Letter From Inside the Story
Fiction
I will go to work tomorrow. In a week on the set, I will make more money than the men in your union hall will make in half a year. I stand in awe of my life, now steeped in luxury. I marvel at the adoration of millions. The public is mesmerized by my every gesture. They discuss, over their evening meals and in their media, my daily activities, my preferences in dress, and in the way, I hold a glass. Women imitate me, and men fantasize about me. My accountant tells me I am wealthy beyond comprehension; my agent says I am beautiful beyond belief; my studio thinks I am gifted beyond the ability of any living actress. After years of struggle, I have it all; so it is said of me.
Today, as in many days, I move about my mansion in the hills of Hollywood, and I stop, I stand there as though stricken, and I think of you. I feel a tightening in my chest, but the tears do not come with the ease they once flowed. You are receding into the depths of my memory. Each day you are more distant, more removed from this new life of mine. You fade, even as I cling to you, lean on your endless strength, and hold you in time, to recall the way we were.
This life of wealth and fame achieves meaning in your memory. It was you who had me dance in the marquee lights, who taught me to view life as a grand drama in which everything is significant. The Director, you said, allows nothing on the stage that does not contribute to the play; the script does not contain a word that does not advance the story.
My fairy-tale life began with you, and was propelled forward by you. But this bliss is shattered by your absence. It is the one discordant note in a perfect symphony.
Remember that day in Joker’s Tavern? The day we met? You tried to pick me up. I still have the note you had the bartender pass to me. It hangs, framed, over my writing desk: “Who are you?” I checked you out when you weren’t looking, which wasn’t often, was it? Once, when I glanced toward you, you looked at me in the same instant. Trite though it may sound, the moment our eyes met, the earth moved. God, those eyes: I came to love those eyes that conveyed both endless sadness and unbounded delight. I like to think that we both knew, in that instant, that a grand story was to be played out through us. You bought a drink for me, and we flirted, but I could not have you think I was easy, so I left without committing myself to a date, or even arranging for another meeting at Jokers. I remember, in the parking lot, a red Chevrolet convertible with gaudy fake leopard-skin upholstery. Who would drive something so gauche, I wondered. But oh, the fun we had, the things we did in that car. It nearly broke my heart when I saw it in the newsreels, engulfed in flames.
You were at Joker’s with your friends from the foundry the next time I went there with my friends from the office. I thought I was being nonchalant, but in hindsight I know I was openly flirting with you. The two groups joined tables, young secretaries in heels and nylons with tough men made hard by handling liquid steel. We laughed and talked late into the evening, and in the end, I think we both knew we were “a couple.”
From the beginning, I sensed another woman. Women sometimes have that sixth sense about the presence of another woman in the lives of their men. I knew she- whoever she was- was not in your life at that time. All of your time and attention were mine. In those days, most everyone was returning from the war, so I assumed she was a village beauty in France or Germany, left behind when the troops were ordered home. I learned, over time, the story of Jeanne-Marie, and through her story, I learned of yours, and of people like you and Jeanne-Marie, who lived lives of deception and danger.
When I learned of who she was, and who you were, I knew the deadly game the two of you played in Europe was still being played in the union halls and factory floors in your own country. Through you, I learned nothing can be what it seems. I’ve taken that lesson from the amateur stages in Louisville, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis to the world stage in Hollywood. You lived in a world of illusion. Acting, too, is the creation of illusion, and I learned well.
You should have been an actor, Darling; you would have been the best. No one else could carry off the web of illusions you wove with such aplomb. Even now, when I think about those days, I don’t know what was real and what was fabricated from your imagination. When I think of you, I don’t know who it is that I’m remembering. Were you a dupe or a con artist? Were you caught up in grand events beyond your control, or did you create events in order to produce the high drama of your life?
Once I knew the secret of Jeanne-Marie, I researched her. It wasn’t difficult- she is quite famous among historians, the fallen Nazi regime, and the French Resistance. I have visited Europe in order to walk where she walked, all the way to her end at the Dachau death camp. Now, that I am influential in the Hollywood world of illusion, I have requested of my studio a script, the story of Jeanne-Marie Renier. Even as I write this, fourteen writers are assembled at a conference table with the purpose of forging my movie. In it, I will play my greatest role: I will be Jeanne-Marie.
A life-long chain of events you set in motion in a smoky bar at the edge of an industrial city so long ago will have come full circle. I will have closure. My debt to you will be paid.
