by Fauna Hodel
Fauna stood passively, bewildered and silent. She couldn’t bring herself to say she felt the same way. She didn’t know what she felt. But soon, tears welled her eyes, not from love, but from compassion. She observed the emotional upheaval of a complete stranger, and blocked the strain and tension that should have dropped her to her knees. Fauna prayed for the strength to get through this ordeal.
The emotions quickly gave way to the present reality as Tamar introduced her sons: Peace, Joy, and the smallest, Love, only two years old. She talked incessantly, making excuses about why she was late, blaming friends with strange sounding names, and then apologizing for them. Fauna listened, with dispassionate comprehension, and in her thoughts began comparing Tamar with Jimmie Lee. But that quickly disappeared as Tamar moved everyone along toward the rainbow colored van.
Fauna settled in the front seat with Love and a friend of Tamar’s who took the wheel, and whom Fauna presumed owned the van. His unshaven face had a few days’ stubble that matched the unconventional appearance of his tie-dyed jeans and rumpled shirt. His movements were slow and his speech lazy, as if he were drunk. But it was a different type of intoxication, similar to the way her cousin Johnny acted around the time when Lucille died. The smell of marijuana permeated the vehicle. When he asked Fauna if she wanted some, she refused. He was silent the rest of the trip.
He parked the van in front of a house far larger than that which Fauna was used to in Sparks. It only confirmed the many tales Jimmie relayed about her wealthy family. Fauna was anxious to see the artwork and heirlooms similar to those that intrigued her at Dorothy’s apartment. Once inside, however, she discovered large rooms sparsely equipped with a potpourri of time-worn furniture and accessories that reminded Fauna of the poor shanties from her early years. She felt the damp air meld with her skin and was drawn to the distinct scent of the salt water emerging from the rear of the house. As she ambled on through the rooms following Tamar, she was lured to the steady flap of wavelets rolling onto the shore. Through the screen on the lanai, just 50 yards from the back of the house, lie the white sandy beach and the ocean.
Fauna was unfazed as Tamar ordered her children outside to play. She recognized that Tamar, too, was anxious to talk about their separate histories. But Fauna required some breathing room, time to absorb the unfamiliar, and plan a strategy.
“Tamar,” Fauna said, “this has been a long day. I’m OK, but Yvette is really over-tired. I want to get her ready for bed.”
“But I don’t want to go to bed,” Yvette interrupted.
“You can’t keep your eyes open. Besides it’s a lot later than it looks, we’re in a different time than at home.” Fauna was insistent. Yvette shrugged her shoulders and yawned.
“Sure, let me show you where your room is, and then I’ll put on some tea, it’ll make you sleep,” Tamar said, and then let them into the bedroom she prepared for the visit.
Fauna had been up since early morning, spending five hours at the San Francisco Airport, another five and a half on the plane, and then another two for the time change. Tamar was almost two hours late, and still another hour had gone by before she could sit down without being on edge. Her body slumped onto the cane-seated chair opposite Tamar to enjoy a relaxing cup of tea. She was fatigued, but her mind whirled furiously, trying to take in everything, especially Tamar.
Before her first sip, the children returned to the house with a young girl about twelve years old who Tamar introduced as Cynthia. The girl had a sensitive intelligence about her. She was polite and confident and everyone, including Tamar, offered her respect. Fauna enjoyed the small talk while the boys gathered around. They were inspecting their new sister as if she were a curious visitor from another world; a fact that didn’t escape Fauna, because in many ways, it was true. They clung to her every word and carefully eyed all of her movements. Fauna felt as though she was auditioning for a stage play and became uncomfortable. She caught the eye of Cynthia who quickly sensed the angst and offered to take the boys Christmas shopping. Fauna realized Tamar was far too poor to afford even the barest necessities, let alone presents, and that if it weren’t for this young lady, the children’s Christmas would have been just another day off from school.
Cynthia left with Love, Peace and Joy, leaving just Tamar and Fauna finally alone. Tamar’s eyes were glassy. Tamar reached over, held her hand and said softly, “It’s so good to see you, to finally have you here with me. So many thousands of times I’ve sent my love to you. I never expected to ever see you. I’d given up hope so many times, but I knew that you were receiving my love, my feelings, my heart.”
Her words relaxed Fauna. She could feel they were genuine. She really seemed to care, far different from what Dorothy had described. She just had to know why Tamar’s own mother would say such things. “Tamar, before I left San Francisco, I called Dorothy to see if there was anything she wanted me to bring you. She insisted that I see her before I came here. She was adamant, almost desperate.”
Tamar sat upright in her chair. “Oh. Yes, I’m sure she did. She despises me. This has been going on all of my life. We don’t get along at all.”
“Yes,” Fauna said as she took another sip, “she really dislikes you. I was shocked at the things she said about you.”
“She blames me for the trouble that happened. But it wasn’t my fault. I was just a young girl, barely in my teens.”
Fauna’s glanced up from her tea, her eyebrows lifted.
“Didn’t she tell you what it was all about?”
“Tell me what what was all about?”
“OK. You don’t understand. Let me try to explain. It’s not going to be easy to accept all of this, but I’ve been living with it my entire life.” Tamar paused for a long tme, staring into her cup. Fauna watched as Tamar’s expressive face slowly recast itself. She became very serious. She took a deep breath and looked directly at Fauna. Her voice was willful and unruffled.
“Years ago, before you were born, I was involved in a nationally publicized incest trial . . . with my father.”
“What kind of a trial?”
“It was actually a criminal trial having to do with incestuous relations between me and my father.”
“What are you saying?” Fauna asked.
“My father made love to me. There was a trial and a jury acquitted him, so that means in the eyes of the law, he’s not guilty. The whole thing was in all the newspapers and magazines across the country. Of course, at the time, I didn’t realize it was being so heavily publicized because they kept me in Juvenile Hall in Los Angele,s during the whole thing—almost a year. When I came out . . .”
“I was in Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles, too,” interrupted Fauna, “but only for ten days.”
“You were! Then you know the place, what a coincidence. Anyway, during the trial, my mother sided with the defense and told everyone that I was a pathological liar. She said I made up the whole thing; claims I’d been making up stories all my life.”
Fauna’s mouth was open and stiff. She felt the electricity racing through her body. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You mean to tell me that you actually went to bed with your father?”
“Let me start from the beginning,” Tamar said, as she set her cup aside and folded her hands on the table. “My mother and father were never married.”
Tamar’s speech was very slow, deliberate, her memory excellent as she recalled every detail.
“They lived together for a while. He was in the process of a divorce from another wife. My earlier years as a baby were spent in Sam Francisco. When I was old enough, and I heard about my father, the fabulously wealthy doctor, who now lived in a magnificent Hollywood house designed by Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright’s son, called Shangri La, I wanted to go there. Who wouldn’t? In my mind I immediately envisioned servants, fountains and statues, fancy limousines, swimming pools, everything. So my mother made arrangements to have me move down from San Francisco.
“When I arrived, it was almost like I w
as in a dream world. It took me a while to be able to see my father. He was always busy with something or another. Most of the time he’d send me off to his library to read books. But the interesting thing was that his library was filled with books that dealt with the fantasy world of gods and goddesses, all making love. A friend of mine who knew him called him the first avantgarde. He was very handsome and mysterious. In their home, the cinder part that covered the outside was where they lay naked in the sun. There was a whole bevy of servants; you didn’t have to do anything. His whole life was dedicated to sex. At age eleven, this was very interesting to me.
“He began my sex education by giving me the whole library. It was a fairy-tale library, not erotic or violent like American pornography, but about gods and goddesses, and kings, and knights, and fair maidens. In these stories, if you arrived at the gate, you went to the gatekeeper and made love. After the gatekeeper you went to the housekeeper, and the other servants, before you got to see the mother and father. And that’s the way I thought it was. I didn’t know any better, this is the way the stories went. In his house it was like that, too—these lines of women waiting to see my father. I wasn’t objective, but just wanted to see my father. Most of the time I was just shushed off to read books.”
Fauna was fascinated at the way she unfolded this tale. She was a great storyteller, slow, deliberate, emphasizing the most dramatic points. But then, without even a change of tone or expression she said.
“My father did let me have oral sex with him when I was eleven. He told me it was a special privilege. I wasn’t quite sure if this was OK, so I went to Mother and asked her. She then told my father, who turned to her and said, ‘Dorothy, she’s making the same accusations about you and Effy. She said the two of you fondle each other.’ My grandmother said, ‘How ridiculous!’ He was clever. He just turned the cards around and blamed me. My grandmother was so concerned about her own reputation that she never investigated any further. She didn’t know about this until later, so all that happened concerning my education was about giving him “head,” and reading books. Then I went back to be with my mother in San Francisco.
“When I returned at twelve, the following summer, I wanted to put more of this back into practice. He promised that when I was sixteen he would give me the honor of making love to him and I would become a woman. I wanted to be a woman much faster, naturally. I was just right for the whole situation.
“Then one day, when I was to see my father, he had a whole bedroom full of people, and was about to hypnotize one of them.
“I sat down to join them and the next thing I knew, they were in an orgy. My father said, ‘Everyone out of the room,’ and he was with me—except one woman who was there for a while, and then she said, ‘Oh, my God, this is dreadful.’ And then she ran out. I think her name was Connie. Well, I became pregnant—immediately.”
The words banged around inside Fauna’s head like cannon fire on the Fourth of July. The rushing blood throughout her body stopped cold. Could she be telling me that my father and her father are the same? She was too terrified to ask. She waited, and prayed.
“My father said,” Tamar continued, unaware of her daughter’s paralysis, “‘Well,’ ever so amused, ‘this is interesting.’ But I didn’t think it was interesting. I felt that all of a sudden everything was going to be a lot of trouble. So I told one of my girlfriends at Hollywood High, and she said that I should have an abortion. I didn’t know what an abortion was, other than it would have made me not pregnant, and that seemed OK.
“So I asked my father for an abortion and he said that he didn’t believe in them, and he was going to send me away to a home to have the baby. But I didn’t want to go to a home. So, I begged everybody else for an abortion. And he was afraid of all the talk and finally arranged for my abortion. And when I got one, I hated it! No anesthetic, at age thirteen, screaming in the middle of it to stop. And then, the person who was driving me to the abortion, a friend of my father’s, raped me in the car. I was just freaked out. I told my father what happened when I got back, and he became furious. Things became stranger.”
It may have been strange for Tamar, but Fauna was so relieved that she had had an abortion. Tamar’s story made Fauna want to vomit and pass out at the same time. But there was no letting up once Tamar had started.
“I went to my stepmother, Dorarro, that is, and she said, ‘Enough! That’s it!’ And then she told me a story about a woman that my father dated, who was a nurse, who was very much in love with him.
“Dorarro was called in to get two manuscripts for books that the woman was writing about my father—one was a novel and the other factual—and burn them. The woman had committed suicide. She had taken pills, and my father was waiting for her to die. So, Dorarro burned the books. My father signed the death certificate, and everything was very suspicious. So I was afraid of that.
“I decided to run away to the house where some friends of mine lived, and hide. Their parents were away in Europe, so I went there. The servants kept an eye on everything.
“And I think my stepmother, Dorarro, called my mother and said something was going on. She immediately came down from San Francisco to see me—unannounced. And when I wasn’t there, she filed a missing persons report. The next thing I knew was that the servants told me that the police were looking for me. I was scared. I had never even spoken to a policeman before, and I felt like a criminal.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was on the run, and one boy after another began to hide me. It got to be a great drama.
“I was finally found by the police and they said that they already knew about my father. Years earlier, he had been investigated about the Black Dahlia murder.”
Fauna thought to herself that what Tamar was telling her was so fantastic! It was a great drama! She couldn’t help but to compare her to Momma, who told stories that were short and to the point, with very few details. After living with Jimmie’s outrageous antics her entire life, and believing that no one could live a life more complicated, she was beginning to doubt all reality. Jimmie’s life seemed almost normal after listening to Tamar. She exhausted all her sensibilities, and drained all of her energy. But still she wanted to know more. “The Black Dahlia murder? What’s that?” she asked, hoping it would give her much more insight into her family.
“Well, when I was about ten or eleven, my father told me one day, that the police were coming to investigate them, and that they should keep their clothes on because they had spies looking for all kinds of things. So I said OK.
“There was a murder in the area at that time. A woman’s body had been found dissected, apparently by someone very capable, who knew the workings of the human body, like a physician—like my father. His name was found in her little black book. So that is why they investigated him. And I don’t know why—still, till this day—and I really don’t care one way or another, but I would like to know if I’m safe with my father—and that’s what I don’t know.”
“Are you worried about your father harming you?”
“Well, no, not exactly. George is a very powerful and persuasive man. If he hasn’t done anything by now, after all I’ve put him through, at least what everybody thinks I’ve put him through, then I don’t believe there is anything to worry about. Don’t get me wrong, I love my father.
“Anyway, I had a baby doll at that time, that I brought from my mom’s house. It was so pretty, curly hair, like a real baby. And I didn’t know what to name her. So my father said, ‘Oh, let me name her.’ And he named her Elizabeth Ann. Now my father never picks ordinary names; he always picks exotic names. So Elizabeth Ann she was.
“As the Black Dahlia name kept coming up in movies constantly, I never thought much of it. Then, a few years ago, I was reading an article in a magazine about the Black Dahlia that someone had brought me, when suddenly, I got a frightening chill when I saw the victim’s real name was Elizabeth Ann.
“Now I don’t know, it may all be coincidence, and I’m not accu
sing anyone. I’d like to know, sure. But my father, above all, was a charming man. He could entertain. There were always beautiful people around him. He could do whatever he wanted, but he could be cruel, and he was—and is—a genius.
“So I didn’t know what they knew. They were going to examine me. I assumed they knew about the abortion. I didn’t know! So I told all. He forgot to tell me to lie.
“They arrested him, and they put me in Juvenile Hall to protect me, and told me to wait there—after they sprayed me with insecticide. It was horrible. They kept me there, and that was the worst.
“So, I turned to the only person who I knew could help me. I needed love. And I heard, on records, this wonderful person who could sing and play the guitar and tell stories. His name was Joshua Daniel White. And he sang and told stories, and played the guitar better than anyone—blues guitar. I later knew him. You could tell from his music and songs what a kind, compassionate man he was. So I asked him in spirit to be with me through this thing, because I had to go through a court trial.
“You understand that in 1949, sex was never discussed, let alone incest, or freedom, or oral sex, or being naked in your house in the sunshine. And to me it was totally natural, the whole thing, except when some of the radical things happened with my father.
“No one talked to me except to question me. As of this day, if some stranger comes up to me in the street and asks me an intimate personal question, I just answer because I’m so programmed from that.
“I never saw my family, my father, my brothers, my mothers. I was just led into the courtroom to testify and then was taken out. I’m sure that what they did was highly illegal; it was definitely immoral. So they told me what they wanted me to hear, and I told them what they wanted to hear.
“The way my father defended himself when he was arrested was to allow his attorney, Jerry Giesler, to say that this was just a young teenage girl who was in love with her father—which worked. The jury acquitted him on Christmas Eve.