Mendoza in Hollywood (21 page)

“I just kept quiet and played with the ravens. I liked to stroke their feathers. They were so shiny black, they were blue and reflected the sky. I thought they were the prettiest things.

“Then something bad happened. I don’t know what it was. Daddy and Mommy were yelling at each other, and I sneaked away to play with the ravens. There was one that liked to have his neck scratched, behind the feathers, and he just wanted you to go on and on and he’d close his eyes like saying, I can’t stand this, it’s so good.

“Grandfather came and got me and put me in the canoe. He said a lot of scary things. We went across the sea, and sometimes he’d
stand up in the canoe and shout at the sky. I curled up in the bottom of the canoe and closed my eyes.

“We came to the mainland, and Grandfather hid the canoe in a cave. We sneaked across the hills, so the soldiers wouldn’t see us, and we came to the big mission. It was the biggest place I’d ever seen. There was a Christian priest sitting on the steps. I don’t know why he was sitting out there in the middle of the night.”

“I do,” I said tensely. “Short man, was he, in a brown robe? Stocky? Little black eyes?”

“Uh-huh. Grandfather carried me up to him and said, Here, you take children, take this one. And he turned and walked away. He left me there. I never saw him again.” Juan Bautista’s eyes were red, but he didn’t start blubbering, thank God.

“Well, the Christian was really surprised. He sat up and asked me what had happened. I told him everything I knew, which wasn’t much. He was nice. He asked me a lot of questions and told me everything would be all right now. We went into the big kitchen in the dark, but the Christian could see in the dark, and he got me some food. Then he took me to his room and put me in his bed and told me to sleep. I asked him where he was going to sleep, and he said he didn’t sleep.”

“He doesn’t,” I said. “Not much, anyway.”

“He hid me in his room a couple of days. He shaved my head, because of bugs, he said. He measured me and looked in my eyes. He let me play with a glass. I’d never seen glass before. It broke, and I cut my finger, and he took some of the blood and put it in something that was probably a machine, but it didn’t look like one.”

“And let me guess,” I said, clenching my fists. “He sat you down and gave you a talk about how sad it was to get old and crazy like your grandfather, but
you
didn’t ever have to get old or die.”

“That’s right.”

“And I’ll bet he told you that it was sad you’d lost your family, but you could have a wonderful new family who would help you become smart and live forever.”

Juan Bautista looked at me. “I guess that’s what we say to all the kids we rescue, huh? The next day, he brought me out and told the other Christians that I was a little orphan who’d been left at the mission, but that he’d discovered I had family at a rancheria up the coast, so he was going to take me there, because the mission couldn’t provide for orphans anymore.

“We walked and walked, and after a couple of days we came to a big hill above the sea. You could see the islands from there. We stopped and built a fire and waited until dark. In the middle of the night the ship came, a big silver ship. It scared me half to death, but the Christian explained what it was.

“It landed, and the door opened, and nice people came out and took me inside. I was happy, for the first time I could remember except when I was with the ravens. Nobody ever fought or yelled. There was lots of food. And when they found out I liked birds, they made me an ornithologist.” Juan Bautista sighed. “So I guess I’m better off now. I really shouldn’t blame my grandfather. Because if he hadn’t taken me to the Christian, I’d probably be dead or a slave. And it isn’t Porfirio’s fault that Marie is old and can’t eat the pelican chow.”

“No, it isn’t.” I gazed into the brown water of the creek.

“You want to go eat some sardines, old lady?” said Juan Bautista, burying his face in the spiky feathers on Marie’s neck. “They’re good for you. We’ll go get some treats, and I’ll play for you, how about that? I’m learning Nunuz’s
Sinfonia Asturias
. She really likes the slow movement.”

Erich von Stroheim reached down and groomed behind Juan’s ears, tugging a long tail of silver hair and pulling it slowly through his beak until it stood out at an angle. He cocked his head, studying the results.

“T
HIS IS THE BIG ONE
!” Einar said, leaping down from the wagon.

“What big one?” Porfirio asked uneasily, looking around at the hills as though he expected them to rock and roll.

“The epic. David Wark Griffith’s
Intolerance,”
Einar flourished a big silver film can at us. “It just came in. Polish up your rhinestones and press those tuxedos, ladies and gentlemen, ’cause we’re going to Babylon tonight!”

There’s nothing like a sense of occasion to lift your spirits. Imarte was delighted when she heard what was on the evening’s bill, and prepared a special treat; in addition to our popcorn and non-bathtub gin we had little rose-flavored chunks of gummy candy, prepared (she assured us) exactly as it was served at Belshazzar’s feast. She would know, I guess. Nor was that all; she and Einar made a last-minute trip over to Sherman and managed to get roses from somebody’s garden, big trailing fronds of yellow rambler, and spent most of the afternoon picking off thorns and weaving them into serviceable crowns. We settled down amid the cushions wearing chaplets of roses, and a big yellow rose waved above Einar’s right ear as he stood up and pretended to talk into a microphone.

“And welcome once again, my fellow immortals, to this evening’s edition of the Cahuenga Pass Film Festival. Tonight’s offering is maybe the quintessential Hollywood film, the first cinema epic, and has been
hailed as one of the greatest films ever made
and
one of the worst. How did the inimitable D. W. manage to grab the brass ring while simultaneously falling off the painted pony and landing on his head?

“Budget and bad timing, folks, combined with the same wholesome naïveté that left him astonished when black audiences failed to enjoy his film glorifying the Ku Klux Klan. Nobody could ever say Griffith was a slow learner, though, and so for his next film he singled out a slightly safer group to pick on: prissy old ladies of both genders. You may not agree with his unique insights on psychology or his scholarly footnotes as the evening progresses, but I can promise you this much: the visuals are killer.

“Now, this print will not be accompanied by the original score, but we are fortunate enough to have in our audience an expert who will provide us with fascinating commentary and insights of her own.” He bowed at Imarte, and we all applauded politely. She waved a gracious hand. “On matters Babylonian, Persian, and prostitutional we defer to thee, O scarlet one. So, everybody, breathe a silent prayer to Ishtar, the goddess at Heaven’s Gate, and hold on to your cushions, because it’s gonna be a truly bumpy ride!”

He clambered over Juan Bautista and Erich (Marie was more obliging about being left in her cage) and started the projector. We were briefly treated to his black shadow on the screen while he blew out the lamps; then we were silently told that we were watching
INTOLERANCE
, a Sun-Play of the Ages
.

“What’s a sun-play?” Juan Bautista asked.

“Photoplay, get it?” Porfirio explained.

“Oh.”

The screen advised us that we were going to watch a story of the battle of the forces of Hatred and Intolerance versus Love and Charity. Great, I thought, as though a roomful of immortals hadn’t seen
that
plotline a few hundred times already. But this was supposed to be a great classic, so I opened my mouth only to stuff in some popcorn.

“Okay, here’s the great leitmotif,” said Einar.
OUT OF THE CRADLE
ENDLESSLY ROCKING
,
the screen told us, and there was Lillian Gish rocking the biggest cradle I’d ever seen, while the Three Fates looked on from upstage. There followed something incoherent and vaguely poetical about eternal hopes and fears, eternal joys and sorrows, and then we were watching a grand ball for a wealthy modern (early-twentieth-century) industrialist and his spinster sister.

“What is that woman wearing on her head?” Oscar inquired, frowning at the screen. “She looks like a circus horse.”

She did, too; she was aging and plain, which made her easy prey for the Uplifters, a villainous society of ladies who wanted her money so they could ruin everybody else’s fun. Now that she was no longer attracting the boys, she just naturally fell into their clutches, and was persuaded to hand over her brother’s millions to the cause of Reform.

“Notice the subtle misogyny in Griffith’s depiction of older women,” said Imarte with a sniff.

“Subtle!” I scoffed through my popcorn.

Now we got to meet the Little Dear One, portrayed by Mae Marsh, a teen miss given to hysterical displays of affection, living happily with her aged father (a mill worker for the wealthy industrialist) and a host of small barnyard animals. Next we met our hero, Bobby Herron, as the Boy, who sported a black mustache in defiance of all heroic convention.

“He looks like Gomez Addams,” said Juan Bautista. Our giggles died as the scene advanced and Griffith showed us the gray laboring masses shuffling in lockstep through the gates of the mill. This was the Future, this was the Metropolis, this was the century that would bring us to 1984. Where would I be in 1984? Or 1996? I reached for my martini and had a bracing gulp.

The scene changed. There was Lillian Gish with the cradle again and then the two tablets of Mosaic law, and we were at the Jaffa Gate watching camels and old bearded men in striped headdresses. Griffith explained what a Pharisee was, making sure we didn’t miss the parallel with the Uplifters, and then showed us some of the Judean variety praying ostentatiously.

Wham! Scene change to France,
A.D.
1572, where problems between the Catholics and the Huguenots were about to come to the boil.

“Hey! Really good clothes,” I said in surprise. Everyone nodded except Juan Bautista and Oscar, who hadn’t lived through that century. Then we were shown Catherine de Medici, the villainous queen mother (“
That
meddling old hag!” snarled Imarte, with such venom, we all turned to look at her) and her two sons: the king, a slender fellow with a tendency to curl up sideways on his throne, and his brother the prince, an effeminate who kept puppies in his codpiece. We were shown the French court milling around in a large room; then we met our Huguenot heroine Brown Eyes (with a tight close-up on her face, so we got the idea) and her nonentity boyfriend, Prosper Latour. We also met an obviously villainous soldier who was smitten with lust for Brown Eyes.

“I bet I know what’s going to happen,” said Juan Bautista, sitting forward.

But before we could guess, we were whisked back to the twentieth century, where the poor mill workers were innocently dancing at an ice-cream social. The Little Dear One was there, gleeful as usual, and so was the industrialist oppressor, snooping on his workers and scavenging dropped change from the sidewalk. This was straight out of Dickens, only grayer and more banal.

“When do we get to Babylon?” I complained.

“Right about now,” Einar said, and lo, we beheld the Imgur Bel Gate of Babylon! Intricate, massive, worked by twin capstans carven with lions rampant, manned by dozens of slaves. Elephants plodding through the streets, looking small as cows before the vast walls. Enormous winged bulls with the heads of bearded kings. Now
this
was imagery. We cheered and applauded.

“Shot right here, folks, on Griffith’s lot off Hollywood Boulevard,” said Einar.

“Actually it didn’t look at all like that,” Imarte said.

“Well, it ought to have,” Porfirio said.

In the midst of the gorgeously costumed bustle there were a few people just sort of sitting around in the street as though they were waiting for the next bus, and Griffith made sure we noticed one of them, she whom the title card declared to be the Mountain Girl.

“So, is there some reason he never gives these people names?” Porfirio asked.