William Boyd - The New Confessions

I think it was that finality in her message (I could hear quite clearly, as if from beyond the grave, the sound of his voice “abominating,” and could sense his intense pleasure in the archaic pronunciation of “cinema”). Even if he had been an avid cinemagoer I was sure that he would have contrived to ignore my own work. I told myself to forget it. Why was it so important that one cantankerous old man had seen my films? I felt ashamed of my abject filial needs — as if all sons worked only for paternal approbation. Grotesque idea!

Father of Liberty was on the surface little more than a conventional biopic of the sort manufactured by any Hollywood studio — usual subjects being kings and queens, philanthropists and bandleaders. You will be familiar with the genre. Eddie had insisted we follow this format if Lone Star were to finance it. Consequently I had rewritten the 1934 script with this stricture in mind. His second condition was that I must make the Jesse James Western afterwards. The Equalizer had been Lone Star’s top-grossing film of 1944 and ‘45. Eddie was hungry for more. There was also the now-pressing problem of Karl-Heinz’s age. I decided that convention would allow us to use him from the affair with Mme. de Warens onwards, although even that was straining credibility somewhat. I bent the truth slightly by allowing the implication to surface that the affair began later in his life than it really had. The much-vaunted verisimilitude of Part I was being compromised, but under the circumstances what else could I do? I expanded the adolescent and childhood years considerably. Then heavy makeup, a thick wig and careful lighting should just about see us through, or so I argued to Eddie, who was keen not to employ Karl-Heinz.

Karl-Heinz looked much better than he had in Berlin. He enjoyed California. He sunbathed a lot and his tan smoothed out the shadows and taut angularities of his face. His health improved too: his ulcers — he had several, apparently — responded to treatment. The studio rented an apartment for him in the Hotel Cythera on the oceanfront at Santa Monica, not far from my house, and I used to look in on him most days. Getting him over from Scotland had proved straightforward. Father of Liberty was slated to start and Karl-Heinz was cast as the lead. His entry visa and resident’s permit were rubber-stamped by the relevant authorities.

Karl-Heinz’s attitude to life was now even more one of placid resignation. He accepted his transformation from troglodyte Kippensammler to Hollywood movie star with nothing more than a shrug and a faint smile. I recognized the condition: he had surrendered himself to the current. In Santa Monica he affected the dress style of a slightly down-on-his-luck artist — faded shirts, baggy trousers and neckerchiefs — and settled easily into the community as if he had only been away on vacation for a while. One day when we were strolling along the beach, a boy abandoned his surfboard and loped up to him calling, “Hey! Hey! Karl, man, how are you?” We were introduced (I forget this lad’s improbable name — Chet, Brett or Rhett, I think) and he and Karl-Heinz discussed where they would meet later that evening. We strolled on.

“Ah, the boys …” he said wistfully.

“Having fun?”

“I wish they all could be Californian.”

I stopped worrying about him after that.

Pause. Reflect. Consider. Here we are in November 1948. I am going to be fifty years old in a few months. I am about to start filming a medium-budget biopic on the life of Jean Jacques Rousseau for Lone Star Films called Father of Liberty . It will feature my oldest friend in the lead role and will be produced and financed by another old friend and longtime collaborator. I live alone in my own house in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California. I am not rich but I am by no means poor. Father of Liberty will be my eighteenth completed film. I have two ex-wives and three children. I have a few close friends: Karl-Heinz, Eddie, Hamish, Ramón, Monika, the Coopers, the Gasts, the Hitzigs (Lori Madrazon was killed in a car accident in 1945). I have a few enemies. I have survived two world wars and serious injury. I have one lung, a strong heart, a weak left leg and my right shoulder stiffens up easily. I am carrying a little too much weight, my hair is graying, but I am told I still possess a certain vital dark attractiveness that is unusual in a man of my age.

My disappointments are profound but not numerous. I was unreconciled with my father when he died. My brother will not speak to me. I am estranged from my children. My second son, whom I adored, died when a baby. Worst of all, the woman I truly loved, and who could have transformed my life, abandoned me.

My moment of greatest triumph came early in my career. I have known fame and great wealth, have suffered poverty, neglect, and obloquy. My most commercially successful films have not been my best. My best work, the true expression of my particular genius, is unknown or unrecognized.

This seems an honest, not unreasonable summary. A half century with more than enough excitements and disasters, you might say, to fill several lives. And now with a pleasing structural neatness I am about to embark on a project that will complete an endeavor begun twenty years previously. Yes indeed, you might judge — with all objectivity — all things considered, given the absurd capriciousness of fortune, ceteris paribus , John James Todd has been a fortunate man.

I thought so too. I thought so too.

Then one day I got a call from Eddie Simmonette. Would I meet him in a certain drugstore on La Cienega Boulevard. And would I please make sure I was not followed. What was he talking about? I demanded. He wouldn’t say. I assumed he was going to tell me he was getting divorced. Rumor had it he and Artemisia were no longer happy together. I braced myself for a bout of Eddie’s self-pity, a rare event but an enervating one. Of course I made no checks to see if I was being followed.

It was a fine day, I recall, with only a faint haze. I stopped and bought a bottle of Coke from a sidewalk dispenser and drank it as I drove to meet Eddie. I looked at the tall spindly palm trees, the neat houses and immaculate gardens, the big chrome-heavy cars. The Coke was sweet in my mouth. The long nightmare that was to be the rest of my life was about to begin.

* * *

It was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon when I arrived at the drugstore. I could see no sign of Eddie’s car outside, but when I went in he was there, pretending to browse at a revolving stand of crime novels. We sat down in a booth. He took off his sunglasses and mopped his face with a handkerchief. We exchanged pleasantries. Eddie was trying to lose some weight. He had grown really quite fat in the last two years. The cleft on his chin was half an inch deeper.

“How’s the diet?” I said.

“Great, great,” he said. The waitress approached.

“You want something?” Eddie asked me.

“I’ll have a black tea with lemon.” My teeth felt furry, faintly neuralgic.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger with slaw. Banana milkshake. No fries.” He smiled at me. “No fries. No booze. Why do I live?”

“What’s this all about, Eddie?”

He became serious. “I think we have some problems.” He took a magazine out of his pocket and handed it over, open at a page. I looked at the cover. It was called Red Connections .

“Look at that list of names.”

My eyes ran down the list. I recognized most of them. Herbert Biberman, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., Dalton Trumbo, Humphrey Bogart, Danny Kaye, Eddie Cantor and many more.

“You know who they are?” Eddie asked.

“The Hollywood Ten. And the people who signed that petition.”