The Chelsea Girls(69)
“You threw it. On purpose.”
“No, Arthur. I went up on my lines. It happens to actors all the time. I was too rattled by that meeting up in Westchester, all the menacing talk. I’m an artist, and can’t be handled like that.”
He slammed his hand into the side of my face, palm out, so that my head hit the window hard and bounced off. Everything went dark for a couple of seconds, and I wondered if my neck would still hold up the boulder that had been my brain. The thick loopiness of shock was quickly replaced by searing pain that brought me out of my champagne buzz fast.
The taxicab driver glanced at me from the rearview mirror, then looked away, eyes on the road. No one was going to save me now.
We headed into Central Park, along the winding road that ran parallel to Fifth Avenue. I knew better than to ask where we were going. The blow had calmed Arthur, temporarily at least, and I didn’t want to risk another smack. I gingerly rubbed my head and tried to come up with a plan. Nothing.
The first act of the play had gone beautifully, just as we’d rehearsed. Which made what I had to do even harder. Earlier, when everyone was milling around, warming up on stage, I spotted Arthur—who’d stopped by to deliver a dozen anemic roses—staring at Hazel like a wolf. He asked me if I’d heard about the movie role, and I’d had to admit there was still no news. “Any day now, I’m sure,” I said, but he just shook his head. Right then, I’d realized that the only way to save Hazel from Arthur’s scheme was to tank the play. Short term, it would be painful. The thought made me ill. But less so than initiating the scandal they’d cooked up to divert the press’s attention from the arrest of Julius Rosenberg. If Hazel and Charlie’s relationship came to light, if Hazel was discovered sleeping with the enemy, she’d be attacked by both sides, the theater community as well as the militant right. She’d never write, never work, again.
At least this way I’d get the heap of blame. I would be the flighty Hollywood star who blew it, big-time. While the reviews would be scathing toward me, Hazel would eventually go on to write another play. I could then hightail it back to California to mourn the fact that I’d thrown away the best role of my life.
When the moment came, I’d stopped short, looked out into the audience, and let my eyes go wide, in the most sublime imitation of an actor forgetting her lines ever performed. Meanwhile, the words went around and around in my head. If not for Matthew, I’d be dead, part of the rubble. Never remembered, even by those who hate me.
I said them silently in my head three, four times. The audience stirred, murmured, the pressure building. It was as excruciating for me as it was for them. I fought against every good instinct I had to keep going, to say anything at all, to cross the stage and sit in a chair, anything, anything but stand there like a fool.
Another actor eventually came to my rescue and said my line for me. From there, everything and everyone slid downhill, fast. We staggered along aimlessly until the curtain finally fell.
If Hazel had been a painter instead of a playwright, it was as if I’d slashed her best artwork with a surgeon’s scalpel.
Before tonight, I’d desperately wanted to show everyone what a star I am, prove how perfect I was for this role. It wasn’t easy to let go of my own ego. But I had to. I had to in order to save a friend, all while destroying what she believed in most.
I had my reasons. That’s what I kept telling myself. I’d succeeded in tanking the play and, in doing so, saved Hazel and Charlie from the Party’s clutches. They were of no value anymore. A twisted triumph.
* * *
“Pull over here.”
Arthur threw some bills at the driver as I stepped out. We were just north of the boat pond in the very heart of the park. During daylight hours, the area would be rife with tourists and city dwellers out enjoying the shade of the giant sycamore trees. This late, the place was empty. Silent. No one would hear me out here.
He dragged me along a dirt path. The hilly area was called the Ramble, where pathways curved in, around, and across each other, winding over a hill covered with shrubs and trees and back down the other way past a gurgling waterfall. During the day, it was like a maze, where you couldn’t tell which way was east or west due to the dense greenery. In the dead of night, the place was frightening. I tried to keep my sense of direction. We passed no one.
We ended up standing on a rocky outcropping overlooking a small inlet. He shoved me down and my knees banged hard on the stone. To think that this boulder had existed in this same spot for thousands and thousands of years, long before humans, long before the Soviet Union or the United States even existed. Small glints of light shone up from the surface of the rock, and for some reason their beauty almost brought me to tears.
“Why did you do that?” asked Arthur.
“I didn’t do anything.” My words came out as a whimper.
“You’re useless to us now. You’ll never be a star after that. They’ll kill you, and me. Everything is closing in and you chose this moment to protect your friend? Don’t think I don’t know it. And they will, too. They’re not dumb, Magnild.”
Magnild. The name I was given as a child. What my grandmother used to call me.
He kicked me hard in the upper thigh. I rolled over and gripped it with both hands. “Stop. I don’t deserve this. Please, Arthur.”