Melting the Snow on Hester Street Read online

  He looked tiny, Max thought. As if to reassure himself. The desk was far too big for him. It looked absurd. He looked absurd. Like Humpty Dumpty at a dining table.

  ‘You should get a smaller desk,’ Max said. ‘The proportions are all wrong. Don’t you think?’ He sat down in the low leather seat – too low – in front of the desk which so offended him. And immediately regretted having spoken. They looked at one another. Max crossed his legs. Sat forward. And then: ‘But I guess that’s not top of your concerns right now.’

  Joel Silverman glared at him.

  Max said: ‘So. Here I am. A day late. I apologize for that. Stuff I had to do down in Palm Springs. But I think I found a perfect spot for Wishing You Joy. I think we could shoot the whole thing right there on a single location. It’s driving distance from LA, so no overnights. It’s going to halve the cost. We have the lake right there. It’s absolutely—’

  ‘Max. What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Wishing You Joy?’

  ‘Never mind Wishing You Joy. I wish you anything but. What did you do with the dailies, Max?

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘All the outtakes from Lost At Sea. Where are they? I sent down for them yesterday – and guess what? They’ve vanished. Last seen, signed out by you – on Saturday morning. What in hell did you do with them, Max? I got the vaults being turned upside down. Nobody knows where they are. Except you.’

  Max opened his eyes wide. ‘You’re kidding me? Where have they gone?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Hey, I’ve come in this morning to go through them with you. You know that. We’re starting from the beginning, just like you said. You, me, Leeson and every bit of footage I have. Remember? Butch Menken didn’t like what we made. So we’re starting again.’

  ‘Where the hell is it all, Max? Where’s the old footage? What have you done with it? How can we start again, if we’ve got no extra footage?’

  ‘Joel, I wasn’t even here yesterday! Why the hell are you asking me? How should I know?’

  ‘You think I’m running a goddamn fucking art school here? I am running a business. What did you do with them, Max? I’m asking you one last time.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Honestly, I wish I could help you,’ Max said solemnly. ‘But I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hell. I want those rushes as much anyone else does. Now you and Butch have decided the movie’s got to change. Well, it’s got to change. Here I am to re-edit. Get my movie out in the theatres. That’s what matters. That’s what it’s all about …’

  Joel Silverman gazed at Max, long and hard and, finally, he shrugged. He’d expected nothing else. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done with them, Max. But you’d better get them back here. Fast. Or you’ve just wasted half a million bucks. My bucks. Get those dailies back here. On my desk. By eleven o’clock. Or I’m firing you, Max. You understand? I don’t want to do it. But you’re making me do it. We get Lost At Sea into a shape that’ll satisfy the censors—’

  ‘I think you mean satisfy Butch Menken.’

  ‘Or there’s no Lost At Sea.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’

  ‘COME ON?’ he repeated, incredulous. ‘A kholere af dir, Max Beecham. You piss my money away. The end. Now get out of here!’

  But Max didn’t move.

  ‘Get out!’

  He said, ‘Joel – I’m not getting you the dailies.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘No. I’m not … I cut them up.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘After we talked. Case by case. I cut them up. The Catholic ladies are wrong. The test screening was wrong. And most of all Butch Menken—’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about Butch.’

  ‘He’s wrong. And he knows he’s wrong. And so do you know he’s wrong.’

  ‘The test screening is never wrong.’

  ‘It was the wrong audience. It’s a great film. You said it yourself – before the screening. It’s a beautiful film. That’s what you said. Remember?’

  Joel didn’t reply. Of course he remembered.

  ‘I know you remember it, Joel. You said it. You said, “Max – it’s the best movie you’ve put together in three years!” How can you let the Catholic ladies trample over that – huh? Huh?’

  Joel didn’t reply.

  ‘What happened to you, Joel? Don’t you care any more? You used to care! You used to be the only goddamn producer in Hollywood who looked beyond the bottom buck. And now look at you! You’ve got Butch Menken coming in here to make his crumby, filthy, dumb, stupid goddamn musicals. Everything this studio ever stood for, Butch Menken stands against. Did you even see his last film?’

  ‘Did you see the receipts?’

  Max considered his boss. Despite the bluster, he knew he had struck a note. ‘A kholere af dir, Joel Silverman! A plague on you too!’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘I give you the best film I ever made. It’s yours. It’s out of my hands now. You’re the boss. You can leave it in the vault and leave it to rot. If that’s what you want to do. But at least I didn’t let you trash it – for the sake of a few extra bucks from the Catholic Morality bitches—’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘—who wouldn’t know a decent movie if it smacked them on the nose and bust every blue-ass, blue-nose bone in their dumb-ass bodies … And maybe, one day, when Butch has been and gone, and left this studio the pile of shit he’ll turn it into, you’ll thank me for standing up … and for remembering why at least some of us ever got into this business in the first place.’

  A moment of pure silence followed. And then – in his outrage, Joel Silverman laughed aloud. ‘You piss half a million of my dollars down the pan, and you think I’m going to thank you for it? Get outta here. Hey! And before you go, listen to me.’ Silverman raised a finger, pointed it at him and – though Max was already standing by then, and though Silverman still sat, and though it was only one small, fat finger – the menace of that single movement brought Max to a halt. ‘One more stunt like that – any kind of stunt; one false move, you leave a cigarette butt in the wrong place – and I don’t care how good your movies are. I don’t care how much money you’ve made me in the past. I don’t care how much you kick and squeal – you’re finished here. Fired. Out. I’ll make it my personal goal – my only goal – that you never make another movie. Not for me, and not for anyone else in this town.’

  ‘I understand,’ Max said solemnly. He did, too. Actually, he couldn’t believe his luck. As he walked back out of that long room, with all the dignity he could muster, he was tensed for one final missile – verbal or otherwise – to come hurling towards the back of his head, but it didn’t come.

  He longed to know what Joel would do with Lost At Sea. Whether he would take on the censors, or leave the film to rot. He longed to ask, but it wasn’t the moment. That he managed to be walking out of that room with his job intact was astonishing enough. He would enquire after the film’s fate a little later. And he would fight for it, at every step. Because that was what Max did. When he cared about something. He fought for it.

  32

  ‘So … when you discovered the building was boarded up, and there was no sign of your daughter?’ Mr Gregory handed his menu back to the waiter and settled back into his chair. Eleanor had agreed to go to lunch with him after all. Anything to keep him from closing the file altogether. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Well. I made enquiries. I found out what had happened to the building. I went to City Hall and found Mama’s death recorded … and then … I didn’t know what to do, Mr Gregory. There was no one in the city I could go to, not safely. And wherever I turned, there were always people who might know me.’

  ‘You needed to be careful?’

  ‘I needed somebody to make the enquiries for me – that’s all. I had money, but not much. I did what I could. I searched for her. All the hospitals, the orphanages, the warm little corners of the city where kids with nowhere to go
used to sleep sometimes. Matz had shown them to us – the places where he’d sometimes hidden when he was a little boy. They hadn’t changed. I thought perhaps Isha might have … But she was so small then. Only three-and-a-half when we left her. Of course she wouldn’t have remembered them. She was nowhere. There was no sign of her. Not anywhere, Mr Gregory. She had simply vanished.’

  Gregory kept his eyes lowered, and scribbled something – anything – onto the sheet in front of him. It was tragic. Of course it was. But the more he listened to her story, the clearer the truth became. His father should have put a stop to this inquiry years ago. It was a disgrace, really, that he had strung her along all these years. And now here was he, still listening to her tale of woe. I’m a shrink, he thought to himself in disgust. Not a detective. Yesterday they had agreed a fee of seven dollars per hour. Just now, before they came to lunch, she had agreed to double it. Fourteen dollars per hour. It was astronomical.

  He knew he should stop her. Set her straight. Put her back on the train to Los Angeles.

  On the other hand …

  She didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to be set straight. She wanted to talk and talk and talk … until some kind of miracle occurred.

  ‘Vanished,’ he repeated, finally. ‘You couldn’t find her anywhere. There was no sign of her. So … What did you do?’

  ‘I stayed for three months. Matz sent me money. But then – something happened. Nothing important. I was on Hester Street, searching, searching – and somebody called out to me. I looked up and there was Dora’s little sister gazing up at me! Dora – my beloved friend. From the factory. Her sister was not so little any more. I heard my name:

  ‘“Eleana?”

  ‘God! You can’t imagine what it felt like! Just to have it confirmed that I had indeed existed in this place. And there she was! Izzie. Dora’s baby sister! Staring right up at me, her eyes looking directly into mine. And she knew it was me, just as well as she knew her own name. I could see the smile just waiting to break across her face.

  ‘God, and how I longed to embrace her.’

  ‘And did you embrace her?’ Gregory heard himself asking. Carried away, for an instant, by a grain of hope. ‘Perhaps she might have known where Isha was?’

  ‘I did not. No. I couldn’t. She wept – because of course she thought she had seen a ghost. I shook her by her little shoulders. I said, “Where is my Isha?” And she stopped crying. She looked at me as if I was quite, quite stupid …’

  ‘And what did Isha say, Mrs Beecham?’

  ‘She said, “Why, Eleana, Isha is dead.”’

  ‘That’s exactly what she said …?’

  ‘I left the city the following day. Matz had already written, begging me to come home. He was frightened for me. And he was right to be frightened. After Izzie had seen me, it wasn’t safe. I had the ticket for the train in my pocket already. Matz had told me to hire a detective before I left. And so I did that.’

  ‘May I ask, how did you find him?’

  She shrugged. ‘He was just a man – with a card, Mr Gregory.’ Eleanor smiled at him. ‘Rather like you … I don’t remember how I found him. After I saw Izzie, it was a blur. I was so frightened. For me and for Matz, too. Of course. They would have tracked him to Hollywood eventually.

  ‘I asked the detective to discover the fate of every person who had lived in the block … everyone who was living in the block, when they shut it down. And I gave him the post-office box number in Los Angeles …’

  ‘And?’

  Eleanor laughed. ‘Well what do you think? Here I sit. Still trying to find out.’

  33

  Matthew Gregory might have had a megaphone attached his brain, Eleanor reflected; it’s how easy it was to know what was running through his mind. She knew what he thought of her story, and what he thought of her, too: noticed the flickers of electricity, every now and then, when he remembered that the woman before him was not simply any woman, but a woman who had dined with Charlie Chaplin … She saw that. She saw bewilderment, impatience, disbelief – of course. And restlessness and inattention … Sometimes she spotted him glancing up at the clock on the wall, or maybe the ticker machine in the hallway, and she knew he was quietly totting up her bill.

  She saw, also – that sometimes his attention wandered to her voice, her face, her throat, her slim limbs. She would sit away from him. Speak faster and louder until his attention returned. And she saw that there were also moments, many of them, when he was moved by her story.

  He had a kind face, she decided, beneath the oiled hair, the Arbuckle hamster cheeks. And when she talked about Isha, lying ill in her cot – or perhaps in an orphanage somewhere, or perhaps in the same gutter Matz had used for refuge, fifteen years before her – she could see that he was imagining his own daughter: five years old, playing safely in her bright green suburban back yard, only a couple of miles away.

  All of this, she noted and understood. Greedy, lustful, incurious, impressionable … but not unkind. He was not a wicked man. And above all he was someone to talk to. Someone who would sit and listen. What she needed to escape was the pity.

  Finally, she said: ‘You must be hungry, Mr Gregory. I am so sorry – I keep talking and you don’t get a chance to eat your lunch.’

  ‘Not at all!’ he said politely.

  She looked down at her own plate, the food on it untouched, the sight of it turning her stomach a little bit. Really, she didn’t want to eat. ‘If it’s all right with you, Mr Gregory, I’m feeling rather ill. I may leave you here in the restaurant. Would it be very rude? I might just leave you in peace to enjoy your lunch. And perhaps I will head back to my hotel after all. I’m sure you have a whole lot of other business to attend to this afternoon in any case – or perhaps,’ she added hopefully, pointlessly, ‘maybe something I’ve said might have encouraged you to make some fresh enquiries?’

  He shook his head. He said he would wait until she had told him ‘everything’ before he launched into any new investigations. ‘However,’ he added, already standing up (the poor man was indeed quite peckish), ‘you are right, I do have other business to attend to. And of course I won’t be charging you for the afternoon. Please don’t concern yourself with that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied. It was the last thing that concerned her.

  They shook hands over their congealing lunch plates. ‘I think I may drop in with my broker this afternoon, Mrs Beecham. As soon as I have eaten. See what he has to say about your friend Mr Chaplin’s theories on the market …’

  ‘But Mr Gregory,’ she frowned. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to mention … I hope you wouldn’t …’

  He held up a paw to stop her. ‘Don’t even imagine it, Mrs Beecham! Neither the name of “The Tramp”, ha-ha, nor your own shall escape from my lips! Not to my broker. Not even to my beloved wife. Client confidentiality is the cornerstone of this business. It’s the cornerstone, Mrs Beecham. Without it, I have no business at all!’

  34

  Another telegram awaited her when she reached her rooms, this one sounding more impatient than the last, and it made her smile. Butch never did like to be kept waiting.

  I AM WORRIED ABOUT YOU BABY STOP URGENT YOU CALL STOP B

  ‘B.’ Who was always so good to her, who had tracked her down to a hotel in Reno, who was worried enough to send her not one wire, but two. She missed him, suddenly.

  Her mind turned automatically to Max. Between all his other concerns, had he missed her? Did he wonder where she was? Had he paused, for the briefest moment, to try to find her? Somehow, she couldn’t imagine it.

  She booked the call to Butch’s number at Lionsfiel and waited for him to come on the line. It would be good to talk to him. God, it would be better than good – it would be wonderful.

  ‘Butch? Is it you?’

  ‘BABY!’

  At the sound of his voice, five hundred miles away, crackling warmth and concern across the line, all the way from Hollywood – from home – she felt a rus
h of love and gratitude for him. Butch, who was always there for her, who was so strong and calm. Who knew her better than anyone. Except for Max, who knew her absolutely – almost – but who didn’t care for her any more. It was a beautiful thing to be loved and desired.

  Suddenly, she longed to give up the fight. To surrender all her secrets. To surrender, altogether. She could leave Max and allow Butch to take care of her. And he would take care of her. No matter what, he would always take care of her. And maybe it wouldn’t be perfect. Maybe he would lose interest once he had vanquished them both – her and Max – in a single swoop. Of course he would lose interest. She knew it. She knew him. But right then, hearing his voice, it seemed hard to believe anything bad of him at all.

  She remembered the first time he had invited her to come live with him. It was not long after Max had left for Silverman Pictures, and just six weeks after she had first taken solace in his bed. That was the closest she had ever come to saying, Yes. Until this moment.

  Except he hadn’t asked. Not yet. All he’d said was ‘BABY!’ and already she could feel the tears of defeat coursing down her cheeks.

  ‘Butch? It’s me … It’s Eleanor.’

  ‘I know who it is! Sweetheart, I’ve been so worried about you! What’s up? What in hell are you doing in Reno? And don’t tell me you’re finally seeing sense and throwing out that lousy husband. I checked with the courthouse. Nothing. Nada … Reno, baby? Of all places! What’s happening?’

  But she was sobbing so hard she couldn’t speak. ‘Eleanor! … Are you crying?’

  35

  Butch was still mid-call, and still without having broached the delicate matter of her soon-to-be-terminated contract at Lionsfiel, let alone his own imminent move to Silverman Pictures. He was trying to absorb the story she was telling him, struggling to discern the words between her sobs and pauses, wondering if he must have misheard her … And then Max burst into the room.