Lillian and Dash (6 page)

I’d always felt—and I told him this too often—that he suffered from a Goldilocks complex, couldn’t or wouldn’t find the bed or the chair or the porridge that was just right. The novels and screenplays were too easy for him—that’s why
they were pulps or bad movies. When I wanted to get him angry with himself, I used to pout and say, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I know you won’t forgive me. I—I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.” Except I used to say “sowwy.”

Trust me, there was no fucking Buddy Krinsky. Flitcraft is pure Hammett, perhaps for the only time on paper. It’s Hammett lying next to me, his head on a pillow, smoking a Fatima, sharing a true, intimate thought. It’s great thinking and writing and in
Falcon
it’s two and a half pages. But, oh, how I do love it.

Naturally, afterward, that craziness in him had to find a way to disclaim the good work, to disinherit it, invent another source, and then castigate anyone who saw how very good and important it was. That’s the essence of Hammett, the man with all his quills out. Too bristly and dangerous to approach. Too tough and inconstant to allow himself to be admired.

Here’s what you really have to know about people like Dash—and there’s only Dash, not people “like” him—who grow up piss-poor and unloved. They’re ashamed. Ashamed of what they come from, of who they are, and if they happen to be successful, ashamed of their talent and accomplishments. I do not suffer from those particular deprivations—there are others we can talk about later—but if you spent any serious time with Dash you couldn’t miss the symptoms of profound shame. No one else was ever allowed to spend any serious time with Dash but me. So you just have to take my word for it. The Flitcraft story is brilliant and it’s all Hammett.

I
T WASN
’
T THE FIRST TIME
he’d humiliated her, or the second, or the fifth. This time, though, it was of longer duration and at a greater distance—she in New York, he in Hollywood; behind her back, it seemed to her. And more people appeared to know about it than ever before, making the sheer quantity of humiliation greater than it ever had been.

It took her the better part of three days to cover the United States, first by train and then by plane. Lilly had much time to cosy up to the humiliation, so quite naturally its effects ran deeper. Which bothered her more, she wondered, that he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants for two weeks or that so many people she disliked intensely now knew that the man she loved couldn’t—or wouldn’t—keep his dick in his pants? Lilly didn’t even need an hour to figure that one out. She’d been made into a laughingstock. The taste on her tongue was gall.

If Hammett wanted to fuck around, fine. No, not fine, but given the bastard’s track record, certainly not unexpected. What was exasperating, truly maddening, about this one was that he’d done it so publicly it was obviously meant to be deliberate. It was one thing, she explained to herself, to care about her as sincerely as she knew he did and still not be able to quell his need to be with other women, as pitiful as that need was. It was quite another to undo her just as she was poised for a great personal success. She tried to convince herself on the journey westward that, at least until she confronted him, she might be able to accept that Hammett loved her still but was simply bad Hammett being bad Hammett, boys’ll be boys … or some such bullshit.

Hadn’t she, after all, once gone to bed with men, a fairly wide variety of them, simply because the experience promised to be interesting and possibly more than that? Perhaps she wasn’t so different from him after all. She told herself this while avoiding the most important difference: she had flirted to the very brink of bedding but actually slept with no one—and certainly not her husband—since the night she met Dashiell Hammett. Sentimental as it may have sounded for the Hollywood of the early thirties, Lillian Hellman had finally chosen to be faithful.

Throughout the trip west she grudged and ruminated and found herself swinging back and forth emotionally—and strategically too, because she didn’t want to lose him over this. Her fury always triggered the same question: Why
should it be different for him? Why did she feel as though this time something had broken within her that could not be repaired? And why for Christ’s sake couldn’t she even breathe right? She wanted to pummel him, scream obscenities at him, beat him down, and then kick him until she herself, exhausted, collapsed.

He really did not love her.

No sooner had she allowed herself to think the thought than she conjured up moments of Hammett’s kindness, his encouraging notes about her writing, his surprise gifts—a first edition
Père Goriot
, a jeweled nightingale hatpin, imported New Orleans gumbo—his affectionate nicknames—Lillushka, Lillia, Lilletta—the tenderness he displayed in bed when he knew she needed attention. He loved her of course. Of course. But, no, clearly their fidelities were not equivalent. If that were so, Lilly concluded it could not be love.

She’d heard the statement uttered as truth her entire life. Men were just different. Constitutionally. She’d heard it first at the Demopolis dinner table even when the pseudo-aristocratic Marxes and Newhouses and the far more plebeian Hellmans thought she was too young to understand. Even then it was all too clear that the banter about uncles and cousins who visited those “certain ladies” was perceived one way by the gents at the table and very differently by the ladies. It was something men did, a need they had, this one should understand. The women, of course, knew what was their business and what was not their business and opted to
look askance, a small price to pay for their privileges and protection. Yes, Lillian understood the subtleties at an early age. She was merely young, she wasn’t stupid.

New Orleans life in the Hellman sisters’ boardinghouse significantly furthered her sexual education. Her aunts often joked quite openly about who was visiting whom after the lights went out. But that was unnecessary. From her room on the fourth floor, Lillian could hear and discern the treads of different gentlemen calling on Amanda Sweet—this time the name is not fictional—next door in 421. Sometimes three different treads on the same night. Prepubescent Lillian thrilled to the ghostly sounds, the repressed squeals, the moans, the occasional growl, that came through her flocked wall.

She enjoyed seeing the participants at breakfast the next morning playing their public parts. Invariably Miss Amanda was the first one up, sitting proudly by the bay window, sipping coffee, teasing a croissant, perusing the
Picayune
, ready with a welcoming “Maw-nin’ ” for all who entered. The gentlemen, some of whom came in with their wives and children, more or less acknowledged their breakfast companion with polite smiles. Really, what else could they do given Amanda’s charming civility? The women were even more guarded, perhaps only because Amanda was so darkly beautiful, perhaps because she was so completely free to be herself—and dangerous to them if only for that reason. Lilly appreciated Amanda’s breakfast room performances.

The Hellman aunts—neither of whom was ever to marry—were of two minds where Miss Sweet was concerned. Aunt Jenny wanted the woman spoken to and her activities in the house curtailed; well, spoken to at least. Aunt Hannah cherished and protected Amanda as an older sister would, deeply appreciative of a strong, self-made woman who made her way proudly in a man’s world with what she called “admire-able a-plum.” Aunt Hannah, Sophronia, the maid, and through them, Lillian, those three were the only ones in the house who knew Miss Sweet owned a short row of buildings down on Bourbon Street. “Beat the hypocritical bastards at their own game” is how Hannah Hellman put it over some late-night cognac, which Lilly was allowed to sip. Beating the bastards at their own game made perfect sense to Lillian too, even when she was twelve.

Lillian had been in New York for those two weeks trying to beat the bastards at their own game. Rehearsals finally over,
The Children’s Hour
was working its way to Broadway for its premiere. Everyone who had read it knew it could be a hit. Word spread quickly, expectations grew—good things—but now Lillian felt more pressed than ever to deliver something special on opening night. She was polishing dialogue, even rewriting some very delicate scenes between the schoolmistresses—indeed, Drumsheugh and the nineteenth century had been left far behind—working with the director, the actors, trying to get the damned thing absolutely perfect. She was working so bleeding hard
she honestly didn’t know if she was now making the play better or worse.

Hammett knew how important this was to her. Damn him. He was the one who told her to give it a month, to bring it from Boston to New Haven and then to Broadway and to make absolutely sure the story always stayed exactly the story she wanted to tell the way she wanted to tell it. His idea from the outset, from the Drumsheugh history to pushing her through half a dozen killing revisions, and now it was to become completely hers, the great success on Broadway,
her
success. His part, he told her before she left, was long done; this time, the glory was all for her. The bastard. He knew the play was still in New Haven. She’d left her notes with the director. How could he do this to her? Just now, just when … It had to be deliberate.

Just before she married Arthur Kober, actually in the cab on the way to the temple, her mother Julia said, while facing away from her, with an ironic tone Lilly rarely heard from her, “They say Jewish men are different. Maybe, I’m not so sure. Friday nights, then the
Shabbos
, maybe it’s only harder for them to find the time to squeeze it in.” They both laughed.

Sitting alone in the darkness of Pan Am Flight 82, Chicago to Los Angeles, Lilly laughed again at the thought. What was all this crap she was telling herself about men? How did she allow herself to get so off track? This wasn’t about men. Or Jewish men. This was about Hammett. About his willingness—his desire—to hurt her.

Her stomach ached. That was where she’d always been vulnerable, even as a girl. Now she recalled something Hammett once told her about fistfights. Hammett’s Continental Op, when he gets into it with the bad guys, tries to punch at the body. “That’s where the real damage gets done, and it doesn’t even show,” the Op explains to a naive client. Hammett told Lilly that was true and also you didn’t hurt your hands on bone. Lilly touched her own stomach tenderly. That’s where the damage is and it doesn’t even show. She was very angry again.

Every rag with a Hollywood gossip column had a story on his escapades and featured some variation on “When the cat’s away …” Hedda Hopper, who despised Lillian for calling her “Greta” continually at one of Jack Warner’s croquet parties, gave the item daily play and provided more details than anyone else. “What famed studio Boswell has been making the round of all the night spots with a different exotic China doll or three on his arm now that his once-true-love is back East scripting her new drama? She’d better put a private eye on the case fast. Unlike our antisocial Greta who ‘Vants to be alone,’ this is one guy who apparently can’t ever get enough pleasant company. Piece of advice: 3,000 miles is a very long way to stretch fidelity, if it was ever there to begin with.”

Lilly didn’t need the gossip mill to tell her something had gone terribly wrong. None of her calls to Hammett had been answered, not to their place, not to his place, not to the
studio. She left messages for him everywhere, none of which got returned.

There was a day or two when she thought it best just to throw herself into her work, leave the matter unresolved until she got back. What she didn’t know would hurt her less than any detailed truths. And she could rewrite whatever imaginary scenarios were required to suit her needs. Her friend Laura Karp changed her thinking over the phone with these sentences: “Lilly. He’s not like I’ve ever seen him before. He’s gone way over the line. These girls are trash. Street whores. He’s in a stupor every night. He’s debasing himself. It’s disgusting.” She almost made it seem as though Hammett were the victim. It took a sleepless night and lots of pills for Lilly to confirm that she was the sole object of his wickedness.

Hellman was still needed for the polishing of
The Children’s Hour
, so she left New Haven thinking she could get to L.A., see Hammett, set things right, or at least as right as she could, and still return to New York in time to clean up the play and enjoy her triumph. She doubted the “set things right” part.

Flight 82 was over Albuquerque in the hour before sunrise. The stewardess brought her black coffee and a sympathetic smile, which surprisingly Lillian accepted. At bottom the wounding had less to do with love than with loyalty. No, it was simpler than that. It was about being untrue. Lilly liked the way that sounded as dialogue. She may have been
disloyal to Kober. She was never untrue to him. She had not lied to him about anything. She had not been deceitful. Hammett was false, disloyal, untrustworthy, all those things, but mostly untrue to her, the selfish bastard. That everyone who mattered in their professional world knew, that she was either to be pitied or mocked—she preferred mocked—took the situation to humiliating depths. She begged the stewardess for a bit of Scotch for her coffee. The stewardess winked.

The Thin Man
had been released by M-G-M just before Lillian left Hollywood for New York. Hammett had not wanted to attend the premiere, claiming an absolutely unnecessary visit to Jose and the kids in Montana that very week. The timing didn’t feel right to Lilly. When he made her promise not to see it without him, it began to smell bad too.

It wouldn’t be fair to say she helped him with his script as much as he did with hers, but she did provide Nick Charles with some of his best lines. Hollywood writers used to play this game, Lillian called it Hayzing, the object of which was to see how many off-color puns and double entendres a writer could slip past the studio censors and the Hays Office crowd. The studio censors were tougher simply because it was cheaper for the studio to catch the fixes before Hays bounced them back. The studio censors were also just plain smarter. The reigning king of Hayzing was Ben Hecht, with Charlie MacArthur a close second. Lillian in her brief Hollywood career was closing fast on the leaders.