The Age of Dreaming (30 page)

“My mother took it,” she said. “I didn’t want her to. My mother took everything I loved. Just ask Ashley.”

At this, she began to cry, a soft sound that gradually built into a wail. She rocked back and forth and hugged herself, and the sound of her crying brought Amanda rushing back into the room. “I think you should go now,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Miss Amanda. I don’t know what happened.” And I
was
sorry—not only for that day, but for all of the days, forty-two years ago and all the time between.

“There, there,” she said, putting an arm around Nora, who calmed down almost immediately. Her cries quieted to whimpers, and she looked at the floor; she no longer seemed aware that I was present. In another moment, Amanda stood and led me to the foyer. I glanced back toward the living room one last time, more sad than I could find the words to say.

“She has good days and bad days,” Amanda said by the door. “These last few days have been difficult.”

“She mentioned that Josh Dreyfus was here. Is that true?”

“Yes. He came two days ago. He didn’t stay long.”

“Nora said he came last week.”

“She’s just confused. He came and immediately began to pressure her. A most distasteful young man.”

“I’m sorry I upset her.”

She peered at me suspiciously again. “As I said, she’s not used to visitors. But thank you for the fiowers. I’m sure she’ll enjoy them.”

With that, I left the house and drove shakily down to the pier at Santa Monica. I needed to be outside and to breathe some fresh air, so I walked along the boardwalk for several hours until the sun began to set over the ocean. Then, exhausted, I drove back home.

As I sit here this evening in the Oak Grove Pub, I’m both troubled and relieved by the day’s events. On the one hand—and I know this is entirely selfish—I’m glad that Nora wasn’t willing to answer Dreyfus’ questions. But on the other, given her state of mind, there is no telling what she remembers or thinks of the past, and it is always possible she might speak to him later. Besides that, I was truly disturbed by her condition. It distressed me greatly to see her so alone in her mind, and to think that I might have had something to do with her condition. I suffered as well because of what happened to Ashley Tyler—admittedly not as much as either she or Elizabeth, but my own troubles were not insignificant. And yet I have my health and comfort and certainly my mind, all things that have eluded poor Nora.

To be sure, seeing her again—and having even our limited conversation about the past—has also stirred up certain difficult recollections. For truth be told, in the atmosphere of hysteria that followed the Tyler murder, I was not as sensitive to Nora’s circumstances as I would have liked. In my urgency to protect my own name and career, I did not offer her solace or comfort. I did not, as any decent man would have done, try to speak to her about matters that concerned us both. And if I now have questions about things that transpired; if I now feel excluded from decisions in which I might have had some say, the fault is completely my own. Still, I cannot help but wonder what might have been had I tried to talk to her after Tyler was killed. Nora—or her mother—might have made different choices, and the long decades that followed the end of my career might not have been so full of regret.

Had Tyler not been killed, Nora’s relationship with her mother might have evolved into something different. It was already apparent that Nora was growing tired of Harriet’s constant supervision, and during the filming of
The Latest Game
, our penultimate film together, I began to notice a change in the way she behaved around her mother. Instead of listening to—or at least tolerating—her mother’s comments and advice, she would simply turn from her, and sometimes go so far as to get up and leave the room. During a review of the rushes, when Harriet criticized the angle at which her daughter held her head, Nora stood up, stomped her foot, and exclaimed, “Mother!” A few days later, I saw Nora and her mother on the Perennial lot, gesturing and shouting at each other. Even Nora’s appearance had changed—she’d cut the long, fiowing hair into a less girlish style, and had abandoned the fiowery gossamer dresses for the sleek, fitted dresses of the ’20s. It was noted by several people that she was starting to look more grown-up. I wasn’t truly surprised when, a few weeks later, I began to hear word of Nora going out at night, attending various parties; apparently Harriet hadn’t found a way to keep her daughter from escaping their huge new mansion. One evening, I even saw Nora at the Cocoanut Grove, dancing with Charlie Chaplin. There was a new, more worldly aspect in her carriage and expression, and I found my eyes returning to her again and again. She appeared happy and intoxicated, looser than I’d ever seen her, almost desperate in her need to be free.

I do not know what caused this sudden marked rebellion. Perhaps she’d finally realized that it was she and not her mother who held the real power in the family. Perhaps it was a natural consequence of a young woman coming of age. Or perhaps it was simply that she was in love, since her most common companion during her nights on the town was Ashley Bennett Tyler. The young Mr. Riner Jones was gone, and for a while he was replaced by several other, older men. But whoever Nora might be entangled with in a given week or month, it was Tyler who accompanied her most often. Nora’s mother was aware that she was going out in the evenings; one of the arguments I overheard was about a party she’d attended without her mother’s consent. I almost felt sorry for the woman, since the one thing she had control of, her creation, as I’m sure she saw it, appeared to be slipping away. On the other hand, I was glad, in an almost paternal manner, to see Nora enjoying herself and achieving some separation from Mrs. Cole.

That evening I saw her dancing at the Cocoanut Grove may have been the last carefree night she ever had. For it was only a few weeks later that the incident occurred that changed everything forever. It happened during the making of
Into the Wild
, the otherwise undistinguished work that achieved a certain notoriety because it was the last picture that Tyler directed, as well as the last film in which both Nora and I appeared. Indeed, it almost didn’t proceed to shooting at all—the studio had not been for it, but Tyler convinced them, partly by promising to scale back my role. In subsequent years, I’ve often wished that he had not succeeded; the course of all our lives might have been very different.

Into the Wild
was filmed up in what is now the Angeles National Forest, in a small open space enclosed by cedars and Douglas firs. This clearing was the size of a house and lit with a nearly preternatural light, which filtered in through a break in the branches far above the forest floor and hit the ground as bright and focused as a spotlight. Every morning for more than a week, a caravan of cars would make its way up through the winding mountain roads, followed by a truck which carried the film equipment. The trip was only twenty miles, but it took well over two hours, as most of the road was not paved. We drove up in street clothes and got into costume in unheated temporary sheds. Our hands would shake in the sharp morning cold.

The plot involved an explorer, played by Tyler, his bride, played by Nora, and his Indian wilderness guide, which was me. Tyler was both acting and directing, and I saw immediately the effect that this dual role had on Nora. Playing Tyler’s wife seemed to stir her to a new level of agitation, so that when she talked to him, or touched his shoulders, or enfolded herself in his arms, there was a fiush in her cheeks that had nothing to do with performance. During the few scenes when their characters quarreled, her anger and disappointment seemed utterly real, and she would continue to rage or cry after the camera stopped rolling. Even these shows of emotion, though, seemed different somehow—not girlish pouting, but rather more womanly suffering. As usual, her mother wasn’t present, since Tyler had barred her from the set. But on the last day of filming, Mrs. Cole made the trip to the forest uninvited, and following a brief argument with Tyler—and after she informed him that her driver had left—he reluctantly allowed her to stay.

We were filming a scene where the explorer finds that the party’s belongings have been ransacked in the night. He is angry at first, and then consoling to his wife, who fears correctly that there are hostile Indians—one of them played by John Vail—lying in wait in the woods. The scene requires a subtle shift from surprise to anger to fear, and Tyler kept reshooting it to get Nora’s expression right. Harriet, standing a few feet to the left of the camera, was growing increasingly angry. She clenched her fists and paced in a tight back-and-forth pattern. To this day, I do not know what caused her to be so upset—whether it was the sight of Ashley Tyler laying hands on her daughter (his character embraced hers when she saw what had become of their belongings), or the realization that Tyler disapproved of her, or if something else had happened between her and Nora. But as Tyler and Nora continued to reshoot the scene, Harriet became more vocal.

“Hold your head up straight,” she instructed her daughter. “The cameraman can’t see your face.” Then: “Why are you wearing that ridiculous dress? Couldn’t the studio have found something better?” Then: “You look like a stupid starstruck child, gazing into his face like that.”

As Harriet spoke, Nora grew more upset, which resulted in her missing her cues and stumbling over her marks and forcing Tyler to do more takes. Watching this, I felt embarrassed and powerless. The men in the film crew were bothered too. The cameraman, with his hand still cranking the camera, gave Harriet dirty looks; the prop man stepped right in front of her holding a reflector in order to cut off her view. John Vail, his face covered with paint and head crowned with feathers, lit a cigarette and mumbled under his breath, “Wicked old dried-up bitch.” Tyler himself, typically, attempted to ignore Harriet, until finally one of her jabs made Nora burst into tears.

“Mrs. Cole,” he said gently. “Please, you’re upsetting your daughter, and it’s making it difficult for her to concentrate on the scene.”

“My daughter’s moods are none of your concern!” insisted Mrs. Cole. “You are simply her director, and don’t ever forget it. Stop acting like she’s your wife!”

“Mother!” pleaded Nora.

“You shut up, you little slut. Let me finish.”

But Nora didn’t let her. Before Harriet had the chance to say anything else, Nora turned and ran into the woods. We were all so shocked that none of us reacted at first; then, finally, Tyler called out after her. He and Vail hurried off in the direction she’d gone, with Harriet close behind. They returned a few minutes later, without Nora.

“I’m sure she’ll be back in a moment,” said Harriet. “She’s very prone to dramatic scenes lately.”

“Well, if you’d just ease off of her—” began Tyler.

“I can say what I want! She’s my daughter!”

“She’s not a child! No matter what you choose to believe. She’s a woman, and she’s tired of you treating her like property!”

“And since when do
you
have such intimate knowledge of my daughter’s feelings?”

“It’s obvious. It’s obvious to everyone! You’re doing her much more harm than good!”

They broke off as quickly as they’d started.

“At any rate,” said Tyler, lighting a cigarette, “I’m sure you’re right, and she’ll be back shortly.”

But when she wasn’t back shortly; when thirty minutes had passed and there was still no sign of her, Tyler suggested that the men split up and search for her, and that one stay behind with Mrs. Cole. There were mountain lions in the forest, and bears as well, none of which would bother us when we were shooting in a group but were more likely to attack if someone was alone. We knew that Nora couldn’t defend herself against a wild animal. And it was easy to get lost in the wilderness.

I entered the woods heading north, walking along a small stream. For the first ten minutes I could hear the other men’s calls and echoes—“Nora! Nora! Nora!” Then all human sound was lost, and I heard only the sounds of nature—the rustle of trees, birds chirping, the music of the stream. I made my way through thick underbrush, pushing back branches that were moist with frost. The air was pure and crisp and smelled of pine. Every few minutes I would see a patch of disturbed earth and wonder if it was the sign of a human or of some wild forest creature. Several times I heard strange noises and knew that something was watching; it was as if I were back home in Nagano again, making my way through untouched woods.

I must have walked uphill for thirty minutes or more, calling Nora’s name, and then I reached a point where the air was even more chilly and the ground was spotted with snow. It was early November, and perhaps forty degrees at that elevation; I was sure that Nora wouldn’t have walked so far in the cold without even a shawl. But just as I was about to turn around, I heard a girl’s voice. It sounded like she was talking or singing to herself, and when I stood still to listen, I knew I hadn’t imagined it. “Nora!” I called out, and the voice stopped for a moment and then resumed singing again. I pushed through some thick bushes that grew up to the banks of the stream and found myself in a small clearing, with Nora not ten feet away from me. She was sitting on a large, fiat rock which abutted the trickling stream. When she saw me her face lit up, as if she’d been awaiting my arrival for hours and had wondered what was causing the delay.

“Jun!” she called out. “Isn’t it beautiful here?”

I stepped closer to the edge of the rock. “Everyone is worried about you, Miss Niles. You’re very far from the set.”

“Oh, who cares about the set! I want to be
here
! Here, away from everyone and everything!”

I didn’t speak, and she turned to face me. “I don’t mind
you
being here, Jun. I like to be with you. Why don’t you come over and sit with me?”

I hesitated. The rock was the size of a dining room table, but finally I sat on the very edge and looked out over the stream.

“You don’t have to sit so far away, Jun. I’m not going to bite you.” She slid toward me, so close that her dress, which was now rather muddied, touched and then covered my leg. She took my hand in hers and leaned her head against my shoulder. “My mother is terrible, isn’t she?”