steve’s door – he was awake, lying in his bed. I sat down and hugged him very hard. ‘Oh, darling – I am so sorry to have to tell you this. Daddy died early this morning – he stayed in his sleep – felt no pain.’ Steve just lay there and rubbed and rubbed his eyes – made fists of his little hands and rubbed his eyes hard, back and forth – they were red and wet, but he did not cry. ‘Is he in heaven?’ ‘Of course he is, darling – he’ll be watching us, so you must be very brave and strong. He was so proud of you – never forget that, and that he loved you very much.’ What could I say – how can you tell a child? How can you tell your son that from that day forward his life will never be the same – that there will never be a way to fill that gaping hole? Never. I said it the best I could – I was so worried for him – I knew nothing except to love him. I told him I would get Lesli
e – bring her into his room for a few minutes. That beautiful little girl who was worshipped by her father. I took her out of her crib, sat her on my lap, and told her in much the same words that Daddy had gone to heaven, that we wouldn’t see him again, that he loved her very much. I brought her into Steve’s room, where we sat on his bed, the three of us together, and just said we must always love one another. Leslie cried at the thought of not seeing her daddy again, not understanding anything else. I wanted them to be close together – to help one another. It was a lot to want. I called my mother, who was just getting up – it was still only about 7:30 – told her.
Harvey came upstairs, walked into the bedroom, walked over to the bed – first the side Bogie had been on, then the other – then into Bogie’s dressing room. He knew something was very wrong. He walked to the bed again – looked at me as if he understood – and stayed there.
It was a big black headline in both morning papers. Joe had done well and had kept the press away.
Mother arrived, more upset than I’d ever seen her.
And poor Pat, who was in the hospital, called me in tears. ‘Poor Bogie – he was the best brother – husband – father. What will I do without him? Why did he have to go first?’ She was shattered – she was the only one left of their family.
Phones started to ring – telegrams and flowers started to arrive – people started to come. It was Monday, the fourteenth of January, 1957 – three weeks after Bogie’s fifty-seventh birthday.
K.C. came over to see the children. Talked to them, soothed them.
I would have to think about a service – a eulogy. Would Spence deliver it? I mentioned it to Katie when she came. She’d ask him, but she didn’t think he’d be able to – physically able to.
Mike and Gloria Romanoff arrived, James and Pamela Mason, Dorris Johnson – Nunnally was down south and flew back immediately. When I thanked him, he said, ‘I would have walked.’ Leland Hayward and Slim Hawks (to whom he was now married), the Negulescos, John Huston, the Jaffes, Swifty, Hjordis – the house was swarming with people. I remember sitting at our coffee table in the lanai with Morgan and others, figuring out the course of funeral events. Jess Morgan (of Morgan Maree’s office) had gone to Forest Lawn for cremation arrangements. While we were sitting there he came back and told me they tried to sell him a casket for five thousand dollars, which he’d thought was outrageous. So he had chosen a very simple pine box – not the cheapest, a nice one, but as it was going into the crematorium, there was no point in extravagance. He said I would have to go there to choose an urn – he would take me the following morning.
By Myself and Then Some Page 38