From the Teeth of Angels Read online

  “Weber’s here? Why?”

  “He wants me to be in a new movie.”

  “And you said no.”

  “Roland, it might be too good a role to pass up, damn it.”

  Roland grabbed the back of my neck and gave it a quick squeeze. “Are we going to talk about this now or should we wait till I’ve finished my seizure?”

  “We’re going to wait and talk it all over together. I want Weber in on it. He’s part of the family too. But not now. Want to see the hospital where Franz Kafka died? It’s right near here.”

  She was a completely different person in Vienna from the one I had known. Her house was the first indication. Inside, it was so empty that it gave me the instant one hundred percent creeps. Her home in Los Angeles was full of tsatzkes from everywhere—flea markets, antique stores, the different countries where she’d made films. I loved the way it exuded life and a lovely eccentricity.

  By comparison, the Vienna house was stark. A black leather couch and an exquisite black-and-white Chinese carpet, and that was it for the living room. You could have gone bowling in there, it was so empty. But compared to the other rooms, it looked as crowded as a discount furniture showroom. The floors were all gorgeously finished parquet, the walls cloud white. There was a futon in her bedroom, even a television that sat on the floor in a corner squat and lonely. Arlen liked to watch the news to see how much of the German she could pick out. But where were her clothes? The high piles of books that were invariably in any Ford residence? A radio? Pencils? Pots and pans in the kitchen? There was a pot, a pan. Where were the other things? The stuff that goes into a day in the life of anyone? I didn’t ask, for fear she’d say there weren’t any.

  When we were finished with the tour, I told her it looked like the set for a documentary about Zen Buddhism. She nodded, with a look on her face that said my remark satisfied her. I couldn’t resist asking if she planned on buying any more furniture or maybe even a picture. She said no, this was how she saw the house. More important, this was how she saw her life in this house, and was satisfied. Stripped bare, essentials only.

  Luckily Weber walked in at that moment. Otherwise we would have been stuck in a silence that had come too quickly after our arrival. He was barely controlling a long leash attached to a reddish-gold puppy that was all long legs and loud skitter on the slippery wood floors. Before we had a chance to say anything, Weber had undipped it, and the beast galloped and slid across the room top speed at us. It banged greetings first into Arlen, leaped, turned to me, leaped, then Roland, then Arlen, back to Weber… the wild joy only a young dog knows in a room full of new faces. It was Minnie, the Viszla Arlen had bought on the spur of the moment while on a day trip across the border to Sopron, Hungary. My friend’s pleasure and the dog’s at seeing each other appeared about equal. I don’t like animals much, but since most of the rest of the cosmos does, I hold my tongue. I admit, whenever I see someone mooning over a cat or dog or whatever four-legged, I’m indifferent, vaguely repelled, or suspicious of their ardor.

  We hadn’t seen Weber in ages. Besides being a full-fledged genius (I say that without any hesitation), he’s a genuinely good guy. Roland and I were so glad he was there. Too often, too damned often in those subsequent days, pauses and silences fell like heavy, deadening snow over our conversations with Arlen. Inevitably, Weber was the one to break them up with a funny story or an insight that brought us back to noise and made breathing easier. Arlen had grown so introverted that it was frightening. I could imagine her being silent for a week if no one was there.

  She and Weber had been an item a few years before; surprisingly, not when they were working together, but after. She said he came to visit her on a set one day and that night they’d decided to move in together. I had always hoped the relationship would work because he was such a good soul, but Hollywood is not the best place to work on a relationship, much less its fine points. Not when the partners are high-strung and competitive, creative, and prone to mood swings as grand and terrifying as Tarzan’s through the vines. They stayed together almost a year (a record for Arlen) and parted amicably, sort of. Absence made their hearts grow fonder. In the ensuing years they became great telephone pals. They made a deal: either could call anytime, anyplace if they ever needed help or only a sympathetic ear. She’d never made a deal like that with me and I indignantly told her so. She answered reasonably that one makes deals with lovers one would never make with anyone else.

  When her rising star began to level off, Weber’s continued to climb, but they remained close. He kept asking her to be in his films. At first she was still too busy. Later she took his concern for pity and refused. Weber went so far as to ask Roland to intervene, but we knew that would never work with Arlen. She piloted her own ship.

  Now we were both excited to hear she was even considering going back to work on his new film. Yet each day went by without her saying anything about it. Finally Roland got fed up and dragged Weber and the dog outside, ostensibly for a walk. He grilled Weber on the project. When they returned from the great outdoors, my husband wore a smile I’d seen usually only in bed after good sex. “If she doesn’t take this role, so help me God—”

  “So help you God what? What will you do, strong-arm her into it? Hire one of Don Corleone’s men to shoot her in the kneecaps?”

  “Rose, what’s the matter? What’s with the sudden grumpiness? Wait till you hear about this movie!”

  “While you were gone I sat on her sun porch looking at this whole thing—the river, everything. It’s the Danube down there; you know what I mean? It’s the Danube, and this is Europe… It’s really a delightful place, save the monk’s quarters. She has a good life here. It’s not our life, not what we want to do, but she’s happy. You can tell by the way she looks and how she talks. What good would it do her to go back and face all that junk? She has money and is fed up with fame. Guys gave her diseases; she took too many drugs; her last films were crummy and she knows it. She’s not even thirty-five but has already lived one whole life. As her friends, shouldn’t we encourage her to go on living here if that’s what pleases her?”

  He shook his head. “Look, both of us love the woman and have never worked against her best interests. If she wants to retire here sometime to live out her days on the Danube, studying German and making tortes, fine. It’s not a bad life; I never said it was. But it’s obvious to me from what she’s been saying that she isn’t finished with acting yet. I honestly don’t think she’s had her fill. Remember what she said the other night about still wanting to work with Scorsese? Maybe she’ll get fed up after doing this one with Weber. But if she doesn’t do it, she’s crazy. It’s undoubtedly the best role she’s been offered in years. Oscar stuff. Let me tell you about the film. Your hair will stand up on your head.”

  On our last day in Austria the four of us, plus Minnie, hiked from Weidling over the Wienerwald to Grinzing, where we spent most of the sunny afternoon in a Heurigen, one of Vienna’s famous wine gardens. The white wine was new and very strong, the food all delicious heart attack cuisine—roast pork, Schmalzbrot, deep-fried Camembert with Preisselbeeren. Minnie sat at stiff attention next to Arlen’s leg, her shiny black nose periodically rising up and over the edge of the table, periscoping where the good smells were. She must have gained three pounds that day from all the treats slipped to her.

  After we’d eaten and sat like cats in the sun, we took a taxi back to the house. There, at long last, in her living room full of late afternoon sun, Arlen asked Weber to tell us the plot of his new film, Wonderful. We knew everything already because of the secret pow-wow between agent and director, but, described again so soon, the project still sounded irresistible.

  For a while.

  The problem was Weber. He was a superb director and a bona fide artist, but a lousy describer. Clearly his talent was in his eyes and imagination—not on his tongue. Because he told the story so badly and dully, I was dying to tell him to jump up and dance around, act it out! It’s
a great story, so tell it great! Give it its due. I looked at Roland and could see from the unhappy set of his mouth that he felt the same. As far as the unsuspecting Arlen knew, this was our introduction to the movie too. But the way the creator-writer-director described it, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity sounded like a training film for shoe salesmen in Idaho.

  Naturally I’d thought a good deal about the story since first hearing it and, as Roland has prophesied, feeling my hair stand on end at the possibilities. Now I was bursting to interrupt with ideas and suggestions, clarifications, adrenaline. But I forced myself to hold back at least until Weber was finished. Otherwise, the target of our affection would realize that the three of us were in cahoots.

  Silly me. Stupid me. What we don’t understand, we condemn. Halfway through Weber’s monotone, Arlen interrupted and began to talk. Starting with “No, no, Weber! It’s better than that!” she impatiently took over the telling as if he weren’t even in the room. Her voice began to dip and soar with excitement. She brought this magical story to life with the energy and talent of a person who could hold the attention of a room whenever she wanted. It was a star telling a story she loved, a story as great as her ability to tell it. Unable to do it right sitting down, she stood and began moving around in a growing fever of accents and actions, dialogue and camera angles, fade-outs and back stories that brought it all roaring to life. She made Wonderful wonderful.

  I was so caught up in her magical account that it took some time to tear my eyes away from her grand performance to see how Weber was taking it. He sat back on the couch with hands locked over a knee, wearing a smile of total triumph. He’d tricked her! Set her up! He’d purposely bored us so as to lure Arlen into taking over and telling his story the way he knew it deserved to be told: with the enthusiasm and delight of a zealous convert, of someone thrilled to see the light and committed to being part of the design.

  His scheme worked perfectly. When Arlen was finished, she was the most excited person in the room. She could see the future and it was hers. She ended by describing her role. From the tone of her voice, if the film had been a house for sale, she would already have bought it, moved in, and been reading a magazine in the den.

  We sat in charged silence, the three of us in thrall to her performance. Roland was the first to speak. Arlen was still so into what she’d been doing that her head jerked slightly at the sound of his voice.

  “I think it’s your cup of tea, sweetheart.”

  Turning to him, her eyes slowly registered what he’d said and what it meant. “It is. I think I have to do it, Roland. If I don’t…” She walked to the large window that looked out on the vineyards. “I was going to plant sunflowers over there. Sunflowers and pumpkins over there. I love pumpkins when they’ve just begun to grow. They remind me of little Japanese lanterns.” She stood at the window with her back to us for a long time. It was her moment and she owned it in all of our lives. When she turned, her eyes went right to Weber. “You bastard. I don’t know whether to thank or kill you.”

  “Ah, come on. It’s like eating grapefruit—after the first bite it’s not sour anymore.”

  She gave him a false exaggerated smile that was gone in an instant. “Fine, then you take the first bite.”

  I started feeling odd after we returned from Europe. When that moved up to odder, I went to a doctor and found out I was pregnant. Unfortunately, I am one of those women who has to fight their body the whole way to bring a child to term. There was one complication after another. By the time Arlen had returned to America and began filming, I was flat on my back in bed and thus unable to work with her.

  Perhaps it was for the best, because from day one, Wonderful was plagued by difficulties that had everyone either pulling out his hair or trying to avoid the wrath and roll of studio executives growing ever more ballistic as they watched both the budget and shooting schedule climb into the ionosphere.

  No one wanted to upset me because I was having my own tough time, so what little I heard was watered way down. They were having “difficulties”; one of the actors had taken sick (in fact, had had a major stroke), which threw filming off… that was what I heard. But then an article appeared in the Calendar section of the L.A. Times entitled “Wonderful Chaos” which went into delighted gory detail about what was happening on the set, and it scared me good. When I told Roland I’d seen the article and asked what the hell was really going on over there, he sat on our bed and, sighing like a sick old man, began by saying it was a catastrophe and he’d be amazed if the movie was ever finished. Weber was renowned for bringing every one of his pictures in on time and under budget, so what was going wrong on this one? My husband, who ain’t no dummy when it comes to making movies, shook his head and said, “I honestly don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. I get the feeling he’s Job with this one. Anything that can go wrong has or will. I gave him a present the other day as a joke—a motorcycle helmet. Know what he did? Didn’t smile. Said, “Good idea,” put it on, and went right back to work. Worked the whole day wearing a goddamned helmet. And you know what’s worse? I don’t think anyone on the set laughed when they saw him in it.”

  One of the people who saved the project was Arlen. Everyone connected with it said she was invaluable. When she wasn’t in front of the camera, she was on the sidelines trying either to pep someone up or soothe a savage executive who was threatening for the fifteenth time to shut the picture down. Weber swears that when the head of the studio called him in for the inevitable do-or-die meeting, Arlen insisted on being there. She spoke so logically and compellingly about the film that the cynic in the two-thousand-dollar suit across the table from them said okay, go ahead and finish. Weber won a great many prizes for his work on Wonderful, but to his credit each time he gave an acceptance speech he said without Arlen Ford they never would have completed the film.

  To be honest, I don’t like the movie. I love scenes in it, especially the opening. All that hazy snow, silence; then as things start to focus, we realize everything is upside down. Then the roar comes up and we’re shown that it’s not snow, it’s confetti. The world upside down in a snowstorm of confetti. Camera rights itself, changes perspective, pulls back, and there’s the little girl being held out a window by her feet in the middle of a ticker-tape parade. I love that. I love many parts of the film, but the story Weber and Arlen told us in Vienna was far warmer and happier than the final result. Real art shows you in great, eye-opening detail that, the world is either a good or a bad place. Both are valid, certainly, and it is up to us to decide how we want to fit those unarguable truths into our own experience. I saw Wonderful for the first time after I’d fought my body and an incompetent doctor to give birth to a healthy child. I didn’t want to be told life is a series of flickering accidents and twists of fate that were here and vivid but finally confusing. I believed important battles could be won; that that was so because we possess certain great weapons—commitment, stamina, love—that can even the odds against us.

  Admittedly I am old hat and stuck in many of my views. Wonderful touched off emotional sirens and loud debates wherever it was shown because, if nothing else, it was a movie you had to see if you wanted to be considered hip or informed. Critics and loudmouths had a field day with it. It was a masterpiece, an insult, an empty diatribe, a cautionary exegesis (honestly, they used that word) that brilliantly illuminated… It was a success. A high-brow film that appealed to a wide audience who willingly went back to see it again in case they’d missed something first time around.

  To spice up the stew even more, after it had been out a while and begun winning nominations and prizes, Arlen announced at the Berlin Film Festival that she was retiring from acting. Why? Because she’d had enough. She was charming and funny about it and very candid. She admitted that, with the exception of this film, her career had not been successful in recent years. She preferred to retire now, having done the best work of her life, rather than years down the line when she’d be thrilled just to get
character roles. “I like to believe I have some character, but would rather not think of myself as one yet. That comes soon enough. It’s just better to go out riding the elephant at the front of the parade. Simple as that.”

  She continued to promote the film, but even after she was nominated for an Academy Award and the job offers increased to the point where she could have had any role she wanted, she said no. Once when we were alone, I asked why she was going through with it when it really seemed again that the sky was the limit for her career. She said, “I used to think that everything was in acting. Do it right, and all the answers, plus all the rewards you’d ever want in ten lifetimes, would be there at the finish line. You could find your place, you could find a home and peace… Then after a couple of bad choices I began realizing it wasn’t so. But my life was caving in then too, so I thought maybe that’s part of the disillusionment. One of the main reasons I made Wonderful was to see if this was true. Those last few films I did before quitting the first time were dogs. Just work to put money in the bank. I was ashamed and embarrassed when I saw them. I thought, Fuck it, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve got to keep some of my soul intact. So I quit. When Weber asked me to be in this, I knew, no matter what, it would end up being a great movie. The best possible environment to work in. But even this one left me genuinely cold, Rose. Like going to bed with someone you once loved but don’t anymore. Don’t even feel a spark for. No matter what, this’ll definitely be my last.”

  The four of us went to the Oscar ceremony together. Before it began, I told my best friend that if she didn’t win I would personally blow up the Academy. I knew she was serious about her plan to stop. There had been a gratuitously cruel article in a national magazine about her that implied nasty untrue things. It concluded by sneering how “timely” it was that Ms. Ford had announced her retirement long before the awards, implying she’d done it to get the sympathy vote. She was the one who gave me the article, saying only, “Here’s another good reason for going back to Vienna.”