he: A Novel(95)

– Strange Caravan sounds like a gypsy musical.

– I’m sure they’ll change it. I don’t think I want to be in another gypsy musical. I’m not even sure about a western. They may have to insure the horse.

– I’m very pleased for you.

And he is.

My salary will be paid to our company, says Babe.

– That’s not an issue.

But he is glad to hear this. Babe can play other parts, but he cannot. It says much about Babe that the contract should be structured so he also will benefit.

– Will you get to carry a gun?

– A musket, I hear.

– Well, just remember which end is which.

Thank you for the advice, says Babe. How I’ll manage without you, I do not know.

The picture ends up being titled The Fighting Kentuckians. Babe is the best thing in it. Doors open for Babe. Babe only has to push a little to enter.

But Babe does not push.

Babe stays true to him.





189


It is 1950. His son would have been twenty this year.

Chaplin’s son would have been thirty-one.

Three days Chaplin had with his ill-made child. He, at least, was given nine days with his boy.

Norman: that was the name of Chaplin’s son.

And he sees his son’s name every time he writes his own.





190


There is to be one more picture, one last appearance together on screen.

There should not be, but there is.

Hope burns, but it burns slowly.

Who could blame them for accepting the offer? Three months in Europe, with enough money on the table for Babe to stave off the IRS and Myrtle. He needs the income less. His tax affairs are less complex than Babe’s – although it is hard to imagine anyone’s tax affairs being more complex than Babe’s – and his ex-wives are less vindictive than Myrtle – although it is hard, etc.

But most of all, it is a picture, and an expensive one: $1.5 million, more than has ever before been spent on one of their productions. It is a set, and a crew. It is he and Babe, together. His input will be welcomed. It will not be as it was at Fox, at MGM. He will be an integral part of the process.

He travels to Paris ahead of Babe to work on the script. And he has ideas, so many ideas. The yellow pads filled during his years of illness will not now gather dust.

The writers have been laboring on the script for weeks.

The script is terrible.

How can it be so terrible? It can be so terrible because it is the work of four writers: two Americans, one Frenchman, one Italian. The Italian speaks Italian, and a little French. The Frenchman speaks only French. One of the Americans speaks French, but no Italian. One of the Americans speaks only English.

You’re writing the script, he points out. You’re not supposed to be the script.

To further complicate matters, he and Babe deliver their lines in English, but everyone else responds in French, a language he and Babe do not understand. The director, Léo Joannon, does not speak English, only French. Just one member of the crew is fluent in all three languages.

It’s the Tower of Babel, observes Babe, but with fewer laughs.

– I could salvage it, if only they’d listen.

– Listening isn’t the problem; understanding is the problem. I don’t have time to learn French before I expire.

He does his best. He contributes gags, and suggests changes. But he is sick, so very sick. On top of his diabetes, he now contracts dysentery. He feels pain every time he pisses, but only a dribble emerges from his poor withered cock. His prostate is ulcerated. He is hospitalized, but there, too, no one speaks English.

Ida is by his side. Ida translates. It is all that he can do not to cry. He believes that he may die here, in Europe, his death announced in a foreign tongue.

And Babe is ill. Babe’s heart is giving him trouble. Babe gains weight while he, ravaged by dysentery, loses it, an unwelcome transfer of mass to maintain an infernal equilibrium, as though the partnership were being paid by the pound.

Lucille is worried.

Can’t we just go home? Lucille asks, when she comes to see him in the hospital.

Babe is resting. Babe wants to visit, but the heat is extreme, and Lucille does not wish Babe to exert himself. They have been led here by hubris, he thinks. They will never see the promised money because they will both be dead in the ground.

– We can’t leave. We’re contracted. If we leave, they’ll sue us.

– Let them.

It is bluster. Babe may be unwell at present, which is not good, but the stress of another court case, and the further depletion of his finances, could potentially kill him. Babe will be able to clear his debts if they can just hang on until the end of filming. The picture must be finished, for the sake of everyone involved. To abandon it would cost more than to continue, even as the budget escalates: $2 million.

$2.5 million.

He leaves the hospital. He is kept functioning with injections for the pain, like a racehorse past its prime. He rests in a tent between takes, under the supervision of a doctor, under unfamiliar skies. An English-speaking director is found for their scenes: Jak Szold, who now goes by the name of John Berry. Jak Szold has fled to Europe from the United States after being named as a Communist. If Babe has any objections to this, Babe keeps them largely to himself. Babe is simply glad to be advised by someone intelligible, and every completed scene is another step closer to the end of the ordeal.