Lillian and Dash (28 page)

Hammett had been waiting for an hour and a half. No one had called his name. No one had come to talk to him. This was the army he remembered. Hammett realized at this point that he could actually begin to write the complete episode rather than merely sketch it. He approached the grizzled master sergeant at the desk and asked for a piece of typing paper. The sergeant, no spring chicken himself, said, “Help yourself, Gramps.”

Hammett wrote:

“Hammett, Samuel.” It sounded exactly like roll call. The master sergeant pointed to the first office door: “Major’ll see you now.”

On that first visit Major Gold never looked up from the old man’s application. All his words were discouraging: age, of course, rigors of basic, not the same army as twenty-five years ago, problem fitting in with the kids. Hammett said he had the legal right to a physical exam and didn’t plan to leave until he received one. Dr. Gold took his blood pressure, listened to his heart, looked down his throat and in his ears, tapped his patella, grabbed his nuts, and had him cough and then cough again. A passable forty-eight-year-old man. But barely. Chest problems?

“Heavy smoker.”

“Pneumonia maybe?”

“Long ago. A touch.”

Hammett said, “I don’t want to seem pushy here, Doc, but don’t the country owe me a little consideration for my first service?”

Major Gold did look at him then and said he would need to see some new lung X-rays and offered to make an appointment for him at Fort Hamilton Veterans Hospital. Come
back in three weeks and we’ll look at the pictures. Gold was sure he’d seen the last of Samuel Hammett.

Hammett was back with his X-rays one week later. Dr. Marvin Gold came out of his office as soon as he heard Hammett speaking to the master sergeant. Gold said, “Why didn’t you tell me who you were? It hit me soon as I saw the middle name.” He led the celebrity to his office.

Hammett said, “I’m the same old codger I was last week. Only a week older.”

“You know what I mean. Please. Sit.”

Gold was a movie buff and had seen every
Thin Man
twice. He wanted to know what Myrna Loy was really like. As sweet and funny as she seemed? And Powell, what kind of guy? How long did it take Hammett to write one of those scripts? And Asta, how did they get him to do all those things; was it trick photography?

Hammett not only answered all his questions, he expanded his answers with anecdotes, lots of them, a few of which were true. By the time they finally got around to discussing his enlistment, Major Gold was inclined to be an ally. There were still some significant bureaucratic obstacles—Gold said he had to clear these sorts of cases with superiors—but he himself was favorably inclined. Somewhat less so when he put Hammett’s X-rays up on the scope. They called it consumption back in ’19 when he first succumbed. Then tuberculosis. It was TB to the world now. It had left indelible scars on Hammett’s left lung that were going to be a very hard sell to the doctor’s
colonel, but Gold would see what he could do. Come back in two weeks … and more important, did Hammett actually know any of the stars personally as friends? Who, for example? Marlene Dietrich, did he know her to talk to?

“Extremely well,” Hammett said. He’d met her twice briefly.

“Was there any chance he could get her to …?”

“You’ll have it next time I see you. Do you want it
To Major Gold
or
Dear Marvin
?”

“
Marvin
would drive my wife crazy.”

“
Marvin
it’ll be.”

Hammett bought a posed glossy photo of Dietrich in
Morocco
from Steuben’s Stationery on Broadway. He had a choice and opted for the still with the brightest background. Von Sternberg, the director, was so in love with Dietrich he always highlighted her brilliantly with surrounding darkness. In the
Morocco
glossy she wears the signature top hat and tails. A cigarette holder is clenched in her teeth. There is at least enough light in the upper right-hand corner for an inscription. Hammett wrote,
To my dear Marvin—There’s something about a soldier! Fondly, Marlene
.

He slipped the photo in an oversized envelope in which he had received a returned screenplay from Paramount. Perfect fit.

Major Gold was speechless when he held the photo before him, lip-reading
To my dear Marvin
 … But even before he handed Gold the promised bribe, Hammett felt
something had gone wrong. There was a problem with his enlistment.

“I feel terrible,” Gold said. “They overruled.”

“The problem?”

“Lungs.”

“So I’ll go get some better-looking X-rays. Was it an order?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did they order you to reject?”

“It’s not like that. They returned the file with a finding. See, it’s on the folder, here—‘We find the candidate unqualified at this time for …’ ”

“Marvin. Surely you still have some discretion in the matter. It isn’t an order. You’ve got that ‘at this time’ to play with …”

“I’ve never done anything like—”

“Let me ask you this. If you were to accept my enlistment, where would that file go?”

“It would follow you to assignment. I’d recommend Signal Corps. Fort Monmouth.”

“Then it wouldn’t go back upstairs. They’d never know—or even care—what happened to Hammett with the lungs.”

Gold shook his head. And then sat silently. He was mulling. Hammett knew to remain silent. Gold reached into his desk and pulled out an official form. He began to print. “Okay,” he said to Hammett, “I’ll let you into this war. But I hope you understand this is absolutely the last time.”

L
ILLIAN WAS AT THE TABLE
when the phone rang, looking approvingly at her arms and the backs of her strong hands in the sunlight. Her habit of anticipating her caller and determining whether or not to pick up caused her to signal Zenia to let it ring. It could be Hammett, whom she did not want to speak with. Or Childs, whom she did. She picked up warily. The voice was its own identification. Early in the day as it was, his voice was already tuned like a cello. Even before she heard “This is the president,” it was indeed the president.

What she remembered of the conversation was a string of compliments about the quality of her work, especially
The Spanish Earth
, her courage and patriotism, and the country’s need for an even more pressing political film. When the president left pauses, Lillian filled with, “Yes, Mr. President,” “Of course, sir,” “Thank you, Mr. President.”

Would she be willing to create—that was his word,
create
—a film that introduced the Soviet Union favorably to the American public?

“More than willing, Mr. President.”

“Object, you see, is to transform a former adversary into an admired ally. Quickly. No mean feat. Up to it?”

“Please, Mr. President.” This was as close as she came to being her truest self with the caller.

Did she know Mr. Goldwyn well? He pronounced the name
Goldwine
.

“Extremely well, sir.”

Goldwyn’s studio would produce and distribute the film. If Miss Hellman was “on board,” she would hear later today from the president’s son James, who was organizing things in Hollywood. The pause pertained to
if
and
on board
.

“They’ll have to throw me off the train, sir.”

“Questions?”

“Only the time frame, sir.”

“Surely you know the answer to that, Miss Hellman.”

Afterward she sat quietly at the table smiling and looking out over Hardscrabble. Zenia was at the sink shaking her head and clucking. The President Roosevelt himself,
cluck, cluck, cluck
, my, my, my.

Lillian’s personal pleasure gave way to the pleasure of the challenge—adversary to ally. No, not the
why
of it,
only what it could mean to us … the lives saved. Getting even with the Rats. Spain had not gone well, maybe this time …

She was taken out of her thoughts by a tapping on the back window. Cedric Childs, right on time.

“Coffee, Zenia.” That meant Lilly wanted to talk. Childs sat down.

She asked him to guess who had just called. He refused. “The president. I just hung up. Right, Zenia?”

“Yes, Mr. Childs.” She placed a cup of coffee in front of him.

“He had an assignment for me, which I accepted. I’m afraid it’s going to screw up our plans for the planting royally.” Lillian explained in general and said she’d know more of the details after she spoke with the president’s son, maybe as early as later today.

“Which means?”

“Which means, I think, our planting season has gone to war.”

“And why exactly is that?”

“The president wants the movie made right away. I’ve got to start writing immediately. I’ll be working on it all the time, probably traveling out to the coast for it. Much as I love farming this place …”

“How long do you anticipate …”

“I’ll know better after I talk to …”

Zenia said, “If you won’t be needing me, I’ll just …” She left the room.

“It would break my heart to see this place go fallow again. I would never have asked you to. I’m not even asking you to now.”

“The farm’s asking, isn’t it?”

She squeezed his hand. “You’re remarkable.” Lillian stood and kissed Cedric Childs on an unshaved cheek.

J
AMES
R
OOSEVELT CALLED
that evening. If the father’s was a cello, James’s voice was a viola. The speech patterns, the
intonations, the accent and pronunciations were the same. The son, however, pronounced
Goldwyn
correctly.

This is what Lillian learned: the project had been presented to colonels Warner, Mayer, and Goldwyn. Only Goldwyn accepted. Production costs would be carried by the government and repaid out of profits, if any. The film would be a commercial release, so Lillian would have to make arrangements with Goldwyn for a fee, a surprise because Lillian hadn’t expected to be paid for her contribution. Some very fine and well-known actors had already committed, Roosevelt said. Which ones? Not yet at liberty to say, which meant that the project was still at the throwing-names-around stage.

Did Lillian have any story ideas?

She did indeed. Her basic
Spanish Earth
idea, which had really been discarded by Hemingway and Ivens—only now it will be a farming village in the Ukraine that comes under attack. Bombed by the Luftwaffe, taken by the Wehrmacht. The peasants organize and resist. This plot idea came straight off daily news reports as the German army rolled eastward across the wheat fields of the Soviet Union. “The important thing here, Mr. Roosevelt …”

“Please call me Jimmy, Miss Hellman.”

“I’m Lilly, Jimmy.”

“Fine.”

“The important thing is to start the story earlier and show how much like us these people are … or were … before they were attacked. Same hardworking people as us. Same
aspirations for our children. Same taste for freedom. That essential similarity is the key for me dramatically and psychologically, and it’s what we have in common and what we both risk losing to these bastards.” Lillian knew she had something good to build on and certainly had Roosevelt’s attention. “So the Nazis take over the village. The young men take to the hills to form partisan defense groups. This all has to be worked out—I only heard about the project a few hours ago, but …”

“I’m enthused, Lillian …”

“… but I can assure you everything will be a drama, not a tract. There must be young lovers, the village mayor, the doctor, the teacher, a class of children. Do you have any idea who will direct?”

“Goldwyn tells me Milestone.”

“Lewis would be ideal.”

Lewis Milestone already had two Academy Awards and two other nominations. For this project his
All Quiet on the Western Front
was credential enough.
Milestone
was an American invention: Lev Milstein was born in Russia, another obvious advantage.

“It’s clear this project needed you. Thank you for coming on board.”

“I hate
on board
. I’m simply glad to have the chance to work on this.”

“Stand corrected. Tell me, when do you think we can see a story outline? No matter how rough.”

“Give me two weeks.”

“If not sooner. They tell me you’re fast.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Anyway, I’ll see what progress I can make out here. Would it be okay to have Mr. Milestone call you?”

“Fine.”

“And Mr. Goldwyn?”

“Less fine, but fine.”

“Well, Miss Hel—, Lilly, I have to say I’m very encouraged having spoken with you. I’ve had my doubts this project would ever happen or be successful. Now, I’m quite sure of both.”