Or porters on trains, Ben thought. They were passing through a waiting hall with deep chairs and mission-style chandeliers.
“I don’t understand about the hotel.”
“It’s an apartment hotel. People live there. But there’s a switchboard and a maid to change the sheets. A service, considering. You rent by the month.”
“And he used it as an office?”
“What do you think?” she said, looking at him.
They reached the high arched entrance, where Ben had to stop, blinded by the sudden glare. She had moved aside to put on her sunglasses and now was rummaging through her bag for cigarettes.
“I suppose it takes the guesswork out of getting a room. They asked me if I was going to use up the month. Since it was already paid for. They want to move someone else in. Collect twice.” She lit a cigarette, her hand shaking a little, then looked away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry to involve you in this. Such a welcome. But you’ll hear it anyway. So it was like that.”
He looked over at her, not sure what to say. A marriage he knew nothing about.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” he said finally. “You didn’t know?”
She shook her head. “Isn’t that the point? Cinq a sept. Like the French. Just get home in time for dinner.” She drew on the cigarette, her expression lost behind the glasses. “Or maybe he didn’t want to come home. So that’s that.” She lifted her head. “I wonder what she felt when she saw it in the papers. Maybe she left him. Maybe it was that. Well,” she said, the word like a thud, so final that for a moment neither of them spoke. Then she stepped away from the wall. “So come. With any luck we’ll have the house to ourselves. These last few days- Why do people bring food? Salka brought noodle pudding. Noodle pudding in this climate.” She turned to him, still hidden behind the glasses. “Please. Don’t listen to me. All this-business, it’s not your problem. It’s good you’re here.” She dropped the cigarette, grinding it out, and started for the parking lot, lined with spindly palms, then stopped again, staring at the rows of cars, gleaming with reflected sun. “You know what’s the worst? I didn’t know he was unhappy. Isn’t that terrible, not to know that about someone? Maybe the woman was part of all that, I don’t know. So maybe it’s my fault, too.”
“No. It’s nobody’s fault.”
“I didn’t even notice,” she said, not hearing him. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel. One day, one thing, the next-” She put a hand up to her forehead, covering her glasses. “I’m sorry. I must sound like a crazy woman. Talking like this. You’re here five minutes-”
“It’s all right. I don’t know how to feel, either.”
She turned, dropping her hand. “Yes. I forget. It’s not just me, is it?”
He followed her to a convertible with the canvas roof down, shining with chrome, the metal handle already hot to the touch. She opened the door, then stood still for a second, looking at him.
“What?”
“Just then, with the bag, you were like him. Not the looks. You don’t look alike. But the gesture.”
He got in, flustered, and watched her start the car.
“I know it’s hard, but-tell me what happened. I want to know. The papers. I mean, dizzy spells.”
“That was their idea. I said, why not a stroke? Anybody can have a stroke. Even young. But they said a doctor could tell, if he looked. A fall, it doesn’t matter.”
“Who said?”
“The studio. They’re superstitious. Bad things. Maybe they stick. They’re not supposed to happen.” She glanced up at the bright sky. “Just sunshine.”
“But how? Through a window?” he said, still trying to picture it.
“There was a balcony. Just enough to step on. You know the kind?”
“A Juliet,” he said automatically.
“Yes? Like the play? So if you got dizzy, you could fall.”
“If you got dizzy.”
She looked at him, then up at the rearview mirror, backing out, physically moving away.
“Look,” she said, nodding toward the station doors as Polly came out with Carole Landis, arms linked. She waved and moved the car forward in the line to the exit. “Did you really meet Paulette Goddard on the train?” Not wanting to talk about it. “What was she like?”
“Nice,” he said, forced to go along.
“Maybe you are.”
“No, she was.”
“She won’t be after Polly’s through with her.”
“What was that about? With Chaplin?”
“Polly hates Chaplin. So he must be a Communist. Everyone she hates is a Communist. She hated Daniel, too, when he was in the union. She thinks they’re all Communists in the union.”
“Then why is she doing him a favor? Covering.”
“It’s for Yates. Daniel was important to him. Partners made money. So he was giving him a big picture to do. You know at Metro you have to wait years for that. That’s why he left there. You know what he’s like. Everything today. A skating picture, but still. A good budget.”
Not failing, on his way up.
“Skating. Like Sonja Henie?”
“Vera Hruba Ralston,” she said, drawing out the name. “You know her? Yates is in love with her. So it was a good job for Daniel. They paid him while they fixed the script.”
“Hruba?”
“‘She skated out of Czechoslovakia and into the hearts of America.’“
Ben did a double take, then smiled. “Really?”
She nodded. “On the posters,” she said, lighting another cigarette at the stop sign.
“Who’s Mr. Ralston?”
“She got it off a cereal box.”
“You’re making it up.”
“You don’t have to, not here.” She looked up at the sky again. “The fog’s burning off early. Sometimes it takes all morning. Shall we go to the hospital first?”
She pulled out of the lot, looking straight ahead. Smoke curled up from the cigarette between her fingers on the steering wheel, then flew back in the breeze as they sped up, mixing with loose wisps of hair. What California was supposed to be like-a girl in a convertible. But not the way he expected.
Across the street, they drove past a sleepy plaza of tile roofs and Mexican rug stalls, a village for tourists. Behind it, just a block away, the American city began: office buildings, coffee shops, anywhere. Harold Lloyd had dangled from a clock here and the Kops had chased each other through Pershing Square and dodged streetcars (red, it turned out), but all that had happened in some city of the mind. The real streets, used so often as somewhere else, looked like nowhere in particular.
They drove out on Wilshire, the buildings getting lower, drive-ins and car lots with strings of plastic pennants.
“The first time, you think how can it be like this,” she said, noticing his expression. “The signs. And then you get used to it. Even my father. He likes it now.”
“Well, the climate-”
“Not so much that. He’s hardly ever outside. For him it’s a haven,” she said, her voice so throaty that it came out “heaven.” “All those years, moving. One place. Another place. Then here, finally safe, and other Germans are here, so it’s good. The sun, I don’t think it matters for him. He lives in his study. In his books.”
“What was Central Station? I never-”
“ Anhalter before. They changed it. So it wouldn’t sound German. You know it?”
“ Anhalter Bahnhof. Of course.”
“Tell him. He’ll be pleased.”
She made a right on Vermont, pointing them now toward the hills.
“Do we pass Continental on the way?” Ben said.
“We can, if you like.”
“But if it’s out of our way-”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not conscious, you know. We just sit there. Maybe it’s better for him. There’s so much damage, the brain-if he were awake, what would that be like for him? Sometimes I think it would be better if-and then I think, how can you think that?” She bit her lower lip. “But he did. I don’t know why. But that’s what he wanted. Not this.”
He looked away, across the miles of bungalows.
“Did he leave a note?” he said finally.
“No.”