He

Alyce Ardell climbs from the bed. She is naked.

  He reaches for her, but she is already gone.

  146

  He is a vespertine creature, a being of light and shade. He tilts and rises according to the ailerons of his moods.

  His eyes are very blue. The intensity of their color surprises those who meet him for the first time. They know him only as a gray man, a flickering in the dark.

  He thinks those eyes are why he can so often pass unrecognized on the street.

  He thinks those eyes are why women want to fuck him.

  147

  Babe calls to wish him a merry Christmas, but he can barely bring himself to speak.

  He holds in his hands the interlocutory decree turning another marriage to ash.

  He should be with his daughter.

  He should be with Lois.

  He cannot be alone.

  148

  Ruth stands before him. Her clothes are haphazardly packed. They spill like afterthoughts from her case. She asks:

  —Why did you do this to me?

  This is what he has done:

  He has taken Ruth to New York.

  He has promised a reconciliation.

  He has fucked Ruth, over and over.

  And he has cast Ruth aside once more.

  Why do you hate me? Ruth asks, just as she asked him once before.

  He is dizzied by repetition.

  —I don’t hate you.

  But perhaps he does. He can no longer tell. Ruth has taken his money. She has called him an abuser in the press. She has interfered in his career. He has heard half-truths and untruths spoken in her name, all in an effort to bleed him dry. Perhaps he has set out to hurt her in return, but he does not believe so. Being with her just seemed better than being alone.

  —But you could only do this to someone you hate.

  Ruth does not cry. He would prefer it if she did. It is her incomprehension that distresses him, her desire to understand what cannot be understood because it cannot be explained.

  —You treated me like your whore.

  He gazes at the lights of Manhattan. He wishes he could smother them all, one by one.

  He should be working. He has not worked in months.

  Goddamn Hal Roach and his contracts, and his cheapness, and his fascist friends.

  Goddamn Hal Roach and his aspirations to class, his talk of musicals and drawing room comedies, when the only Academy Awards Hal Roach has won are for short pictures, and the best of those is The Music Box, which he created for the studio—he, and Babe.

  Goddamn Hal Roach.

  All the sweat and effort, all the compromises, only so that his reputation may be traduced, so that these women can live in the houses he buys and spend the money he earns.

  —How many others did you fuck during our marriage?

  He cannot remember. None that mattered, he wants to say, except Alyce Ardell, and she matters only because she has no desire to be of consequence to him.

  Ruth joins him at the window. His presence in the city is known. Crowds have gathered to catch a glimpse, to seek an autograph. She stares down on the figures below. The waning moon of his features hangs gibbous before her.

  —What would they think of you, if they knew the truth: that the man they love is a fornicator, that he does not exist beyond a name on a screen, a name that is not even his own?

  Her voice is very small, a bitter whisper.

  —Why don’t you tell them?

  —I believe you’d almost like that. You’re too much of a coward to destroy yourself. You want someone else to do it for you.

  No, he says, that is not true.

  She laughs.

  —It’s your selfishness that’s so strange to me. I see you hurting me. I see you hurting your daughter. I even see you hurting Babe. What kind of man are you, to inflict such pain on those who care for you?

  This he knows: Babe is tiring of the battles with Hal Roach, the incessant squabbles over money and influence, over who made what and who owes whom. Babe has no interest in script credits. Babe does not concern himself with the ownership of ideas. Babe wishes only to work, and then to play.

  But he cannot bring himself to be angry with Babe.

  Ruth walks to the bed, the bed in which he has so recently fucked her, fucked all the love from her. She rearranges her clothing, and closes the case.

  —You want to be rid of me?

  —Yes.

  —Say it.

  —I want you out of my life.

  She picks up the case.

  —You’re just a child. You have no idea what you really want at all.

  149

  Hal Roach calls Ben Shipman. Ben Shipman has been anticipating the communication, although with no great enthusiasm. Ben Shipman has even considered asking his secretary to inform Hal Roach that her employer is currently indisposed, or traveling, or dead.

  You do know what he’s supposed to be doing right now, don’t you? Hal Roach asks.

  Yes, says Ben Shipman, but Hal Roach continues as though Ben Shipman has not spoken.

  —He is supposed to be here, on the lot, getting ready to make Swiss Cheese.

  Ben Shipman does not tell Hal Roach that Swiss Cheese is a terrible title for a picture. Ben Shipman particularly does not tell Hal Roach that Swiss Cheese is a terrible title for a picture because Ben Shipman is afraid of revealing that it is his missing client who has expressed this opinion, and with some force, even though his missing client has just signed the latest unsatisfactory contract (at least, unsatisfactory to him, each contract by now functioning as a symbol of a greater existential querulousness), of which Swiss Cheese constitutes the first production. What is most peculiar about Swiss Cheese is that Ben Shipman’s missing client is not alone in his dissatisfaction with the picture, for his missing client and Hal Roach have this much in common. Hal Roach would rather be making Rigoletto than Swiss Cheese, but Hal Roach’s hopes of filming operas have died following the implosion of his relationship with Mussolini’s son.

  So Hal Roach is unhappy even before Ben Shipman’s client packs a bag for Yuma, Arizona to marry a Russian émigré of considerable ill repute, a parasitic drunkard named Vera Ivanova Shuvalova, known by the stage name of Illeana, who travels with a dancing master named Roy Randolph—barely a step advanced from pimp and procurer—and a woman named Sonia, who claims to be a countess and may or may not be Vera Ivanova Shuvalova’s mother.

  All this before the ink on his latest divorce papers is even dry.

  So why, continues Hal Roach, is he in Yuma, marrying a Russian drunk?

  He is in Yuma because Arizona, unlike California, does not have a law requiring one’s name to appear in the local newspapers if one marries, but Ben Shipman recognizes that this is not the right answer to the question. Hal Roach is not concerned about geography beyond its application to the origins of Vera Ivanova Shuvalova. Ben Shipman has no idea why his client has married this woman. He might possibly have stayed out in the sun for too long, with liquor taken to further addle his brain.

  I really don’t know, says Ben Shipman.

  —And why is his ex-wife—his second ex-wife—telling the newspapers that she’s still married to him?

  —I don’t know that either.

  —In fact, what is his second ex-wife doing down in Yuma to begin with?

  —I believe that she followed him there with the intention of sabotaging the nuptials.

  —Does she still love him?

  —I think that is unlikely. I am of the opinion that she merely wishes to complicate his life.

  Hal Roach considers this possibility.

  —Why would someone bother trying to complicate his life when he seems more than capable of doing that for himself?

  —Vindictiveness. It’s hard to be vindictive toward oneself.

  —Well, if anyone can manage it, he can. Does he even understand the difference between pictures and reality any longer?

  —I have my doubts.

&nb
sp; Ben Shipman hears the sound of pages being turned at Hal Roach’s end of the line.

  Do you know what I’m looking at? says Hal Roach.

  I can’t begin to imagine, Ben Shipman lies.

  —I’m looking at the morals clause in his contract.

  Ben Shipman tries to sound surprised.

  Ah, says Ben Shipman.

  —Has he lost his reason?

  —Possibly.

  —Then tell him to find it again, and fast.

  150

  He marries Vera Ivanova Shuvalova on January 1st, 1938. He drinks a lot, both before and after the ceremony.

  He will spend most of 1938 drinking, for reasons not unconnected to this marriage.

  He is woken in his honeymoon suite at the Hotel del Sol in Yuma by the ringing of a telephone, which he briefly incorporates into his dream as the sound of a doorbell until he realizes that the bell does not cease its jangling when he answers the door.

  He picks up the telephone. It is the hotel manager on the line.

  The hotel manager, who speaks perfect English, appears to be struggling with his vocabulary.

  There is, says the hotel manager, well, we have, um, there is a, actually—

  The hotel manager decides to bite the bullet.

  —There is a lady here claiming to be your wife.

  He turns over in the bed. Vera is snoring softly beside him.

  —My wife is sleeping next to me.

  —This lady appears quite insistent. Should we call the police?

  He has a terrible sense of foreboding.

  —Perhaps you could describe the lady in question?

  The hotel manager provides, under the circumstances, a most accurate description of Ruth, but before anything more can be said, he hears shouts from the other end of the telephone, and a woman’s voice rapidly receding.

  I’m afraid the lady is on her way upstairs, the hotel manager informs him.

  He hangs up the telephone. He looks again at Vera. Vera should not be in the room with him. Babe should be in the room with him, wearing a cap and nightshirt, opening a window to see if there is any possibility that they might survive the drop.

  There comes a hammering at the bedroom door. It is loud enough to wake even Vera. He notices that she stinks of booze, but probably no worse than he does.

  What is it? Vera asks. Who is at the door?

  Ruth’s voice sounds from the hallway outside.

  —Bigamist! Bigamist!

  I think, he says, that you may be about to meet my ex-wife.

  It is said that when Jimmy Finlayson hears this story, he laughs so hard that he almost cracks a rib.

  But Hal Roach, as Ben Shipman can attest, does not laugh.

  And Babe does not laugh.

  151

  He and Vera hold a second wedding ceremony, this time a civil one. He charters a boat for the honeymoon. He plans to take Vera to Catalina Island. He fails to tell her until the last minute that Lois, his (first) ex-wife, will be joining them.

  The honeymoon to Catalina Island is canceled.

  Babe and Ben Shipman are in court. Babe is seeking to have his alimony payments to Myrtle reduced, but Babe and Ben Shipman spend most of the morning avoiding reporters and speaking of other matters.

  I’m starting to lose count of the number of times he’s been married, says Ben Shipman. I think he’s probably lost count too.

  He’s talking about touring with this Illeana, says Babe.

  —I take it you won’t be joining them to form a trio?

  —It’s not funny.

  —No, I guess it isn’t. So how do you feel about it?

  —How do you think I feel?

  Babe’s voice cracks. Ben Shipman wonders if Babe can ever be truly angry with his partner.

  Disappointed? Yes.

  Frustrated? Yes.

  But angry? No, it would appear not.

  This, Ben Shipman divines, is in the nature of love, because Ben Shipman also loves both of these men, in all their strangeness and their gentleness, in all their sorrows and their joys.

  He’s drinking on set, says Babe.

  —Does Hal know?

  —I think Hal suspects.

  —What about his son?

  Hal Roach, Jr., is an assistant on the latest picture.

  —Hal, Jr. doesn’t run to his old man with stories.

  —That’s something, at least.

  But Babe does not hear him. Babe is elsewhere, in some future place, mourning the absence of a shadow, listening for an echo that does not come.

  What will I do? Babe asks.

  —When?

  —When he leaves me.

  —You’ll wait.

  —For what?

  —For him to return.

  —And will he?

  He will always return to you, says Ben Shipman. I’d say that it’s like a marriage, but in his case it would be a bad analogy.

  152

  He builds a new house in Canoga Park, with a high wall around its gardens. This is to be his sanctuary, his fortress. Vera, and Countess Sonia, and—with disturbing frequency—Roy Randolph, the Dancing Master, join him inside, and the prison doors close. To compound his madness, he and Vera hold a third wedding ceremony, this time conducted by Father Leonid Znamensky of the Russian Orthodox Church, and witnessed by men of no consequence.

  He thinks that Father Leonid Znamensky resembles Rasputin, but he is too hungover to care.

  Ben Shipman visits the house at Canoga Park. There are papers to be signed. They are due back in court: more squabbles about maintenance and child support.

  One of the windows at the front of the house is broken, and a small bronze statuette lies on the gravel outside, surrounded by fragments of glass. Ben Shipman picks up the statuette and carries it with him to the door.

  He greets Ben Shipman on the step. Ben Shipman hands him the statuette.

  An accident, he says.

  —At least it missed you.

  —That one did.

  From somewhere inside the house comes the sound of singing. Vera often sings. When Vera is not singing, Vera plays recordings of herself singing. Ben Shipman is not sure if this is one of Vera’s recordings, or Vera performing in the flesh. Ben Shipman has been exposed to both, and each is equally bad.

  —Do you want to come in?

  Ben Shipman does not want to come in. If Ben Shipman comes in, Vera will sing to him. Vera may also try to hug him. Being hugged by Vera is like being smothered by meat soaked in rubbing alcohol.

  I left messages for you, says Ben Shipman.

  —I was planning to call.

  In the dimness of the house, the wraith that is Roy Randolph becomes visible, drink in hand. The singing stops to be replaced by two female voices screaming at each other in Russian.

  Ben Shipman hands him a pen. He signs the papers on the step without reading them. He is unshaven. His hand trembles.

  This has to end, says Ben Shipman. Walk with me.

  —I have work to do.

  —What work? You think they can’t open another bottle themselves?

  —Come to dinner sometime.

  —I don’t take dinner from a glass.

  The singing resumes, but at a louder volume than before.

  It’s teething troubles, he says.

  —Children have teething troubles, and maybe sharks. Which one are you? More to the point, which is she?

  —I can’t leave another failed marriage behind me.

  —Listen to me: better to leave it behind than take it with you everywhere you go for the rest of your days. You’re suffering. If you suffer, your pictures suffer. If your pictures suffer, your paycheck suffers.

  —Is this Hal speaking, or you?

  —Hal has spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars on Swiss Miss. Hal doesn’t think it’s going to recoup.

  —Hal’s the only one of us who’ll die wealthy. Hal always recoups.

  —Not this time. The picture isn’t good enoug
h.

  —Hal cut it behind my back. If it stinks, it’s Hal’s fault.

  —Hal had to cut it because you couldn’t.

  —That’s not true.

  But he knows it is. He tried to run the edits with Bert Jordan at home, but between Vera’s interference and spontaneous vocal performances, and Roy Randolph, the Dancing Master, hustling for work, and Countess Sonia proffering booze, everything fell apart. He needs space to work, but there is no space. He cannot think.

  Vera calls from upstairs, asking who is at the door. Behind her speaking voice, she sings to herself.

  I’d better be going, says Ben Shipman. You have a nice house. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to keep it after the divorce.

  153

  Vera mocks him when Chaplin calls on the telephone. She claims that his voice changes when it is Chaplin on the other end of the line. She says that she can tell by his manner if he is talking to Charlie Rogers or to Chaplin.

  Oh, Charlie! she mimics. Thank you for calling. Thank you so much for remembering me, your poor little friend from long ago.

  Sometimes he and Chaplin meet for dinner at the Masquers, or Musso & Frank, but such occasions are rare. So they speak on the telephone, but only of some bucolic past.

  I hate how you sound with him, Vera says. So fucking . . . obsequious.

  He is shocked—not by Vera’s swearing, but that she knows the meaning of the word “obsequious.” He wonders if she is having an affair, possibly with a lexicographer.

  But she is not correct. He is not merely grateful to hear from Chaplin.

  He is honored.

  He and Chaplin worked together, traveled together, roomed together, he and this man who is so much greater than the rest. They were close, once. They had a bond, which is why Chaplin calls him to talk of England.

  Chaplin remembers him.

  To Chaplin, he has meaning.

  154

  At the Oceana Apartments, he thinks:

  But if all this is true, then why, in the telling of his own life story, did Chaplin hurt me so?