Authors: Keir Alexander
‘Just a moment,’ says Michael as an afterthought, and ducks under the counter, coming up with Rosa’s old valise. ‘Look, this, apart from the slippers, is pretty much what was left.’ He springs the lid of the case and James peers in to see the heap of yellowing papers with their grainy blocks of type and spidery scrawls as Michael rattles on. ‘I can’t make head nor tail of it, but it all goes back to Methuselah, far as I can see. I forgot mosta the language, you understand, and never learnt to read it, what with the war and being so little. To be honest, I been in half a mind to burn the damn things.’ Squinting at one yellowed old document as he holds it up to the light, James is less dismissive. ‘You’re talking to a professional archivist here, Michael,’ he says. ‘Old papers are often more valuable than you might think.’
‘I doubt it. Anyhow, most of them are in Latvian.’
James shuffles deftly through the last of the papers. A kind of intensity is in him and Michael senses a mind keen for these things and knowledgeable of them. James pulls out a sheet and flips it on the countertop – the photograph of Rosa naked. Michael had put it out of sight and mind, and now it comes as a shock again. ‘Don’t even go there!’ he says, flushing to the roots. But James is intrigued: ‘That was her? Wow!’
‘Yeah, like wow!’
James is curious now about the old heap of papers: ‘You know there are thousands of Latvian Americans in this city.’
‘The weird thing is I never met one of them.’
‘I was gonna say, why don’t you give these to me and I’ll have someone go through them?’
‘You could do that? All that time and trouble?’
‘It would be my pleasure. Given that or the fire, no contest. A half-decent translator could go through this PDQ and extract the necessaries.’
‘Gosh. That would be very kind of you. I dunno what to—’
‘Like I say, it’s nothing.’
And then, seeing darkness falling and being embarrassed at the thought of keeping a man from his work, James takes his purchases to the cash register. But he is still curious of one thing: ‘So, what will happen to the slippers now?’
‘That’s one hell of a question.’
‘It sounds like you would keep them if you had the chance.’
‘If I had my way and it was a different world, maybe, but my family . . . There are a hundred and one ways to spend the money, believe me.’
‘It’s a dilemma a lot of people wouldn’t mind having. God knows what I would do.’
‘Well, anyways, it’s not totally in my hands, but that’s life. I suppose in the end I should maybe let it go.’
‘Well, letting go might be an OK thing to do.’
‘Except sometimes you let go you fall off.’
James looks at Michael a little puzzled. Life is never simple, but here’s a man who just struck it lucky to the tune of Lord knows how much – enough to put a smile on anybody’s face – and yet he looks as though he’s just gained the world and lost his soul.
Riding the subway home, the finer feelings that have been with James start to desert him. The carriage is packed to busting and he is rammed up against the window by a colossus of a man breathing loud and urgent and using his sleeve to wipe a slick of sweat from his face. All along the dingy walls are glitzy ads at odds with the grimy reality of the carriage. Here are people of every background and ethnicity, all leeched of colour, crammed, sitting and standing, in spaces, like so many factory goods in racks. People who started their day fresh and full of energy, but dispirited now, their best taken from them. All these thoughts lead James for some reason back to his father, a man who made a fortune by cynically playing on the weaknesses and habits of others, manipulating them with promises and percentages. And all the trappings he and his cronies enlisted to carry it off: grand buildings on Wall Street and all over the city, halls of marble, chairs of leather, executives in suits – the whole repertoire of stage-craft and dazzling words to entice ordinary people to set aside their honest doubts and seek instead quick, impossible returns.
A sharp voice, close at hand, snaps James out of his dark trance. A good old-fashioned lunatic has appeared, concave of face and absent-eyed. James averts his gaze as the man weaves between the weary passengers, preaching to anyone who will listen, which is no one, about the chemicals
they
have put in the water to make people have bad dreams, and how it’s scientifically proven that more people have bad dreams now than they used to.
Suddenly – the gods really have it in for him this day – the train stops in the damn tunnel. Just stops. The lights dim and fall pitch-dark a full ten minutes before coming back on, but the train itself stays stuck. James groans along with the rest. At this rate he will be home hopelessly late, failing yet again in his promise to Siobhan. He should have rung earlier, but all that excitement at Woody’s shook him up.
For a half-hour the train sits there, getting hotter all the while, and the madman ranting now about how they can make you have whatever dreams they want you to have: if rats you hate, it’s rats you see – snakes, vampires, headless riders – whatever is your worst nightmare, they can lay it on you, just by sprinkling stuff in the water.
As he gets set in for the long haul, James runs over recent events: the shock of encountering his father, a wounded monster in a wheelchair; then there were his ‘heroics’ with the spitter. But, even in the contemplation of these things, he sees himself as an inconsistent person, at times strong and together, but too often indecisive and prepared to tolerate other people’s crap. He should have stood up to his father for being a horrible old hypocrite and sent him on his way, instead of meekly falling away like that. His thoughts turn to Jack – how he has arrived in his life all of a sudden, popping up everywhere like Sir Galahad, and even now getting him onto this new slipper plan. Crazy, he thinks, but surely just a bit of pie-in-the-sky between guys with a few drinks in them.
When at last the train lurches onward again and he finally comes to his stop, James jumps out at a trot to ring Siobhan, so as not to let her down. But it’s eight-twenty by the time he is safely inside the apartment, and when he rings, she does not pick up. At last her voicemail kicks in and he hears himself, the inadequate person again: ‘Hi, Siobhan. Listen, I’m sorry; I got stuck in the subway, would you believe? But I’ve been thinking of you lots, and there’s lots to tell you. By the way, whaddya say we take a car, get out together, go to the ocean or wherever? Anyhow . . . uh . . . I hope you’re doing good at school and, well, ring me. I’ll try again. Stay good, honey.’
■ ♦ ■
The next I know, Felikss is saying that he hates New York, that it is old America and he must go to the new, where a man like him who has talent can reap rewards. In no time he had concluded through his contacts to go to California. It will be like before, he says, he will drive a truck and will do deals as we have done with the rubber boots, only much bigger and always in sunshine. Washing machines, he says; there are washing machines which have these new spin dryers, and California is going crazy for them. Why he decided on washing machines I had no clue. All I know is that never did I see one in his possession. But what I do know is that all of a sudden I am sitting with him on a bus going 3,000 miles from one coast to the other. It is easy to wonder why I put up with all this and followed such a man with his peculiar ways. But who was I to argue? Remember that Felikss had taken us from the lion’s den to the land of the free, which I cannot imagine I could have done for myself. Also, there was true tenderness between us, though not the deepest love. We came together, I think, because we saw the suffering and the damage that had been done to each other. In both cases dreadful things had happened, so we were bound together in sympathy and to give comfort to each other. We were Hansel and Gretel holding hands in the woods
.
The sun shines in south LA the same as everywhere in California, except you do not notice it so much. This is where Felikss had brought us to, a neighbourhood where the houses were cramped and piled up, in those days, in slums. This was bearable for Felikss because he went out every day, supposedly for his new venture, so he called it. There was still some money, so I believed he could find a vehicle, however old. Every day he was talking on the phone to his contacts, so I could see no reason he could not make a start, supplying all these machines that people would kill to buy. But now it seemed he did no work at all, just smoking and drinking and waiting for the phone to ring, then laughing and making jokes with whoever called. Why the man who worked so hard when it was for his life, was so casual when it was for his fortune, I was never able to explain. When at last I complained to him one time too many, Felikss turned tables on me and encouraged me to take up work that paid more than peanuts. And so I learned to sew American fashion. I had acquired this skill from an early age, but the styles and the techniques were all different, and Felikss, who cannot find a washing machine to save his life, suddenly produces out of nowhere a sewing machine, a Singer Electric for me to work on. And this is how I become seamstress by trade, a thing I hated at first as it was so laborious for me. I only did it because I remembered my mother saying that there was always work for dressmakers
.
It was not long after this that Felikss then went away from me, which was in reality a relief because he had become so lazy and, strange to say, possessive, and suspected me and began to behave in an absurd manner. This was especially ridiculous, because I was all the time in the house, and the only people I ever see are women who need dresses or alterations done to them. On the other hand, I notice that he starts to spend his time in bars, and sometimes stays out late, and so the faithful man becomes faithless. Again, I did not scream and shout. In truth, my world did not come tumbling down, because Felikss was not my world, and always it was known that the thing between us was not love. And when this is the case it is so much easier to let it go
.
Then, one day Felikss went out never to come back. I knew this as soon as I woke and found him gone. It was for the simple reason that when I have gone to open the drapes, I find the Singer also was gone, and I knew that he had weighed up everything of our relationship and so concluded that here was a few dollars he could get back from it. I was not bitter and, as I say, I did not cry, but still I was alone and having to eat and pay the rent
.
For this reason I consider myself fortunate that I was able to find work in a dress shop in this same area of south Los Angeles, which was only a short bus ride away. I was employed by a woman who was lazy, but not in the use of her tongue, and who stood over my shoulder all the time while I did alterations for people. It was hard work to take up a hem before a customer left the store, or turn a blouse made for a thin person into one for a fat one. All the time, I told myself that good fortune would come my way, and it is true that it did, because one day a woman came in looking for buttons – buttons only, because it was for costumes in a movie production. She wanted big, big buttons of many different colours, and I gave much help to this woman to find what she was looking for, and when she saw that I was quick and careful in the work I was then doing, she asked me behind the back of my employer if I was interested in work that was similar but more rewarding. And when she revealed the nature of the position, I hardly needed to be persuaded
.
And so I came to MGM without even trying. Considering the circumstance, it was chance that took me to the studio and onto the set of a strange new musical film that was only just beginning, and this was called The Wizard of Oz
.
I remember the first day I turned up at the studios, dropped off from the bus in the middle of nowhere, but then seeing this never-ending expanse of buildings. Coming to the gate, I did not know if I was in a palace or a factory, because here there are Roman columns and grand entrances, but there there are just long, low, flat buildings, like warehouses, and soon I see there are lovely offices also, with windows looking out over fields in sunshine
.
Jane Sixsmith was the name of the woman who had come for the buttons, and it was her that I was to meet. As far as I knew, she was in charge of costumes, but then I discover there are so many people in charge of costumes, but all in different ways. Anyway, she asks me to keep in her footsteps and watch all the time to see everything she does, for this is how I will learn my job. And she takes me down many corridors then out into the open, then into a huge, high brick building, which from this point I am told is my place of work
.
Strange that the building that looked so huge on the outside, looked on the inside even more enormous! All around the walls there are scaffolds and stands of lights all lit up, and racks of costumes and tables of props and machines and trucks for the cameras. But then in the middle, where the eye is taken, is a great fairytale palace, which is all lit up and glowing green and reaching to the invisible roof. This was, of course, the Palace of Oz, and in other parts of this enormous studio are more extraordinary places I can see. There is a forest, and even a river with a bridge over it, and magical white houses. And right in front of me was a white horse, a real living one, which men are dabbing with paintbrushes to make it purple! But most of all it is the people that amaze me – so many and so different and colourful: actors and dancers and extras dressed like circus performers, dwarves – so many – who look like they come from children’s dreams. Then there are producers and technicians and designers, with whom I now belong, and soon I am told that I must go from character to character, who is lined up by the rails waiting for adjustments to their costumes. And I must help each one, according to the need, with alterations, a tuck to hold a waist, a dart to take in a top, a quick stitch to take up a hem
.
This was October 1938 and already I have been learning English for six months and improving all the time. The production has only just begun, but soon I hear from conversations that all is confusion, with an army of writers, but the script not even finished, with actors being replaced and people fired and hired all the time, even though this was only two weeks into the production. Turn around, people said, and a new director, or actor, or writer was there. And so everywhere people were grumbling and moaning and the magical place was a scene of much discontent
.