“Harry, look at me.”
I do.
“What’s the matter?”
I begin, “Remember that day on the beach? When you told me I had to decide? Well, I’ve decided.”
“What have you decided, Harry?”
“I acted on impulse that day and I made a fool of myself. I’m sorry, but I’m acting on impulse again. There’s something that’s been eating at me. Something I didn’t tell you. About Chance.”
She shoots me a penetrating look. “What didn’t you tell me about Chance?”
I want to make this clear. “I’m not taking revenge on him,” I continue awkwardly, “and the last thing I want to do is hurt you, but I think you have a right to know.”
“Forget the pussyfooting. Out with it.”
“Remember what you said about Fitz in the Cocoanut Grove -that he was an anti-Semite?” I hesitate. “Well, so is Chance. In earnest. I’ve heard him say things.”
Rachel stiffens visibly, someone prepared for a slap in the face. She knows what is coming. “What kind of things?” she demands, voice brittle.
“Don’t ask me to spell it out. Take it from me. You don’t want to hear.”
Rachel draws the robe a little tighter around her shoulders. “A drink might help take the bad taste out of my mouth,” she says disgustedly. “Unfortunately for me, I quit drinking.” Her lips twist slightly, struggling to summon up an ironic smile. “But looking on the lighter side, maybe this cloud has a silver lining. When I hand the son of a bitch my resignation, I’ll be free to write that novel I’ve been threatening the public with for as long as you’ve known me.”
“Sure.”
“But I won’t,” she says quietly, more to herself than me.
I don’t contradict her. We both know she’s right on that score. Rachel says nothing else, sits absolutely still and quiet.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She glances up at me. “That’s the second time you’ve said sorry this afternoon, Harry. Don’t be a parrot.” She moves now, abruptly, leans over and plucks a cigarette from a lacquer box on the coffee table, lights it with a flick of a match. Rachel back to business, the decisive close to a distasteful subject. Chance dismissed like a fly. “You mentioned a favour,” she says, shaking out the match, tossing it into an ashtray. “What is it?”
“I want you to visit my mother.”
Her eyes lift quizzically. “Of course. When would you like to go?”
“Not the both of us. Just you.”
She scrutinizes me closely. “Now what the hell is all this about?”
It seems lately there are no clear explanations. The best I can offer is, “I can’t face her right now.” I lay my hands on my kneecaps and watch them shake there uncontrollably.
“You’re a mensch, Harry. A mensch doesn’t abandon his mother,” she says sternly.
That word, whenever she used to apply it to me, would make me angry and envious. I would have preferred to be one of her gigolos. Now it fills me with despair. The debris of a lot of mistakes has floated to the surface in the past couple of days. It seems I have a long history of betrayals. “I let her down once before, Rachel,” I whisper without lifting my eyes. “You know what she asked me just before I left to come down here? To buy her a new dress so I could pick her out from all the rest of those drab women on the ward the next time I visited. She sensed I was running out on her. Knew it.”
“Or you think she did.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to let her down again. My money’s going fast. What if she ends up in one of those goddamn state-run asylums?”
“Stop this, Harry,” she says.
“But don’t you see?” I look up, plead with her to understand. “I can’t let that happen.”
“I told you before,” she says impatiently, “if you need money, I’ll lend it to you. Take my word on it.”
“She’s my mother. My responsibility. I’m going to do my best to take care of her. But I just can’t face her now.”
Rachel isn’t about to relent. “Go and see her, Harry.”
“Believe me, she’d rather see you.” I’m begging, desperate. “You said I was abandoning her. I’m not abandoning her, I’m just asking for a reprieve, a little time to get things straight in my mind. Is that so much to ask? Look at me, for Christ’s sake! Do you think she should see me looking like this?” I hold up my trembling hands as testimony.
She studies my face, my hands. They are the only arguments which have any effect. “Sure I’ll go visit your mother,” she says at last, gently. “But what about you? When will I see you again?”
I’ve made my mind up about that, too. No more lingering hopefully for love. It’s time to try to get Rachel Gold out of my system. “I don’t know. Sometime” is the only answer I can manage.
“Come on, Harry. What are you up to?”
I get to my feet. “Don’t you get it, Rachel? I’m ashamed. About my mother. About you. I can’t forget Chance once accused you of being an influence on me. He meant a bad influence. What I didn’t say is that if you were an influence – it was only for the good.”
“Harry, there’s no reason for this.”
“Listen to me, Rachel. I’m not fit for human company just now. Grant me a little time. Okay?” That said, I start to leave the room.
“Harry,” she shouts after me, “this is nuts!”
I pause, momentarily, to look back at her on the sofa. “Give me this one last thing, Rachel. Please. Don’t try to find me.”
Then I go.
To save some money I sell whatever I can of my household goods and move into a rooming house whose only other boarder is a cadaverous-looking retired Lutheran minister from Minnesota. For the next few months I continue to look for work, but aside from jobs as an extra, everywhere I meet with failure. Evenings, I sit in my landlady’s verandah, depressed, worried, fatalistic, waiting for something to happen; what, I’m not sure. Something. In another economy move I’ve dropped my subscriptions to the movie magazines, but the Lutheran minister’s daily newspaper is full of tittle-tattle about the approaching premiere of Chance’s epic Western. The chat columns retail gossip, there are full-page ads for the picture, and Chance has obviously forsaken his role as the Hermit of Hollywood. Now interviews with him multiply alarmingly. His mild professorial face greets me at the breakfast table, staring out from the morning edition. A buzz is building around the picture and show-biz reporters, after the success of Cruze’s The Covered Wagon and rumours about Chance’s picture, stoke it with headlines announcing the rebirth of the Western.
Then one afternoon Chance’s Hispano-Suiza pulls to the curb outside and a chauffeur in livery comes briskly up the walk with an envelope in his gloved hand. Chance has tracked me down. The envelope contains two passes to the premiere of the Best Chance production of Besieged. There is also a note which explains something else the envelope holds, a cheque for five hundred dollars.
Dear Harry,
Enclosed are two tickets to the premiere of our film; bring your inamorata if you wish. I’m sure you have been informed she has left my employ and is now at Metro, but I bear no grudges. I hope you will be able to say the same and lay aside personal prejudices, and judge for yourself whether or not Besieged crystallizes the idealistic hopes for American film which we shared in our first conversations. Please come, I would like to hear that you approve of what has been accomplished. Oddly enough, your good opinion remains important to me.
You and I share credit for the scenario. Mr. Fitzsimmons tried to dissuade me from this step, but upon reflection I knew I could not deny what you have meant to this picture; it is only right to acknowledge your contribution.
Which leads to the delicate question of money. You will find enclosed a cheque for five hundred dollars. I believe this sum is a fair settling of my account with you, if not yours with me. I am sure you are currently encountering financial difficulties, so please note that the cheque is drawn on company finances and not on my personal account. This, I trust, will dispel any notion you might have that this could be regarded as an act of charity. It is, rather, the closing of the books on a debt.