Lillian and Dash (29 page)

“Thanks, Jimmy.”

A
STORY IN TWO WEEKS
, something like that required talks with Hammett. She knew she’d have to call him, because she had always called him, but she decided to see how well she could do on her own first.

Lillian knew next to nothing about the Ukraine, at least not about the non-Jewish Ukraine, or village life therein. Nothing about wheat farming. And, other than the headlines, very little about the German advance into Russia strategically or tactically. Hammett. Damn him. Who else?

When Zenia arrived in Katonah, she had a message for Hammett from Lillian: “I have a surprise. Please call.” He did. After the house cleaning Lillian picked them all up and drove them back to Pleasantville. As awkward as it was for
Zenia, Lillian insisted she sit in the front with her; Hammett was in the back with Gilbert.

“So what’s your big surprise?”

“Tell you after you’ve got a fire going and we have drinks in hand.”

“Sounds like a surprise I’m going to like.”

Gilbert played with a toy soldier, a British “Tommy” Hammett had given him. Except for some machine gun sounds the boy made, they drove the darkening back roads in silence.

Hammett started a fire and made drinks. Zenia began dinner. Lillian changed from a sweater and slacks into another sweater and slacks. She joined him on the sofa that faced the fire. The wood crackled while they watched. Hammett raised his glass first.

“So?”

Lillian traced what she knew about the project from the president’s phone call to the present moment.

Hammett thought while fingering his mustache, his lips, his chin. All his first questions dealt with the specifics of production. Commercial release? Goldwyn’s role? Director? Cast? Locations? Time frame? Censorship? Basically all the questions Lillian had asked and was still waiting to have clarified. Had she signed anything? Would she be paid? How much? Was it only script work?

They spoke slowly and with care about all these things before they advanced to the more challenging matter of how
to make a movie that could change an American’s attitude about Communist Russia.

Zenia called, “Dinner.”

As they walked into the kitchen, Hammett said, “I’ve got your title.” He explained over T-bones, green beans, and baked potatoes that the most successful farm collective in the Ukraine was called “The North Star.” Hellman liked the title.

This was what Lillian loved—talking about projects—his and hers—discovering facts, finding connections, developing strategies. Hammett was especially good at this. What he said rarely translated directly into what she did with an idea, but what he said usually set her off on a Hellman riff that produced music he could never make himself. If collaboration of this quality was a form of love, Hellman and Hammett were very much in love again on this night.

His most important suggestion Lillian had already come up with on her own: set the piece in a time before the Germans arrive so we see the contrast between people working hard and raising families well and those same people later fighting for their lives. Americans are just starting to learn these same lessons for themselves. Remind the audience of that dramatic contrast—normal life poisoned by a war they did not start.

She let him speak on and on. Costumes authentic, yes. Tractors, hay wagons, wheat fields, all location stuff really. But no phony Russian accents. Make them all sound like Americans. Give the Germans the accents. As the Nazis advance, the people are required to burn their crops, or they
will be used to nourish the enemy—in one scene the villagers argue among themselves about Russia’s “scorched earth” policy. Imagine! Farmers having to destroy what they grow. Farmers! And then having to destroy every other damn thing the Germans might find useful. Homes, barns, farm equipment, everything. The dramatic possibilities were powerful.

It wasn’t yet midnight. Lillian said, “Wait.” She picked up the phone and asked for the long distance operator. “I’m sorry to call this late … You’re kind. I have a working title I wanted to share with you. I find it so much easier to work when I have a title. It tells me where I’m going
 … The North Star …
Yes, I do too … Thank you, Jimmy. Remember,
The North Star
. Tell the others. Of course … It’s going well … Talk to you soon.”

Hammett said, “He’s single … and they say he’s Jewish too.”

“Very funny.”

Which brought him to Lewis Milestone né Lev Milstein. Regardless of reputation and awards, Lillian knew that no director she worked with could ever be good enough for her in Hammett’s eyes. So when he warned her against caving in to Milestone’s authority, dramatic authority he meant, Lillian said, “But he’s a Russian, for Christ’s sake.”

“No. He’s a Jew from Bessarabia. Here’s what that means. The Ukrainians in the story are not Jews. If truth be told, they hate Jews. Milstein left before the Revolution. Nicholas was tsar. I’d wager he never saw a wheat field in his life. So don’t assume—”

“I won’t, dear.”

It wasn’t enough, he went on, to make it a war story, even an antiwar story, certainly not another
All Quiet
. It must be a morality play. Evil attempts to destroy good. Good fights back bravely. Will it triumph? Can’t be sure … that’s why we fight. The problem, the writing challenge, is how to create and dramatize the evil. In Spain it was bombing civilians and no one gave a shit. They do it now every night in London, and that gets our attention, but we still don’t see it as a morality play.

“So how?”

“Real evil has a certain defining quality. It’s perverse and we often see it better in small things. The smile on a villain’s face, even in a bad movie. The look in his eyes. The unnecessary gesture he makes with his knife. The threat of a punch that doesn’t get thrown. Intimidation is evil’s calling card. The German officer who takes command of your village has to have this quality—civilized but evil. Von Stroheim, even when he smiles—especially when he smiles—is the most frightening man in the world. He takes his white gloves off slowly one finger at a time and you can tell he’s a fiend.”

Hammett told Lillian of reports he had read about medical experiments in concentration camps that had scared the hell out of him. Disgusted him. Their real evil came out in their crazy scientific theories of racial purity. Hammett couldn’t see how she could work any of it into
North Star
, but for him it was at the heart of the Nazi darkness.

Lillian had lots of new questions. That’s how the process always worked: ideas strewn on the floor like pickup sticks. Some left. Some discarded. Some picked up, examined, questioned, put aside or onto the save-for-later pile. Some became “must use,” others “must use but how.”

Zenia had cleaned up long before and gone to sleep. Hellman and Hammett spoke late into the night, now in more general terms about the war and eventually about what they were reading, what he was writing, about the texture and details of their lives, and about old times. Was his racetrack story really true? And did Warner ever pay up? Yes and yes. And did she really make money with last year’s sweet corn crop? And did she really run a farm stand down at the road? Yes and yes.

They spoke more slowly and quietly the later it got. The cigarette smoke in the room began to settle. The whiskey had not quite run out. Just before bed Hammett said, “Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve got a little surprise of my own.”

“C
AP
’
N, HOW THE HELL ARE YOU
?”

Hammett pointed to the stripes on his arm. “Just a corporal, Jimmy, just a corporal.”

“You’re a captain to me, Dash.”

When the doorman first opened the door of the cab and saw Lillian he was genuinely pleased—“Miss H.! We’ve
missed you.” Hammett in uniform produced a second excitement. Jimmy could not resist the instinct to embrace Hammett, uniform or no uniform. He kept saying, “Pleasure, real pleasure.” In fact, he made such a fuss that many in the crowd waiting to enter “21”—almost all the men were officers in uniform—turned to look at the corporal and his lady.

Lillian said to the crowd, “Forgive them, folks, they fought together at Gettysburg.”

Jimmy took their arms and escorted them past the waiting crowd, talking all the while: “How’d you pull it off, Mr. H.? Where they got you stationed? Jeez, it’s good to see you both again.” He guided them through the door and past the hat check, right up to the maître d’s stand. Lillian loved the murmurs of discontent from women hanging on the arms of big brass over the privileged treatment of an old corporal and his woman.

Jimmy turned the couple over to Tomaso, who gave Hammett a crisp salute and Lillian a polite kiss and then led them to the corner table they had always considered theirs. As they passed through the room, eyes followed. Someone called out, “Bravo.” Three or four others applauded briefly. Neither of them acknowledged. There would be time when they were seated to look around for old friends.

Their waiter was Martin. Like old times. It was hard for him to keep his smile in its professional range, but he did reach out impetuously and shake their hands. He said it was a pleasure to have them back, an honor to serve them.

“Menus?”

“Not really, Martin.”

“Does Madame have an idea?”

“Something Russian, I think, Martin.”

“The Beluga to start?”

“Perfect.”

“Lamb, kabob-style perhaps.”

“Oh, yes.”

Lillian took out a cigarette and offered one to Hammett. He refused. Martin lit hers. “And for Mr. Hammett?”

“The regular, please.”
My god
, he thought,
I’m really going to miss this place
.

“And to drink, sir?”

“Champagne, Martin. We’re celebrating. Mumm’s. You pick the year.”

The restaurant was full of braided and medaled officer uniforms of all the services, of gilded and spangled women, few of whom were very young, and some older members of the smart New York set for whom the war was still something of an abstraction, but less so than before.

The theater crowd was there as well, almost no actors—most couldn’t afford this place—but she recognized George Abbott and the Shubert brothers with their wives. Lillian saw Jimmy Walker, the old mayor, drinking alone at a corner table. Tallulah was there with her young man of the evening, so Lillian prepared for a terrible scene. Tallulah held Lillian personally responsible for giving Bette Davis her role
in the
Little Foxes
movie. David Sarnoff was there. So was Paley. And, oh shit, there was Winchell, who was certain to come by.

Hammett’s surveillance of the room stopped abruptly when he saw Alfred Knopf and his wife, Blanche. He had taken a Knopf advance and written nothing. Fortunately that’s when Martin arrived with their champagne, which Hammett always insisted on opening himself. The pressure of the cork in his hand was not only pleasurable but gave him a sense of the bottle’s quality.

“Look, there’s Blanche and Alfred. Why not go over and say goodbye? Maybe he’ll want an army memoir.”

“I’m a soldier, not a writer.”

“My hero. Go on over.”

Hammett poured the champagne slowly and expertly. “Maybe later. Here’s to crime.”

“To crime.” Lillian paused before touching glasses. “I think I’m going to miss you terribly.”

“
Now
you tell me.”
Clink
.

When Hammett looked up again, Alfred and Blanche were at the table. Alfred leaned down to kiss Lillian. He said, “How did you manage it, old man?”

“That’s the British
old man
, I take it. Not
old man
as in ‘OLD’ man.”

“I think I meant both. And it’s awfully good to see you two … together.”

Lillian: “It’s good to be you two … together.”

Dash said, “Unfortunately not for long. I’ll be shipping out next week.”

Blanche Knopf observed that this news was startling to Lillian. She asked, “To where?”

“Top Secret, I’m afraid. Slip of the lip may sink a ship …”

“You take care, both of you.”

“We will.” Said in unison as they watched the Knopfs walk away.

“So why the hell didn’t you tell me? Made me look like a fool with them.”

“Just found out. Didn’t want to ruin our evening.”

“That’s a nice way not to ruin an evening.” She glared at him. “So where? Or is it Top Secret even to me?”

“West Coast is all I know. Honestly.”

“Wonderful. I’m going to be in L.A. a good deal with
North Star
. Maybe our paths will cross.”

As their meal ended and more well-wishers came by, Lilly’s pique softened. Lilly and Dash felt appreciated, a feeling they usually shared only with one another, and certainly not all the time. That others also valued them came as surprising good news.

Hammett popped the cork on a second bottle of Mumm’s before dessert was done. He poured. “To crime,” he said.

“To the man who knows nothing whatsoever about love.”

He stopped before the clink: “Oh, how I hate you.”

“Oh, how I hate you more.”

Clink
.

S
AM
G
OLDWYN CAME THROUGH
on the
North Star
project as Lillian could never have imagined. She always had a strong ally in Jimmy Roosevelt, but he had given up being a costumed lieutenant colonel in Hollywood and become a captain in the Marines. He was on active and dangerous duty fighting a real war in the Pacific. But he had kept an office in Washington that expeditiously forwarded Lillian’s messages. Through that office he kept a distant eye on
North Star
.