There came a point when Gregory began to doubt the sanity of his actions. One thing he no longer doubted—indeed, he readily admitted it to himself now—was that his involvement with the story on Brooke Ashley was based upon intense infatuation. But, he realized, if infatuation passed beyond a certain point, it then became obsession, a state he suspected he was fast approaching.
He had been planning to enter the study to continue writing, but for some reason he was unable to do so and found himself pacing the living room carpet. His thought processes were disorganized to a state of frustration. The images darting through his mind were so fuzzy and insubstantial that he was unable to follow them with any analytical clarity. But then, as in reading a newspaper and seeing a headline, a passing notion caught his attention, and he held onto it. It was more a behest than a thought, and it said: You’ve got to do more research—you’ve got to learn more and more and more about Brooke Ashley.
Examining this thought, he could see no earthly reason to justify it. He was a creator and he didn’t need more than a reasonable foundation of researched facts. At this stage, he could freely create a character based on Brooke Ashley in the pages of his novel. As far as his work was concerned, he was omnipotent, dependent only upon his typewriter and the commands he gave it.
But he had to find out more about Brooke Ashley! And the shock came when he realized it had nothing to do with the novel. Nothing at all. It was simply something he had to do. There was no choice. He had taken a step on a road leading God-knows-where, and he had to keep walking if he ever intended to regain his peace of mind. The hell of it was that there was no precise goal in sight. It was almost as if, with each step he took, the road behind him disappeared, leaving a gaping chasm. No turning back.
Without further consideration, he found himself making decisions. The first thing he had to do was get in touch with people who had known Brooke. The biography, now ashes in the fireplace, had named at least three: the psychic, the studio executive she had been going out with, and the screenwriter, Michael Richardson. Richardson was dead, so that left two possibilities. He had their names written down somewhere in his notes. He would find out if they were still alive and attempt to find them. Perhaps they would be able to give him information about the Brooke he wanted and needed to know: the real Brooke, the person. The woman. He caught himself at that thought and marveled at how familiar she had become, this dead actress, how real in his mind. Not Brooke Ashley anymore, but just Brooke.
Sharon had gone out on a casting call, leaving his day free and open. He decided to start immediately.
Luck—or fate—was guiding him; he opened the telephone directory at the N’s and immediately spotted Olga Nabatova’s name. It was so simple that he sat stock-still, his finger on the page, holding his breath, until he realized what he was doing.
He reached for the telephone and began to dial the number, his fingers shaking. He dialed a seven instead of a nine at the fifth number of the sequence and had to start again.
This time it was correct. He sat listening to the ringing, wondering what he was going to say. He hadn’t even thought about it.
“Hello?”
“Uh… is this Mrs. Nabatova?”
“Yes, this is she. May I help you?” The woman’s voice was soft, modulated. There was the trace of an accent.
“Uh, yes, I think so, Mrs. Nabatova,” he faltered. It had been too easy, he told himself. It was hard to believe he was talking to someone who had known Brooke. “My name is Gregory Thomas. I’m a writer, and I’m writing a book on Brooke Ashley. I’d like to talk to you about her, if I may?”
There was a long silence, and then she said softly, “Brooke Ashley?”
“Yes, Brooke Ashley. You did know her, didn’t you?”
Her voice regained its former smoothness. “Yes, of course. I knew her very well.”
“Well, could I talk to you?”
“Yes, of course, of course. What is it you wish to know?”
“Mrs. Nabatova, I actually have a lot of questions. May I come and see you—now?”
There was a pause before she answered. “Yes, Mr. Thomas, I would be delighted to help you.”
She gave him the address. It was in the Hollywood Hills on Sunset Plaza Drive. He knew the area well. He arranged to be there an hour later.
He put the receiver back and saw that his hand was still unsteady. He sat without moving and then impulsively looked up the name of Brooke’s old companion, William Tanner. It wasn’t listed. He told himself it would have been too much to expect. So far he was doing fine. In fact, he was quite pleased with himself.
Sunset Plaza Drive wound through the hills above the Strip, and although it was not exactly paved with gold bricks, it passed through what used to be one of the most exclusive areas in Hollywood. Errol Flynn had a home up there, and the clamor of his parties once echoed down the hillsides; James Cagney lived there earlier; so did Judy Garland and a dozen other famous names. It was not exclusive anymore—filled with a potpourri of advertising executives, lawyers, writers, actors, musicians, and expensive hookers, not to mention the nouveaux-nouveaux riches, the dope dealers. But it was still extremely expensive.
One thing was clear to Gregory: psychic Olga Nabatova had done well for herself.
Her house was cut off from the road by a wall, but the gate was open and he drove up the narrow driveway. On either side was a profusion of color from shrubs and flowers that he was unable to identify, interspersed among sedate circles of green lawn. It was a large lot, dwarfing the small Spanish stucco house. No more than two bedrooms and a den, he guessed.
He pulled up in front of the door and got out of the car. Looking back at the garden, he saw that it was only the grass that gave it a framework of order. The trees and shrubs grew in wild tumbles of green, dotted with other colors in native chaos. Paradoxically, the overall feeling was one of tranquility.
He turned back to face the house and saw a woman standing in the doorway. She was looking at him, a small smile curving her lips.
“Do you like my garden, Mr. Thomas?” She spoke softly, but he had no difficulty hearing her. The accent was more noticeable than it had been on the telephone. He liked the way European women used the language. They were aware of the spaces between words and used them as a sort of punctuation that pleased the ear.
“Yes,” he replied. “I do. It’s much more than it appears to be at first glance.”
Her smile broadened appreciatively and she gestured with a hand. “Won’t you come in?”
He allowed her to lead the way. Inside, the house was an artful blend of simplicity and sophistication. Much like the garden, and much like her, he suspected. Each piece of furniture was unique, yet it blended harmoniously with the object beside it. She was obviously an art collector. He recognized a Bonnard, a brightly colored interior, and a Pissaro snowscape. A colorful Tibetan Thangka hung above the fireplace, a serene Buddha surrounded by ferocious deities; the paradox again.
He followed her through the house to a patio in the back.
“I was sitting outside. It is such a perfect day. Do you mind, Mr. Thomas?”
“Not at all, on the contrary” he said, sitting down beside a redwood table.
“I just made tea. Would you care for a cup?”
He couldn’t remember when someone had last offered him tea. It was too gracious a drink for Los Angeles. “Yes, please,” he said. “Milk and sugar, if you have it.”
“Only honey. Sugar is the Benedict Arnold of foods, Mr. Thomas. While it pretends to give energy, it saps the body and weakens it.”
“Honey is fine,” he said, feeling suddenly oafish beside the refined woman standing before him.
She turned and went into the house. He tried to relax by looking at his surroundings. The patio was trellised, shaded by grapevines and wisteria. The back garden was an extension of the front, except he now noticed that there were winding pathways linking the circles of grass.
Olga Nabatova returned with a tray. He had expected a mug with a tea bag, but instead she did it in the English manner, pouring from a silver teapot into fine china. “Help yourself with milk and honey,” she said, “here, on the tray.” Then she sat down on his right, straightened her skirt, and looked at him over the top of her teacup.
She was a petite woman; pale, but not in an unhealthy manner. He knew from what he had read that she was in her sixties, but her features were fine, and her face and neck were unlined. It would have been impossible to guess her age. Her eyes were her most interesting feature, however. He’d had some hidden bias, probably from films, that psychics had fierce, piercing eyes, but hers were soft and gentle, containing a politely inquiring expression. The irises seemed to radiate light, but he put this down to imagination.
Olga Nabatova seemed in no hurry to talk. She merely looked at him, with the unspoken question in her eyes.
He put his cup down noisily, rubbed the back of his ear with his forefinger and cleared his throat. She waited, all interest and patience.
“Mrs. Nabatova,” he began, “how well did you know Brooke Ashley?”
“Very well. Better than most people,” she said. She folded her hands. “Back in those days, I used to give psychic readings. She first came to me in that capacity. We then became friends. In fact, she was probably my closest friend at the time. She was a lovely girl, you know. Exceptionally lovely.” Her eyes wandered placidly out to the garden and he saw the memories flicker through them like short-lived flames.
He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “Tell me about her. Brooke Ashley the person, not the star.”
She switched her eyes back to him, but he had the feeling she was seeing someone else.
“Brooke was beautiful, but also modest,” she said quietly. “Her beauty never obsessed her, like so many unfortunate people I know. She never thought of herself as a star. To her, acting was just a game, a game she enjoyed, to be sure, but it was not what was important to her. She played it very well, though, and she enjoyed the fruits of her success. Perhaps if she had lived longer she would have been a great star, but I think not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think she would have stayed with her career.”
“If it wasn’t important to her, what was?” Gregory asked.
Olga Nabatova took another sip of tea before answering. “She had a philosophical mind. She was more interested in the why and how of things than the what. Also, she was more interested in living life than portraying it. Acting, films… she regarded them as frivolous compared to the spiritual aspects of life.”
“Spiritual aspects?” Gregory repeated.
“Oh, life, death, love, why life, why death, spirits, things like that.” She smiled suddenly, amused at his reaction. “Maybe it sounds a bit solemn to you. Pretentious?”
“No, no. Not at all,” Gregory assured her politely.
She laughed, a throaty chuckle. “Oh, Mr. Thomas, you cannot hide your feelings so easily. But it is an amazing world we live in.” She gazed at him for a moment, then she repeated, “Amazing.”
She grew serious and he wondered if he had imagined her laughter the moment before. “You have heard of Saul Bellow, have you not?”
He nodded and she smiled. “Of course you have. A writer yourself!” she said, mocking her question. “At any rate, in his Nobel address, he said something important. Wait, I’ll get it for you.”
She went inside the house and came back with a yellowed clipping. She put on her glasses and read. “He said, ‘The sense of our real powers—powers we seem to derive from the universe itself—also comes and goes. We are reluctant to talk about this because there is nothing we can prove, because our language is inadequate, and because few people are willing to risk talking about it. They would have to say, There is a spirit, and that is taboo. So almost everyone keeps quiet about it, although almost everyone is aware of it.’”
“Bellow said that?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes, and it was perceptive and courageous of him to do so, because in his circles, the subject is indeed taboo. Well, back in the Hollywood of the forties, it was not taboo. It seemed that everyone was interested in matters of the spirit. Of course, the town was filled with charlatans and fakes. And most of the seekers were purely dilettantes, interested only in new experiences and cocktail-party chatter. But by the same token, there were also seekers of truth, and Brooke was one of these.”
“You mean séances? That sort of thing?” Gregory asked. Again, he felt naive before this assured woman.
“Oh, no,” she said, fluttering a hand gracefully. “Of course, she attended séances. Everyone did in those days. It was fashionable. But it was just her entry point. She quickly passed through that stage. Brooke was far more interested in life than in death.” She clicked her tongue derisively. “There are so many impostors in that field, anyway. She was more interested in her own abilities and perceptions than sitting as a spectator and listening to ghostly voices. She was not a spectator-type person.”
“She was a psychic?” Gregory asked, entranced now by this glimpse of Brooke, this other life he had never suspected.
“Brooke, a psychic?” She shook her head. “No, Mr. Thomas. She was not. I do not like labels. They confuse things rather than clarify them. I stopped calling myself a psychic thirty years ago. But Brooke had special abilities. She could observe and perceive things that most other people miss because their minds are too busy traveling in useless circles. For instance, she had a highly developed sixth sense. If the telephone rang, she often knew who it was before she answered. If something was about to happen, good or bad, she could sometimes sense it before it happened. We all have these abilities, but she was beginning to develop hers to a useful point. Perhaps I misled you when I said she was interested in spiritual matters, but perhaps not. These are all matters of the spirit. They have nothing to do with body and flesh.”
Gregory drank his tea and looked out at the garden. “I find this fascinating, this side of her,” he said. In truth he found it bizarre. Sipping tea in this peaceful garden setting, listening to talk of ESP and spirits, talk that made it sound as natural as the flowers he was viewing.
“We have been conditioned to think of this side of man’s nature as strange—taboo,’ as Bellow put it,” she said, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she had read his mind. “It’s a curious world we live in. The longer I am here, the more obvious it becomes to me that the inmates are in charge of the asylum. We spend billions on wonderful machines, chemicals and weapons that are destroying the world before our eyes, and nothing on researching and developing man’s abilities, on the true seat of his genius. The only reason it is taboo is because science has been unable to put it in a test tube, to measure and label it. By some senseless logic, they have said, ‘If we can’t measure it, it does not exist.’ This is like saying that because we cannot see the bottom of an ocean, there is no bottom! A rough analogy, but I think you see my point.”
Gregory nodded. “Yes, I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not really familiar with this sort of thing.”
“Perhaps you are more familiar with it than you realize,” she said, rising. “Would you like some more tea?”
“Yes, please.” She took the teapot and walked quickly into the house, her steps light. A captivating woman, all steel behind the soft, mild exterior. Her words had rung with conviction.
She came back and set the teapot on the table. “Let it steep a bit.” She smiled. “Actually, I have not been completely fair to science,” she continued, light sarcasm in her tone. “For the most part it’s true, scientists are fossils, dinosaurs, but there are always the exceptions, men of vision.”
Gregory nodded his head. It was interesting, but this was not the direction he wanted to take. “Tell me,” he began tentatively, and then decided to jump in with both feet. “The fire in which Brooke died. How did that happen?”
For the first time, those questioning eyes retreated. A cloud touched the elegant features. “I don’t know,” she said. “Nobody does, except the people who were there. Brooke, her mother Eleanor, and Michael Richardson. They all died in the fire. God knows how it happened. I went there as soon as I heard. I was just in time to see the firemen drag their bodies out of the rubble.”
Her face had grown stiff, her voice quieter.
“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, asking these questions,” Gregory said. “But I must.”
“I know,” she said. The cloud passed and she gave him a warm smile. “My memories of Brooke are happy memories. I don’t mind talking about her to you. While she lived she was a joy, and that is how I remember her.”
“What was this relationship she had with Richardson?”
“She and Michael were lovers.”
“I see.” He was running out of questions. He rubbed behind his ear. “Tell me, she and her mother both died, right? As far as I know there were no other relatives. What happened to her estate, all her personal belongings?”
“There were relatives. Oklahoma, I think. But they wanted the estate liquidated, and that was done. Many of her belongings were bought by a friend of mine, Bill Tanner.”
Gregory had been fiddling with his napkin. He looked up sharply. “Is that William Tanner, the RKO executive? The man who was her companion for a while?”
“Yes,” she said. “In his way, he loved her, too, you know. Also, he was a fan of hers in the film sense. I suppose her belongings are his way of remembering.”
“So, he’s still alive?”
“Yes. In fact, he lives just up the hill, not far from here. We see each other now and again. He’s retired. A widower. But I think he never stopped being in love with Brooke. Such foolishness.”
“Foolishness?”
“Unrequited love. It’s such a waste.”
“Mrs. Nabatova,” Gregory said, “I know I’ve imposed on you already, but could you help me with one more thing?”
“You’d like to see Bill Tanner?”
“Yes, I would. It’s a chance to speak to someone else who knew her. Also to see some of her personal effects. It will give me a different view of her.”
“When do you want to see him?”
“Well, I’m in the neighborhood… now?” Gregory tried not to sound too eager, but he suspected he failed.
“So, I have bored you already?” she said with amusement.
“No, of course not,” he protested. “It’s just that—”
She interrupted him with a motion. “It’s all right, Mr. Thomas. But let me ask you a question first. What is your interest in Brooke? It is more than a book, is it not?”
Gregory looked down at his hands. He was kneading them together like lumps of dough. What could he tell her? Would she think he was crazy? More to the point, was he crazy? He looked up and saw her watching him, expressionless, except for the question in her eyes. He decided that she would be the one person least likely to betray him.
“I… I am doing a book, Mrs. Nabatova,” he began. “And the heroine is based on her. But it’s a novel, not really about her. First, though, I saw her in a film, not too long ago. That gave me the idea for the book. Now—now, I don’t know. I guess I’ve become infatuated with her.” He tripped over the words, embarrassed, pained by them. “The book doesn’t seem to be the important thing anymore.” He forced a chuckle he didn’t feel. “Sometimes I think I might be going out of my mind. I have this compulsion to find out more and more about Brooke. I don’t know why. I don’t understand it, but I must.”
He looked up, sure he was blushing. He felt like an ungainly, lumbering teenager facing a mature, graceful woman and blurting out his shameful secrets.
Olga Nabatova looked at him fondly. “I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Thomas,” she said, and added, “May I call you by your first name? I feel as if we are friends already. Gregory, I believe you said on the telephone.”
He nodded, still glum and awkward, unable to meet the limpid eyes, afraid of what they would reveal of himself.
She reached across the table and put her long, slender fingers on his hand. “Don’t worry, Gregory. When in doubt, always follow your heart. What you call a compulsion may prove to have a purpose. Just continue what you are doing.” She patted his hand. “Now, wait a minute and I’ll call Bill.”
She went inside and he sat watching red and brown finches peck around in the dirt, trilling in their personal code. “Follow your heart.” Such simplistic advice, and yet—perhaps his mistake had been to fight it, to resist his feelings, doubting them like an idiot with no trust in himself. Maybe…
Olga Nabatova returned. “Shall we go, Gregory? I’m coming with you, if you don’t mind. I haven’t seen Bill for a while and this will give me a chance to visit.”
He thought it a fine idea. It was more likely the man would open up in the presence of someone he knew. He rose and made a move toward the tray.
“No, leave that,” she ordered. “I’ll take care of it later.”
He followed her through the house. They had agreed to use his car. They were going to meet a man who was still in love with Brooke, he reminded himself. Possibly, they would have a lot in common.
William Tanner was a tall, sagging man who lifted his shoulders and cocked his head when he listened, his hands dangling by his side. He wore thick glasses which magnified his light blue eyes and gave them a glassy stare. He must once have been a big man, but unlike Olga Nabatova, he was not youthful in appearance. Age had robbed him of much of his flesh and left him bald. He looked like a big heron stranded on dry land.
He welcomed them cordially, taking Olga’s hands and pressing them in his, and showed them to the living room with short, uncertain steps. They both sat on the couch, declining his offer of something to drink. He stood, lost for a moment, then sat down in an armchair opposite them, carefully picking at the creases of his pants over his knees.
“I understand you are writing a book about Brooke?” he asked Gregory.
“Yes, I am. I thought you might be able to tell me something of her. Her personality.”
Tanner nodded. “She was a wonderful girl,” he said. “A wonderful girl. Wonderful.” He seemed to wander off in a dream.
“Were you a good friend of hers?” Gregory asked, hoping to pull him back.
Tanner gathered himself. “Yes,” he said, his voice firmer. “We knew each other for a number of years. I thought, once, that we would marry, but it never worked out. You know what I mean?” He squinted hopefully at Gregory, then continued without waiting for an answer. “After she died, I met Mary and married her. She died two years ago. She too died.”
He quavered at the edge of a pool of self-pity, then took a mental step back. “But it’s not me you want to hear about, it’s Brooke,” he said. “Well, she was the most alive person I’ve ever known. I don’t know how familiar you are with the film business, but it hasn’t changed much from my day, as far as I can see. Still full of posturing, empty-headed opportunists. She was never like that. She was always herself and always a lady. She had a simple kind of dignity that some people couldn’t even see—until they crossed her, and then, wham! She had a way of putting them in their place. She was always a lady, though.”
When referring to Brooke, he seemed to imbue the pronoun with a religious reverence. It was clear that he had worshiped her, and still did. Gregory thought, while he listened, that this may have been the reason Tanner never won her. How do you make love to a goddess?
Tanner chuckled at some thought and hit his bony knee with a hand. “I remember one time. One time we were out at dinner, and this actor came to the table. I won’t mention his name, but he was a big name, an important man. Starred with her in her second film. Tried to make a pass at her, but she rebuffed him. Hurt his ego. Anyway, he came to our table, drunk as a coot, could hardly stand, and began to insult her. He would lean on the table with one hand, then straighten up and shuffle his feet. It was kind of, you know, an… an… automatic gesture. I started to get up to deal with him, but she put her hand on my arm without taking her eyes off him, keeping her face calm, and her manner gracious. It was at the point where he was asking her if she was still a virgin. She looked down at the table and said in a perfectly even voice that reached the farthest corner of the room—after all, she was an actress—Excuse me, but I believe your hand is in my soup.’ Damned if it wasn’t. He was too drunk to notice. All the time she had been looking at him, she had been inching the soup bowl into position. And the last time he lifted his hand, she slipped the bowl over, right where she knew he would put his hand down. You should have seen his face!”
Gregory and Olga laughed. Tanner slapped his knee again, his laugh turning into a volley of coughs.
“But she was also kind and gentle,” Tanner said, when he could continue. “Not like some of the others. She never got a swelled head when she began to be a success. She was nice to everybody; it didn’t matter who they were or what they did. A nice girl. And very loyal to her friends, very loyal…”
His voice drifted away and he looked down at his shiny black shoes, digging his foot into the carpet.
“I believe you have some of her belongings,” Gregory said.
“Yes, yes, I do,” Tanner said, looking up. “Would you like to see them?”
“Yes, very much,” Gregory said.
Tanner got to his feet. “Well, come on, young fellow. They’re in this room over here.”
They went down a dark hall, past three or four rooms that looked as if they weren’t used. It was a big, lushly furnished house. Too big and lush for a lonely old man who had nothing but memories to keep him company.
“In here,” he said, gesturing. They walked into the room, which was furnished like a bedroom.
“That’s hers,” he said, pointing to an ornately carved four-poster bed.
“That’s hers.” He pointed to a walnut mirrored dresser.
He opened several antique jewelry boxes in a cabinet. “This is some of her jewelry. She loved opals, you know, she had lots of opals. It’s all precious gemstones. I suppose I should keep it in a safe, but I never get ’round to it.”
Gregory looked around the room at the objects that had once been Brooke’s: the quilted bedspread, the high-backed rocker, the jewelry shimmering with life in the wooden boxes. He felt a little dizzy. He touched his forehead. He was perspiring.
“You really should put this in a safe,” he heard Olga tell Tanner. “Some of it is quite valuable.” Her voice seemed to travel across galaxies before it reached him. There was a sort of static in his ears. It was too warm in the room. He wanted to go out and get some fresh air.
“This was one of her favorite pieces. She always wore it.” He realized Olga was talking to him. He turned and tried to focus on her. A silver chain dangled from her hand. It held a heart-shaped silver locket with a small opal stone in the center.
She put the locket in her open palm and held it out to him.
“It’s very beautiful,” he managed to say hoarsely. He hardly recognized his own voice.
Olga kept holding her hand out. Obviously, she wanted him to take it, to look at it more closely. He put out his hand, palm up.
Olga tipped her hand and the locket fell down into his palm. It seemed like slow motion to him. He watched the locket glint with light and movement as it tumbled onto his hand.
For a moment, he was too stunned to move. Then he shouted, “Jesus Christ!” The locket was burning into his palm. It was as hot as molten lead, searing his flesh.
He flicked his hand quickly, throwing it to the floor, shaking his hand, yelping in agony.
Tanner acted as if his guests cursed all the time. He didn’t even raise his head. He was scrambling through the drawers of another dresser, looking for something.
Olga looked at Gregory calmly, her eyes giving nothing away. Even the question was absent.
“It burnt me!” he exclaimed, bending forward, holding his wrist with the other hand.
Olga reached forward and took his hand in hers. She turned the palm up. Her hand was as cool as ice.
In the center of his palm was a red, heart-shaped mark. It had already begun to blister.
Olga dropped his hand without saying anything. She bent down to pick up the locket. She regarded it thoughtfully.
When she finally spoke, he had to lean forward to catch the words.
“How strange,” she said. And he wasn’t sure if she was speaking to him or not. “This locket was found in Michael Richardson’s right hand after he died in the fire.”