Mendoza in Hollywood (Company) Read online

  “Thank you, Mr. von Stroheim. All right. Now, tonight’s offering is one of the truly great films cinema has produced. Unlike most of our future offerings, it was not filmed primarily in Hollywood, mostly because the director was a raving fanatic about location shots. Notable examples are the authentic San Francisco sequences shot on Polk Street and the climactic scene in Death Valley, which nearly killed the cast and crew as temperatures soared to 120 degrees Fahrenheit and the camera equipment had to be iced down.

  “The location shots were necessary, because von Stroheim insisted on a literal interpretation of the book, which meant he filmed every single scene. Unfortunately, the age of the miniseries had not yet arrived, and the resulting nine-hour spectacle was edited down by Universal executives to a much smaller masterpiece. Von Stroheim never forgave the studio, and they never forgave him either, which was why the rest of his cinematic career was pretty much limited to his role as Gloria Swanson’s butler in Sunset Boulevard.

  “Anyhow, Doctor Zeus will have a quick-fingered operative in the cutting room, with the result that we are able to present tonight the full-length director’s cut, made from the original silver nitrate print, complete with the Variety Theater scene in its original version and the subplot involving the crazed Mexican cleaning woman and her Jewish pawnbroker boyfriend. I should warn the more sensitive in our audience that some of the material is really, really racially offensive, okay? So I apologize to our Hispanic audience members in advance, and also to anybody who might have been Jewish when they were mortal—?” He looked inquiringly at Imarte.

  “I was Chaldean,” she corrected him.

  I put up my hand. “I was arrested by the Inquisition. Does that count?”

  “I think that makes you an honorary Jew,” Porfirio said.

  “Okay,” continued Einar, “just don’t get sore. Now, before we begin, I’d like to serve refreshments.” He went to the corner table and took down two big bowls of popcorn and handed them out. “Eat hearty. There will be brief intermissions when I change reels, because, no, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a holo! Tonight’s entertainment comes to you in the authentic and time-honored medium of reel cinema.” He gestured dramatically to the corner, where he’d opened out the primitive-looking projector and connected it with alligator clamps to a solar battery unit. “So without further ado, distinguished audience . . .”

  Einar blew out the lamps one after another, killed the music, and stepped over Oscar to reach the projector. A click and a buzz, a white light on the screen briefly occluded by his head and shoulders as he groped his way back to his seat; then the flickering images held our attention, and the only sound was the faint whirring of the projector and the crunching of popcorn.

  It was a great film. Horrible unrelenting tragedy, but you couldn’t be depressed watching it, because you were constantly exhilarated at what a work of bloody genius it was. Have you ever seen it, señors? From the opening scenes in the mining town, where you meet this appalling, tender-hearted ogre who protects little birds but is willing to kill his fellow men with a backhand blow, to his astonishing transformation into a dentist, for Christ’s sake, to the banal and doomed love story with the girl who won the lottery—their degeneration, she into a grasping harpy, he into a bestial drunk—and the murder, the chase across the desert, the final scenes where the poor monster finds himself handcuffed to a dead man on the floor of Death Valley, the last frames where he watches the expiring flutters of the damn canary he’s brought along with him, cage and all, on his flight from justice—I tell you, it beats Hamlet for craziness and black humor in tragedy. Not a ray of hope in a frame of it.

  So why did we sit there enthralled for nine hours, never saying a word? The last frames unrolled, the progressively longer shots of the wretched mortal’s end winked out, and the screen went white. It was 0500 hours. There was silence but for Juan Bautista’s stifled sob.

  “That poor canary,” he gasped.

  Imarte began to applaud, and we all joined in, even Juan Bautista. And I think our applause counted for something. We’re immortals, after all. We’ve watched history itself unspool before our eyes. It takes a lot to impress us. So even though the real Erich von Stroheim had yet to be born on the night we watched Greed, I hope his shade heard our ovation for his butchered masterpiece. I hope he was appeased, somewhere, somehow.

  I WAS SO IMPRESSED with the film, I accessed the text of McTeague and read it through in the following days, as the inn drowsed between stagecoach visits.

  On a good day we got two passing through, pausing long enough to let off or pick up mail or passengers. If one of the horses was in need of attention, Porfirio got out his farrier’s tools while the passengers wandered up and down our little canyon or availed themselves of our remarkably clean and tidy outhouse. Imarte would hurry to entertain them; if it was a group of mixed couples, she’d leave off the feather boa and play gracious hostess rather than daughter of joy. She’d do whatever it took to get them talking to her about themselves. There were in-depth interviews with an Italian opera singer headed for San Francisco, a Scot in a genuine kilt (sporran and all), two Basque wool magnates who might have been identical twins though they weren’t, and a Mormon patriarch from San Bernardino, who proposed marriage to Imarte on half an hour’s acquaintance. She was genuinely regretful at having to turn him down. (“What an incredible opportunity to study a fascinating mutation of American folk morality!”) I mostly slunk away into the oaks when passengers were around. Mortals got on my nerves, these days.

  They never spent the night, unless they were Company operatives passing through. Porfirio would explain politely that all our rooms were presently occupied, and the señores y señoras would most certainly find lodging at the Gamier brothers’ inn farther up the highway. If the señores y señoras got ugly about it, a bottle of aguardiente was offered for the road; if that failed to mollify them, Einar would swagger into sight with his bandoliers and look menacing.

  But once in a while one of our own would climb out and have his or her trunk handed down, and there’d be anecdote swapping and aguardiente far into the night. Usually the trunks were full of high-tech stuff we’d ordered, processing credenza replacement parts or refills for Einar’s tranquilizer gun. When they left on the next stage, they took with them DNA material, coded transcripts, and anything too solid to transmit or too small to bother shipping from the Lost City of the Lizard People.

  I was out behind the stable one afternoon helping Einar crate up an antelope (obtained in Antelope Valley, where else?), when Juan Bautista came running to find us, hugging Erich awkwardly. The damn bird was growing.

  “You guys! Come see, the stage just pulled in, and it’s a Concord!”

  “No kidding?” Einar dropped his pressure sealer, and we both ran to look, eager to admire the lines of the Rolls-Royce of stagecoaches. Butterfield had used only Concords, of course, which was maybe why it didn’t want to risk them cross-country with a war on. So how had Banning managed to get his hands on the gorgeously engineered thing we saw sitting at our humble embarkation point? I never found out; and I never had much leisure to wonder about it, either, because while Einar and Juan Bautista were checking it out (“Body by Fisher, man!”), I realized with a start that I actually recognized a friend among the passengers.

  Have you gentlemen ever noticed how rare that is with us immortals? Of course we run into acquaintances now and again—I had known Imarte before, unfortunately—but why is it that we almost never get stationed anywhere near old friends? Does this have something to do with one of the Company’s famous secret agendas? Not that I’d ask if I wasn’t higher than a kite. It’s the Theobromos talking.

  The mortal passengers saw a rather bulky and foreign-looking gentleman help his drab wife out of the passenger compartment, and then raise his hand to assist their colored servant down from her seat by the driver. If they noticed his gallant gesture toward the black lady, they probably raised an eyebrow. But California was a Free State,
and people didn’t care as much about race relations out here, between blacks and whites anyway.

  She was a beautiful woman. Tiny and elegant, with ebony skin that glowed as though polished and fine West African features. Her hair was braided up, but I knew that if she let it down and shook it out, it would wave around her shoulders like a storm cloud.

  Nancy? I transmitted in astonishment.

  She lifted her head, saw me, and smiled, and she still had the tiniest gap between her front teeth when she smiled. There had been a boy in our graduating class who wrote an impassioned poem to that little gap.

  Mendoza? Can that be you?

  I nodded dumbly, feeling every one of the years since the last time I saw her, at our commencement party in 1553. I was on a transport to Spain shortly after, and she went to do research work at a base under the Sahara. I heard later on that she’d had a very successful career in Italy and Algiers, but we never kept track of each other; you don’t keep track when you’re busy in the field. I never have, at least.

  She lowered her eyes and played the docile maid for the mortal passengers, fetching the drab wife’s reticule and parasol from where they’d been forgotten, while the big fellow saw to their trunks. Porfirio led up the change of horses, and 1 could see him double-taking on the wife, though she looked like Miss Kansas Corn to me. She turned to him, too, and there was evidently an exchange of some kind; for as soon as the stage rattled away, leaving the three immortals there, she screamed like a steam whistle and fell on him in an embrace.

  “Porfirio! You goddam son of a whore, you look great!” she said.

  “Eucharia!” he said, and they staggered around and around in a prolonged hug. The big man, meanwhile, took Nancy’s hands in his and was leaning over her, evidently murmuring anxious queries as to her well-being during the ride. She smiled and said something reassuring. He bent and kissed her face.

  I gawked. You see, he was an immortal too. In all the years I’d worked for Dr. Zeus, I never, ever saw a pair of immortals in love with each other. I thought it just didn’t happen. Our teenaged neophytes have crushes on anything that moves, of course, but full-grown immortals put all that behind them. Don’t they? Plenty of affectionate friendships, even noisily affectionate ones like what Porfirio and the bleached-out lady from the Midwest apparently shared, but romance? No.

  She was leading him by his big bear paw up the slope to me, her eyes sparkling. “Dearest,” she said to him, “allow me to present my oldest friend. Mendoza and I have known each other since we were neophytes together. How many years has it been?” She put out her arms, and we hugged. I hadn’t hugged anybody since 1700. It felt strange.

  “Three hundred and nine,” I said. “But who’s this?”

  The big man bowed. “Vasilii Vasilievitch Kalugin, mademoiselle, at your service. I am indebted to you for an excellent botanical survey of the Novy Albion region, though you may not recall the occasion—?”

  I accessed hurriedly and suddenly placed the name. “In 1831. You were that operative up at Fort Ross?”

  “The very same. My eternal thanks.” He took my hand and kissed it. The clothing was aristocratic Russian; but the accent was exquisitely Continental, as was hers now. She wore her servant’s calico with her customary grace and style, and believe me, they didn’t in the least look mismatched as a couple. Some of Kalugin’s bulk was his Russian coat, but he was genuinely a big guy, with sort of harsh sneering features in a round pink face framed by amazing muttonchop whiskers. His eyes were timid and kindly, though, and he couldn’t keep them turned from her for long.

  “I’ll just go bring up the trunks, shall I, my love?” He squeezed her hand. “Your pardon, mademoiselle. I return directly. I daresay you ladies have much to discuss, no?” He turned and bustled after the trunks like an anxious husband. Gosh, he was cute.

  “Well!” I burst out laughing, and she just stood there looking happy. “When did he happen to you?”

  “We’ve known each other since 1699,” she said. “It’s a long story.”

  Sixteen ninety-nine? That was just before I’d been posted to California. “I’ll bet. And you’re really—? He’s really—? It’s love?”

  “Yes,” she said, turning to watch him. “Oh, Mendy, it is.”

  Mendy. God, the years were rolling back. “So, like, are you married?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Not as mortals marry, of course. We’ve exchanged certain vows of our own. Our work has parted us frequently, years at a time, on occasion. Fortunately the Company is understanding and arranges our work near each other whenever possible.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “He’s a marine salvage technician,” she said, and I nodded, because she was an art conservation specialist. I couldn’t think their jobs would overlap much.

  “So he’s away at sea a lot? But what are you two doing here in California?”

  “All those San Francisco millionaires are returning from Europe with art treasures for their mansions,” she said. “Half of them will be beggars within the next five years, and their collections will be blown to the four winds. I’m doing a preliminary survey before Beckman’s sent in. It should be easy to get domestic positions. I have several letters of recommendation from persons of the highest quality, all giving me an excellent character.” She smiled, narrowing her eyes. “As you are doubtless aware, although California is technically a Free State, it is inadvisable for a Negress to travel alone. Kalugin has been assigned duties in San Francisco, and dear Eucharia agreed to travel with us to lend respectability to our journey.”

  Eucharia was stepping back from Porfirio and regarding him, hands on hips. “We’ll have a high old time tonight,” she said. “Got any tequila?”

  “No, and no Southern Comfort, either,” replied Porfirio, and that set both of them roaring with laughter. I guess there was some history there. I hadn’t seen Porfirio smile like that in the whole time I’d been there, not a real smile like he was enjoying himself.

  “But what of you?” Nancy took my hand. “Have you been happy?”

  “Happy? I—well, of course. I’ve mostly worked alone, you know, back in the mountains. Remember how I wanted to come here after I graduated, how I made New World grains my specialty? Well, the Company finally noticed. Here I’ve been, years and years now.”

  “I heard about what happened in England,” she said quietly, looking at my hand. “I was so sorry. I wrote to you.”

  I shivered. “I was in therapy for a while. I probably never got your letter. Well, it was a long time ago, and I’m over it now. But thank you for writing.”

  “Here we are!” Kalugin came puffing up the trail, a trunk under either arm. “Everything seems to have survived the journey, Nan. Will you do me the kindness of showing me where I can stow these, mademoiselle?”

  “This way.” I gestured, and took one of the trunks from him and swung it up to my shoulder. He made a little dismayed sound but followed me to the adobe, where I led them down the long corridor to the guest room that was kept for visiting operatives. “Here you are. Don’t be scared of the cowhide bed, they’re actually very comfortable,” I said. “Dinner at 2000 hours, alfresco. The menu includes such authentic regional delicacies as grilled beef, frijoles, and tortillas, but I should warn you that a tortilla here bears no resemblance to the Spanish item of the same name.”

  “Yes, I’ve discovered that.” Kalugin hastened to relieve me of the trunk. “Allow me, that really is too heavy for a lady.”

  I could lift a horse, let alone a trunk, if I had to, like any cyborg; but how sweet of the man.

  I left them alone to get the dust of the journey out of their teeth, and went to pace around in the oak trees for a while. Was I happy for my old friend? Yes, unquestionably; but I didn’t want to be reminded of being young, or of England, or of the mortal man who had died there so long ago. He was after me again, following me relentlessly from shadow to shadow through the trees.

  Eucharia helped Porfirio prepare
supper for the rest of us, but then the two of them disappeared into the night with pistols, a small box of ammunition, and a lot of aguardiente. Imarte was away on one of her sleepovers at the Bella Union, thankfully, and Oscar had trekked far afield on his quest for a buyer for the Criterion Patented Brassbound Pie Safe; so the company around the cookfire was fairly intimate that evening. Juan Bautista even brought out his guitar.

  “But how charming,” Nancy said. “That was made in Old Spain, was it not? And by a master, to judge from the inlay work.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Juan Bautista in a tiny voice. He’d fallen in love with her, desperately, of course. “One of the mortal travelers left it. Lucky chance, huh?”

  “Can you play it?” I peered at him across the firelight. “I’ve never seen you actually play it, Juan.”

  “Sure he can,” said Einar, putting another log on the fire. “I hear him practicing sometimes.”

  “I play for Erich von Stroheim,” Juan Bautista said. When Nancy and Kalugin stared at him, he hastened to add: “My condor. Baby condor. I rescued him. It helps him get to sleep sometimes when he’s nervous.”

  “Ah, of course,” Kalugin said with a nod of understanding. “Would you perhaps do us the honor of playing for us now?”

  Juan Bautista hung his head and fiddled with the tuning pegs. “Sure,” he muttered. I braced myself, expecting him to clutch painfully at the frets in a beginner’s “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” but to my astonishment he went into a classic Segovia piece, and it flowed out on the night air smooth as coffee with cream. He kept on with beautiful classical stuff all evening, Rodrigo and de Falla and Five Jaguar, quiet and unobtrusive, the background to our talk.

  “I have to know,” I said, leaning forward, “how the two of you met. It’s so rare, you know, for any of us to find . . .what you’ve found.”