Javier Marías - Thus Bad Begins

Lom had now tucked his silk handkerchief up his sleeve. Most of it, however, remained hanging out, like a waiter’s serviette, but at least he wouldn’t be able to unleash it on me again. He then made a sweeping gesture meaning Voilà , his floating handkerchief underlining the flourish. Kuchačevič ze Schluderpacheru was clearly a man of the world. And then he did actually say Voilà , as if he were quoting a piece of dialogue.

‘ Voilà . If you give me what I want, I will say nothing and do nothing, and I will not harm you with what I could do or say.’ It had never occurred to me that this might be Van Vechten’s weapon or attitude, and I couldn’t imagine what he could possibly remain silent about with any of my female friends and acquaintances. Muriel, however, could, because he nodded sadly or perhaps resignedly. But then he knew what he was trying to find out about the Doctor, and I as yet did not.

‘This may, I fear, be the case here,’ he muttered. He appeared not to wish to say anything more.

Herbert Lom, on the other hand, had perked up.

‘Whatever it is,’ he added, ‘and if he is a friend, let’s hope he isn’t mixed up with any activities such as those that caused our dear producer so many problems with the FBI. That’s all over now, of course, but, as you know,’ and he turned to Muriel this time, ‘it meant that he couldn’t visit America for twenty years. Or, rather, he avoided doing so, I assume because he would have been sent straight to jail if he’d so much as set foot there. These matters always end badly.’

‘Harry? Wanted by the FBI? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Herbert, nor what activities you’re referring to. Although, now you mention it, Jesús Franco did once say something of the kind. But tell me, what happened?’ Muriel’s anxiety had evaporated. His curiosity was aroused and proved to be the stronger emotion, after all, it’s always intriguing to learn that a semi-friend or false temporary friend (someone for whom you work and who pays you) is or was a fugitive from the FBI.

It was clear that Herbert Lom liked to surprise people and to tell stories. He smiled with delight, and his thin upper lip vanished. He had doubtless mentioned this episode with the sole aim of telling us all about it.

‘Really? You didn’t know?’ And to justify his indiscretion, he added. ‘Well, now that he’s paid the fine and they’ve dropped the charges, I don’t suppose he would mind you knowing. Although, just in case, don’t tell him that you do. I don’t think he would care, I mean he’s often laughed about it with me, but one never knows. It’s also true that he has sometimes spoken with regret about not being able to establish himself in Hollywood because of that one mistake.’

It was hardly surprising that Towers would have spoken about the affair to Jesús Franco or to Lom. He had produced eight or nine of Jesús Franco’s films, some of which were extremely erotic, and had collaborated with Lom on at least five occasions, this, the sixth, was never finished and never shown and appears in no filmography, as I discovered recently on the Internet: not in that of Muriel or Towers or Lom.

‘You have my word. Tell me, though, what happened?’ Muriel loved gossip, as long as it was lurid and interesting. In a matter of seconds, he had forgotten all about Van Vechten and was eager to hear about his producer’s criminal adventures. Towers was a very ordinary-looking man, with greying hair, a weak chin that threatened to become double, a broad, flat nose and very thick eyebrows darker than his hair. He would have been about sixty, and I had met him on a couple of occasions, but he had barely spoken to me. Not that this means anything, it’s what usually happens with secretaries and subalterns.

‘It is, needless to say, an incomplete, contradictory and confusing tale,’ said the man who had been Napoleon, and he lit another cigarette after first carefully inserting it in his cigarette holder, clearly pleased to have our full attention. ‘What I’ve gleaned (and not only from Harry himself) is that in 1960 or 1961, he took with him to New York a young half-Czech, half-English woman called Mariella Novotny, with whom he was having an affair. A very fleeting affair, needless to say. He had promised to help her build a career as a model in TV commercials; she was not, it would seem, a woman of high ambitions. By then, Harry was making his way in Hollywood, in Toronto and in New York, so he had plenty of American contacts. They stayed in a hotel where Mariella began to receive influential gentlemen from the world of politics and elsewhere, always at the urging of Harry and with him as intermediary, and also, later on, in the apartment that Harry shared with his mother — our producer has a most unusual mother. That at least is what Novotny told the FBI: that he had provided her with important clients, assuring her that pleasing them would help her in her modelling career; he was, in effect, acting as her procurer and keeping seventy-five per cent of what she earned from her various sexual acts, which, inevitably, included threesomes. She added that Harry was usually present, although it seems highly unlikely that any of those important partenaires would have agreed to that. (She resembled a slightly less voluptuous Anita Ekberg, in both face and body, and this doubtless contributed greatly to her success.) According to the FBI, when the couple were arrested, Harry was found hiding in a wardrobe, so maybe he was always a furtive presence. He, I need hardly say, denies it all.’ Herbert Lom gave a short laugh, which infected Muriel and, yes, why deny it, me too, for there was something intrinsically comic about the whole situation, or perhaps it was made amusing by the reborn Ben Yusuf’s comments. ‘One of Hoover’s undercover men used to attend some of the parties Mariella started to frequent.’ My cinematographic knowledge meant that I knew Hoover had been Head of the FBI. ‘True, Harry is a pathological liar, but, according to him, what alarmed Hoover was finding out that at one of these parties, Novotny had met — the first of several meetings — with Peter Lawford, President Kennedy’s brother-in-law and pimp.’ He used a rather more elegant term, calling him a ‘go-between’. ‘And things didn’t end there: at another party later on, in the apartment of the singer Vic Damone, no sooner was she formally introduced to Kennedy than Mariella was led into a bedroom where she had sex with him. Harry’s mythomania is quite insatiable, and he maintains that it was a case of coitus interruptus, because shortly after the two of them had disappeared into the bedroom, a tremendous ruckus broke out in the living room: Damone’s Asian girlfriend had shut herself in the bathroom where she had slashed her wrists, unsuccessfully of course. But the apartment emptied instantly, and the first to vanish was Kennedy, along with his small entourage and his bodyguard.’

‘Oh, I can believe that,’ said Muriel. ‘It’s a classic female ploy — locking themselves in the bathroom and slashing their wrists. The amazing thing is that they can almost never find their veins.’

‘Possibly,’ Lom responded politely, ‘but I wouldn’t know. There doesn’t seem to have been a single beautiful woman of the day who didn’t end up in bed with Kennedy. Or else in a swimming pool, a boat or a lift, it didn’t matter. If all those stories were true, he wouldn’t have had time to govern the country. Or even travel to Dallas, in which case, he might still be with us today. Harry, on the other hand, once showed me a copy of an internal memorandum about the Profumo affair from Hoover himself. In it he mentioned Mariella Novotny, adding in parentheses “see Kennedy Brothers file”. It also mentioned her “pimp Alan Towers”, and he very proudly, laughingly, showed me what it said about him: “He apparently now lives permanently behind the Iron Curtain. Novotny states that Towers was a Soviet agent and that the Soviets were collecting compromising information about certain prominent individuals.” Hmm,’ added Lom with an amused if sceptical smile, ‘it may be that the memorandum is apocryphal and was forged by Harry to impress his friends, he’s perfectly capable of doing that and more. Except that this was also exactly what Mariella told the FBI after she was arrested for soliciting, a charge that was mysteriously and instantly withdrawn, unlike the charges made against Harry for infringing the White Slave Traffic Act. They accused him of having brought Mariella from London to New York with the intention of prostituting her and profiting from her earnings. It was significant, too, that there was no mention in the press about the incident at Vic Damone’s party, despite the large number of witnesses and despite the presence of Hoover’s undercover man, who, it must be said, had a very pleasant job and was doubtless the one who ordered a colleague from his department to phone up (the conversation was recorded) and hire Maria’s services on the day she was arrested. This happened when she had just finished undressing for that FBI agent-cum-client in Harry and his mother’s apartment. According to our admired producer, he knew nothing about his protégée’s grubby activities and had no idea that she was a hooker.’ That was the word Captain Nemo chose to use. ‘He claims to have been quietly writing a script in the next room when the young woman burst in, stark naked, saying that there was a policeman in her bedroom. That is what he told the FBI and what he told me. He called himself ingenuous and stupid, but the FBI didn’t believe him, which is why he had to escape to England before the trial began, once he had been released on bail after spending a couple of weeks behind bars. He lost all his money and didn’t dare go back to America for years. Now, as I said, he’s sorted things out and will, at last, be able to return.’