Smoke and Mirrors

“Would it be possible for you to . . . the, uh, the groundkeeper. Mister Dundas. An elderly gentleman. I don’t know. I haven’t seen him around for a couple of days. I wanted to say good-bye.”

“To one of the groundsmen?”

“Yes.”

She stared at me, puzzled. She was very beautiful, and her lipstick was the color of a blackberry bruise. I wondered whether she was waiting to be discovered.

She picked up the phone and spoke into it, quietly.

Then, “I’m sorry, sir. Mister Dundas hasn’t been in for the last few days.”

“Could you give me his phone number?”

“I’m sorry, sir. That’s not our policy.” She stared at me as she said it, letting me know that she really was so sorry . . .

“How’s your screenplay?” I asked her.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“Well—”

“It’s on Joel Silver’s desk,” she said. “My friend Arnie, he’s my writing partner, and he’s a courier. He dropped it off with Joel Silver’s office, like it came from a regular agent or somewhere.”

“Best of luck,” I told her.

“Thanks,” she said, and smiled with her blackberry lips.

Information had two Dundas, P’s listed, which I thought was both unlikely and said something about America, or at least Los Angeles.

The first turned out to be a Ms. Persephone Dundas. At the second number, when I asked for Pious Dundas, a man’s voice said, “Who is this?” I told him my name, that I was staying in the hotel, and that I had something belonging to Mr. Dundas.

“Mister. My grandfa’s dead. He died last night.”

Shock makes clichés happen for real: I felt the blood drain from my face; I caught my breath.

“I’m sorry. I liked him.”

“Yeah.”

“It must have been pretty sudden.”

“He was old. He got a cough.” Someone asked him who he was talking to, and he said nobody, then he said, “Thanks for calling.”

I felt stunned.

“Look, I have his scrapbook. He left it with me.”

“That old film stuff?”

“Yes.”

A pause.

“Keep it. That stuff’s no good to anybody. Listen, mister, I gotta run.” A click, and the line went silent.

I went to pack the scrapbook in my bag and was startled, when a tear splashed on the faded leather cover, to discover that I was crying.

I stopped by the pool for the last time, to say good-bye to Pious Dundas, and to Hollywood.

Three ghost white carp drifted, fins flicking minutely, through the eternal present of the pool.

I remembered their names: Buster, Ghost, and Princess; but there was no longer any way that anyone could have told them apart.

The car was waiting for me, by the hotel lobby. It was a thirty-minute drive to the airport, and already I was starting to forget.

THE WHITE ROAD

“. . . I wish that you would visit me one day,

in my house.

There are such sights I would show you.”

My intended lowers her eyes, and, yes, she shivers.

Her father and his friends all hoot and cheer.

“That’s never a story, Mister Fox,” chides a pale woman

in the corner of the room, her hair corn-fair,

her eyes the gray of cloud, meat on her bones,

she curves, and smiles crooked and amused.

“Madam, I am no storyteller,” and I bow, and ask,

“Perhaps, you have a story for us?” I raise an eyebrow.

Her smile remains.

She nods, then stands, her lips move:

“A girl from the town, a plain girl, was betrayed by her lover,

a scholar. So when her blood stopped flowing,

and her belly swole beyond disguising,

she went to him, and wept hot tears. He stroked her hair,

swore that they would marry, that they would run,

in the night,

together,

to his aunt. She believed him;

even though she had seen the glances in the hall

he gave to his master’s daughter,

who was fair, and rich, she believed him.

Or she believed that she believed.

“There was something sly about his smile,

his eyes so black and sharp, his rufous hair. Something

that sent her early to their trysting place,

beneath the oak, beside the thornbush,

something that made her climb the tree and wait.

Climb a tree, and in her condition.

Her love arrived at dusk, skulking by owl-light,

carrying a bag,

from which he took a mattock, shovel, knife.

He worked with a will, beside the thornbush,

beneath the oaken tree,

he whistled gently, and he sang, as he dug her grave,

that old song . . .

Shall I sing it for you, now, good folk?”

She pauses, and as a one we clap and we holloa

—or almost as a one:

My intended, her hair so dark, her cheeks so pink,

her lips so red,

seems distracted.

The fair girl (Who is she? A guest of the inn, I hazard) sings:

“A fox went out on a shiny night

And he begged for the moon to give him light

For he’d many miles to go that night

Before he’d reach his den-O!

Den-O! Den-O!

He’d many miles to go that night, before he’d reach his den-O.”

Her voice is sweet and fine, but the voice of my intended is finer.

“And when her grave was dug—

A small hole it was, for she was a little thing,

even big with child she was a little thing—

he walked below her, back and a forth,

rehearsing her hearsing, thus: