Genius

by Patrick Dennis

  On the occasion of González’s second visit, there was no question of taxi fare. He was unloaded by his son from a very large, although somewhat banged-up, Mercedes-Benz and resplendent in a pearl-gray rayon suit with a pink acetate lining; on the third visit he sported neon-blue shantung and lizard-skin shoes; on the fourth, milk-chocolate gabardine and a white-on-white silk jacquard shirt. Poor Heff, while a lot neater and better dressed than his father, consistently appeared in the same threadbare gray flannel.

  I was always summoned to their meetings, and Mr. Guber, who wasn’t letting Starr far out of his sight, always happened to be there. We were about as welcome as a crash diet as far as González was concerned. However, there were few moments of discord. I had selected the Carretera del Desierto de los Leones for most of the exterior shots because it was very near to Casa Ximinez and contains almost every kind of scenery from grubby wasteland to fine trees, ravines, fields, and forests. There was no argument there, and González assured us that he would arrange everything with the national-park authorities. With the removal of such non-sixteenth-century accessories as lamps, radios, and telephones, various corners of Starr’s apartment and ours would do nicely for the interiors, and the patio of Casa Ximinez with its tiles and arches and faded frescoes and picturesque wellhead was a treasure-trove. Mr. Guber did say, “I still don’t see why there should be any studio costs when we’re gettingue all the settingues for nothingue,” but his remark passed by, ignored by all but me. Heff modestly translated his father’s suggestion that he, Heff, be put on the payroll at two hundred pesos—or fifteen dollars in United States currency—a day as interpreter, and no one saw fit to quarrel with that. Otherwise, money was never again mentioned, and although our relations with González père were not exactly cordial, we got on without any fisticuffs.

  Starr, tolerant as he was of the odious González, did show his teeth, however, when it came to casting the young girl. On his last visits, González, more resplendently dressed with each appearance and sporting big Upmann Havana cigars, led in a constant parade of chippies vying even with him for brightness of dress. The effect was rather like a eunuch presenting a line-up of dubious virgins for the potentate’s pleasure—and what girls! I’ve seen tramps in my day, but the selections of Señor González looked like the lowest hookers ever to work the Plaza Garibaldi. I could hear Starr ranting and raving through his open window. “No, no, no, Aristido! Maria is supposed to be a young, intelligent, virtuous, pretty, religious girl—not like these tarts who’ll never see thirty again. Translate, please, Heff, and tell your father to get these doxies out before we have to call the fumigators.”

  There would be an indignant high-pitched uproar from the González starlets, none of whom understood English, and then González would say in his own brand of English, “But Leandro, oll nize ladies. From very gude Creole families. Oll make love. Oll got teets like . . .”

  “I don’t care if they’re built like the she-wolf of Rome. Get them out of my apartment and back to whatever cathouse they came from. Out, out, out!” Starr’s denunciation would be followed by a cacophony of furious invective from les girls, who would march indignantly across the patio, heels ringing, rumps rolling, bleached heads held high—the very picture of outraged virtue—while they cursed González for a fraud and a pimp and a cheat and a liar and a number of other more or less accurate things in a brand of Spanish never heard in the throne rooms of the viceroys of Mexico.

  Even Mr. Guber was quite undone by the procession of hustlers. “Mr. Dennis,” he’d say, bug-eyed, “I’ve never seen anythingue like it—one nafkeh after the other. My understandingue of the story is that Maria is supposed to be a good Catholic girl and not like these hoors, you should pardon the expression.”

  “I believe everyone understands that except Mr. González, Mr. Guber.”

  “I presume that your estimation of Mr. González is nothingue to rave about, either, Mr. Dennis.”

  “You presume good, Mr. Guber, as my brother Ernest would say.”

  “Ernest? Oh, Ernest Hemingueway. Do you think he and Mr. González were really related?”

  “Don’t be an ass. González’s mother was Rin-Tin-Tin’s sister.”

  He thought that one over and then laughed. “Very amusingue. Droll. You got quite a sensayuma, Mr. Dennis. I got to admit it. Well, I should worry so longue as González has the money.”

  “Who told you that?” I asked sharply.

  “Why, Mr. Starr. Well, time for my siesta. Be seeingue you.”

  But during that hectic week of planning, the most constant visitor of all was Mrs. Worthington Pomeroy. In her role of being lovely and engaged, this matronly fiancée, showing the tenderest concern for poor old Starr, was in and out three or four times a day, dressed now like an ingenue in a Victor Herbert operetta. She would arrive at any hour of the day or night, her footman bearing hampers of goodies, iced buckets of champagne, books, flowers, chocolates, unguents—anything she could think of as an entrance fee to Starr’s working quarters, where she could be heard billing and cooing and clucking and driving the poor man almost to frenzy. She had been quite bad enough as heiress, social leader, and patroness of the arts, but as the young girl in love Clarice was unendurable. She even resorted to babytalk at her worst moments, and to hear Starr referred to as “lamby pie,” “honey-bunny,” “snuggle-buggle,” and by endearments even less apt was enough to make one sick.

  Engrossed as he was in his work and still suffering from his terrible sunburn, Starr would explain, civily enough, why he shouldn’t come to Clarice’s for lunch, why he couldn’t attend her cocktail party, why he wouldn’t be able to take her dancing, why he was unable to go to Acapulco for the weekend, why it was impossible for him to watch her being fitted for negligees at Marisa’s, each excuse tinged with an added note of annoyance. But when it came to monumental irritation, Starr had met his match and more in Mrs. Pomeroy. The kitten had claws. She would sulk, she would pout, she would whine, and eventually she would scratch. It had been some years since Clarice had not had her own sweet way in almost everything. It was her custom to pay her money and take her choice, and the only times that didn’t work were with the people she couldn’t buy. However, she had bought Starr—signed, sealed, and delivered with a lifetime guarantee—when she had invested in Valley of the Vultures. But now that the merchandise wasn’t performing properly, didn’t live up to its advertising, proved something less than indestructible, Clarice was showing all the signs of the dissatisfied customer. It was then that Starr would become surprisingly humble. “But Clarice, my dear, I am in great pain. The doctor says this is a second-degree burn.”

  “Don’t be sil, sweetie, what kinda man are you? It’s just an ole sunburn. See?”

  “Ouch, God damn it!”

  “Oh, so now you swear at me!”

  “Clarice, when you pinch, the pain is excrutiating.”

  “So all right, yer burn’ll be gone next week. Then can I give a dinner party? Or a luncheon? Or something? I want to announce our engagement. You could bring Emily and that cute Brucie and the Maitland-Grims and maybe Dolores del Río and Lady Joyce and . . .”

  “Do you think it would be in the best of taste to invite my ex-wife to an engagement party?”

  “Who cares about that? She cert’ny don’t seem to. Besides, she’s big in London. Can we say Monday?”

  “But Clarice, that’s the first day of my picture.”

  “So? Start Tuesday.”

  “Clarice. This film is costing a great deal of money.”

  “You’re telling me?”

  “Not only your money, uh, darling—although you mustn’t think me ungrateful—but other people’s as well. It involves the work of a lot of talent. I can’t let them down and go tooting off to lunch. This is very important. . . .”

  “Fer cripes’ sakes, it’s just an old movie!”

  On and on and on would go these discussions to which I was the most unwilling—but still rapt—eavesdropper. There woul
d be tears and threats and tantrums, until finally Starr would beg for her time and patience, buy her absence of a few hours with a vague promise and a tender caress, and Mrs. Pomeroy would stamp out of his apartment, her eyes flinty, her mouth set, only pretending to be placated. “Poor old Starr,” I kept thinking.

  It was late Sunday night when I finally hammered out the last page of the rewritten shooting script—not that Starr wouldn’t rewrite it a dozen more times in the process of filming the picture—and my wife had lovingly put aside her own work to make six extra copies (she is the one in the family who can put in carbon paper so that you don’t need a mirror to read what’s been typed). Starr’s apartment was blazing with light. The door was open, so I walked right in. Starr’s sunburn, owing to the constant lardings applied by St. Regis, was now a deep Indian brown. At last able to wear clothes, he was making the most of his color with a stark-white shirt and white shorts. He looked splendid. Mrs. Pomeroy was also there, dressed something like Mary Pickford in Poor Little Rich Girl. She did not. She looked sore as hell, her rather heavy face, relaxed from the constant calisthenics of bright little smirks, doughy and disconsolate. From force of habit, she grimaced slightly when I came in, and she said, “Hello, sweetie. Long time no see.”

  “I’ve been busy. Here, Leander. Here’s the final revision and six copies, just in case mine blows away.”

  “Are you in on this too, Paddy?” Mrs. Pomeroy asked dangerously.

  “N-not really. Just a little help with the script.”

  “Well, how long do you estimate this pitcher’s gonna take?”

  Starr looked uneasy to say the least. “W-why, I really couldn’t say. I don’t know anything about making movies. Ask Leander.”

  “I just did,” she added darkly, “an’ he says . . .”

  I suppose he’d put it at several decades and I wouldn’t have blamed him, but Mrs. Pomeroy was never able to give me his considered estimate. We were interrupted by the arrival of Emily. She looked sort of soft-boiled and dreamy-eyed, but when she got a glimpse of Clarice sitting there in dimity ruffles and sausage curls dangling down her neck, Emily snapped out of it and reverted back to the Puritan girl I knew and did not love. “Oh, good evening, Mrs. Pomeroy, Mr. Dennis.”

  “Hello, sweetie,” Clarice said, counterfeiting very badly a sort of girl-to-girl good nature. “Been out with yer cute fellah?”

  “Bruce and I went to the bullfights, had dinner, and came home early. I wanted to talk to Daddy.” Having cut Clarice down to size, Emily now cut her out of the conversation entirely. “Feeling better, darling? I see you’re able to put some clothes on.”

  “Much better, dear, thank you.”

  “I thought you might be alone,” Emily said. I realized that her curtness was not directed toward me, but I could take a hint even if Clarice couldn’t.

  “Well, I’ll be on my way. . . .”

  “Stay where you are, dear boy,” Starr said sharply. It wasn’t an invitation to remain, it was a command.

  “Good night, Daddy,” Emily said, making her way to the stairs. “Good night Mr. Dennis, Mrs. Pomeroy.”

  Clarice turned on her mechanical simper. “Just a sec, sweetie,” she said. There was an edge to her voice I didn’t quite like.

  “Yes, Mrs. Pomeroy?”

  “I thought I ast you ta call me Clarice. Didn’t I?”

  “Uh, yes. Yes, you did. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Well, somehow it doesn’t seem respectful, Mrs. Pomeroy. Just not right.”

  “That’s right, sweetie, it isn’t right. At least it won’t be right. Because a few weeks from now you can just call me Mother. G’night all.” She flung her furs around her shoulders and made for the door.

  Anxious to be out of the line of fire at any price, I said, “Can I walk you home, Moth . . . uh, Clarice?”

  “No, you can’t! Whaddya think I keep a limmazeen for?” With that she was gone. Emily stood on the bottom step looking as though she’d just been slapped. I cleared my throat uncomfortably and wished that I were dead and buried. Starr was silent.

  “Is this true?” Emily said at last.

  “Uh, now, darling, don’t jump to conclusions. Nothing definite has been decided.”

  “Daddy, you’re lying to me. It’s written all over your face.”

  “Well, darling . . .”

  “Don’t ‘darling’ me! And as for you . . .” Emily turned on me with blazing eyes. “As for you—Daddy’s great old friend, and Mummy’s, too. Not one week ago you had the gall to look me in the face and tell me that Daddy and that woman were only interested in business.”

  “At the time it was true,” I said miserably. “Really it was.”

  Having dismissed me as something beneath contempt, she turned again on Starr. “So it was just money you were interested in? Just an investment?”

  “What Mr. Dennis says is entirely correct, child. But Mrs. Pomeroy—Clarice—seems to be playing for higher stakes.”

  “Do you mean to tell me you’d marry that shrew just to get her to invest in your picture?”

  “Some very successful marriages have been based on . . .” Starr gave up on that one. “Emily, I have misled you badly. I find myself temporarily embarrassed. I have been for some time. Starting this picture tomorrow is my big chance. I can get out of debt, go back home, begin all over again, make something of myself once more. But I couldn’t let you know that I was on my uppers—flat, stony broke. Clarice has millions. She . . .”

  “Do you mean to say you’d marry a woman—just any woman—for money?”

  “I didn’t say I was going to marry her. I’d hoped to postpone things until I’d made enough to pay her back—with interest, of course—and then call this thing off. But this was a matter of . . . Emily, I wanted you to be proud of me.”

  “And of course this sort of thing makes me very proud. If you needed money, couldn’t you have come to me—your own daughter? I’ve got loads of it—Grandpa’s, Grandma’s, Uncle Julian’s. I’d have given it to you rather than know that you’d . . .”

  “Emily, I didn’t know. I . . .”

  “Of course you didn’t. You didn’t know whether I was dead or alive—or care—until I came down here. Maybe if you had known you’d have paid a little attention to me—just for the money, naturally.” There was a stunned silence. Even Emily seemed shocked at what she had said. Then Starr cried, “My God, Dennis. Don’t you see it?”

  “Don’t I see what?”

  “Maria! There’s our Maria! Not one of those sluts González keeps bringing around. Emily can play Maria! The fire, the facial planes, the burning eyes. I’ve had a leading lady right under my own roof and . . .”

  “Oh!” Emily screamed. She raced up the stairs and slammed her door.

  “Leander,” I ventured, “do you think this quite the moment to go into casting when Emily is . . .”

  “Emily is superb! Can’t you see her as a Mexican daughter of the soil?”

  “I saw Katherine Hepburn as a Chinese daughter of the rice paddies—Dragon Seed, I think it was called—but it was still Bryn Mawr to me.”

  “But I can get a performance out of her. You saw how magnificent she was tonight. I’ll talk to her.”

  “I think you’d better do just that—and fast.”

  “Yes, I must, while this fiery mood is still with her.”

  “It’s not the mood I’d choose, exactly,” I said. “Well, good luck with the picture. If there’s anything I can do . . .”

  “Anything you can do? Well, I expect you out in the patio at six o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “You what?”

  “You heard me. You don’t talk me into making this film against my better judgment and then dump me on the very threshold of my greatest triumph. If you’re not there at six sharp, I’ll personally come up and drag you out of bed. Now go.”

  “All right, Starr, but just one question.”

  “Yes. Be quick about it.”

&nb
sp; “Are you really going to marry Mrs. Pomeroy?”

  “How the hell do I know? Don’t bother me with trivial details at a time like this. Em-i-ly!” he bellowed, and pounded up the stairs.

  XII

  The following week went by so rapidly that every day still seems like the one before or the one after to me. My wife, being more systematic, keeps a sort of diary—not a journal exactly, but a booklet with little things like appointments with the dentist, luncheon engagements, people’s birthdays, and anything noteworthy that may have happened jotted down in more or less chronological order. It is to her that I am indebted for even the foggiest recollection of these action-packed days of shooting Valley of the Vultures. At least the book helps me to remember where Starr (and I) happened to be and when. And so I shall quote from my wife’s daybook and then expand as best I can.

  MONDAY. Hair—10:30. Gr. Chiff. dress, P’s bl. suit—Tintoria Francesa. Write kids, Mother, M&O.

  Monday dawned clear, fair, and hot, like all the other days in Mexico City. By the time I bolted down some coffee and got out to the patio Starr was pacing up and down dressed in a style reminiscent of the late Cecil Blount De Mille. The only other person who’d managed to arrive that early was Lopez, the cameraman, who had brought with him tons of the most expensive and impressive-looking equipment. Having taken on, once again, the shackles of capitalism, Mr. Lopez wore the neat pin stripes and worsteds, the button-down collars, the sober ties of a young man forging ahead in banking. He trotted a pace or two behind Starr drinking in every one of his millions of words, differing with him from time to time, and occasionally making a suggestion. From the respect and deference paid him by Starr, I figured that he must be an exceptionally accomplished cameraman, and indeed he was. “Now Lopez, my dear, we start shooting here on page seventeen where Doña Ana-Rosa and her husband have just completed building the hacienda. I usually like to start right from the beginning and go through in perfect sequence so as not to break the mood for the actors but . . .”